Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition Names 10 Best
- By Dan Clarke
- Published 05/5/2005
- Features
Dan Clarke
California Wine Press publishes two internet magazines.
www.californiawineandfood.com (CWF) addresses the interests of restaurant and hospitality professionals.
Your kind comments have been much appreciated. Thank you. You may contact us at info@californiawineandfood.com
Regards,
Dan Clarke, Publisher
Last week we brought you an incomplete report on an oyster wine contest. Our deadline for the Thursday updates precluded our bringing you the complete results, which are now available.
Our preliminary article (Breaking Rocks on the Oyster Chain Gang) was brief, breezy and light-hearted. Readers might have concluded that since we were enjoying our work, the whole exercise might have been a bit frivolous.
We don’t think it was.
My colleagues on the 13-judge San Francisco panel all were professionals in the field of wine and/or food, as were those who judged in Los Angeles the day before and in Seattle the day following.***
The event is defined as the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition. The oysters were supplied by the sponsoring Taylor Shellfish Farms of Shelton, Washington, so they all qualified as “West Coast.” Wines were all “West Coast,” also, as entries were accepted only from producers in the province of British Columbia and the states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and California.
This year 159 wines were entered. A preliminary judging in Washington narrowed that number to 32 and then those were further scrutinized in a second round to reduce the finalists to just the 22 that we judges in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle were to consider. Our task was not to find the 10 best wines, but to find the best 10 wines to accompany oysters. The wines were served a bit cooler than they would have been were we just judging them on their own. Both the oysters and the wines were served at an optimal chill. We were looking for that perfect combination, or the “bliss factor,” as competition organizer Jon Rowley described it. “You’re looking for a wine that’s dry, crisp and clean-finishing,” he said.
We were requested not to swirl and sniff our wines before tasting them. The drill went this way: suck in an oyster, chew it a bit, take a sip of wine. How would you rate the synergy of these flavors and textures? Sometimes the exercise required a second oyster. Often, an additional sip of wine was necessary.
For me, the hallmark of a great oyster is that taste of the sea. There’s both a freshness and a salinity—a seemingly contradictory combination. The textural quality is more viscous than creamy. Chewing the oyster releases more flavor than just letting it slide down the throat. What wine works best? Well, one that doesn’t dominate. It would be a shame to mask that wonderful fresh oyster taste. Neither should the wine be so pallid as to be subordinate to the oyster. A synergy is the goal. The whole exercise is definitely one of those in which “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Waiters have come upstairs at the Waterfront Restaurant with platters of Kumamoto oysters displayed on beds of crushed ice. They move about the room, pouring wines from bottles encased in silver bags. We judges watch to be sure that the letter on the bottle matches the letter on the glass into which our sample is poured. We’re not told the varieties we are to taste, nor are we aware of the producers. The pouring of the 22 wines is broken into four brackets—the first two include six samples each; the latter two, just five. Italian bottled water is available at the right of each judge’s table; bread is on the left.
The room is quiet during the couple of hours we’re judging. We’re busy with the tasting process and our own note-writing and rating schemes. A couple of times while waiting for another flight of wines to be poured, I gaze out the windows. The day is beautiful. It has included an intermittent gentle rain and some periods of sunshine. Through the windows to the right I can see past Wilfred Wong and Narsai David to San Francisco Bay. Behind Rod Smith on my left side is a great view of Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower. I make a mental note to return to this place when eating, drinking and enjoying the view are the only priorities.
I could drink any one of these 22 wines with a dozen oysters and not be unhappy. But some are clearly better than others—for my palate, anyway. My notes say one was “unusually toasty on the opening taste—o.k. but not what I’m looking for.” Another was “fine, but not exciting.” One tasted near the end seemed “toasty, buttery”—not qualities I liked in this context.
Others merited notations such as “full of flavor. Voluptuous, but still somewhat ‘steely’.” Two of my favorites prompted “pretty damn close (re. the “bliss factor”) and “smile getting bigger.” Not the precision of a 100-point scoring system, perhaps, but this is a sensual experience and, as such, a tough one to quantify.
Each of us selects the 10 wines he likes best and turns in a scoresheet. Most of us adjourn to the bar for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a chance to talk shop. Soon Jon Rowley reappears with the identities of those wines we only knew by letter a few minutes earlier. Later in the week, after scoring from judges in all three cities is aggregated, we receive an e-mail of the results.
Winners of the 2005 Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition
(in alphabetical order)
**Buena Vista 03 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $ 7.00
*Chateau Ste. Michelle 04 Pinot Gris (WA) $13.00
*Chateau Ste. Michelle 03 Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc (WA) $10.00
**Dry Creek Vineyard 04 Dry Chenin Blanc (CA) $10.00
Dynamite Vineyards 03 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $11.99
Foris Vineyards Winery 03 Pinot Blanc (OR) $13.50
**Geyser Peak 04 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $12.00
Kunde Estate Winery & Vinyds 03 Magnolia Lane Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $11.00
*Lake Sonoma Winery 03 Dry Creek Fume Blanc (CA) $14.00
Pomelo 04 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $ 9.99
*St. Supery 04 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $18.00
*Prior "Oyster Award" winner
**Multiple Prior "Oyster Award" winner
2005 Finals Judges ***
Los Angeles
* Peter Birmingham, Sommelier and General Manager, Norman’s
* Anthony Dias Blue, Blue Lifestyle
* Jonathan Gold, restaurant critic, LA Weekly
* Stacie Hunt, wine reporter, NPR, Partner Du Vin Wine & Spirits
* Mary Sue Milliken, proprietor, Border Grill Santa Monica & Las Vegas, Ciudad; author; co-host, “Hot Dish” KFWB AM, “Talk of the Table” KPCC FM
* Susan Moon, proprietor, Delmonico’s
* Russ Parsons, food writer, Los Angeles Times; author
* Martha Rose Shulman, cookbook author
* Dr. Robert Small, Dean and Professor, Collins School of Hospitality Management, Cal Poly Pomona
* Matt Stein, Seafood Officer, King’s Seafood
San Francisco
* Kimberly Charles, owner, Charles Communications
* Dan Clarke, Editor/Publisher, California Wine and Food, Taste California Travel
* Narsai David, Food & Wine Editor, KCBS Radio
* Jerry Anne Di Vecchio, writer
* Gilian Handleman, Director of Marketing & Education, Wine & Spirits
* Millie Howie, wine writer
* Stephen Ledbetter, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant
* Jan Newberry, editor, San Francisco Magazine
* Rod Smith, wine columnist, Los Angeles Times
* Tim Teichgraeber, wine writer, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
* Robert Thompson, wine writer
* Wilfred Wong, Cellarmaster, Beverages & More!
* Olivia Wu, food writer and columnist, San Francisco Chronicle
Seattle
* *David Bailey, wine consultant
* Sherry Bell, Wine Steward, Magnolia Thriftway
* Shayn Bjornholm, Sommelier, Canlis
* Danielle Custer, Executive Chef, Seattle Art Museum
* Greg Hinton, General Manager, Elliott’s Oyster House
* Brian Huse, General Manager, Flying Fish
* Chuck Hill, wine writer, author, publisher “Joy of Oysters”
* *Lane Hoss, Marketing Director, Anthony’s Restaurants
* *Richard Kinssies, proprietor, Wine Outlet; wine columnist, Seattle PI
* *Dan McCarthy, McCarthy & Schiering Wine Merchants
* Lori McKean, food & wine writer; co-author, “Joy of Oysters”
* Craig Miller, “Wine Guy,” Top Foods
* Bill Taylor, President, Taylor Shellfish Farms
* *Gerry Warren, Enological Society Pacific Northwest; Slow Food Puget Sound
*Preliminary Judge
Editor’s Note: For more information about the competition visit www.oysterwine.com .
Our preliminary article (Breaking Rocks on the Oyster Chain Gang) was brief, breezy and light-hearted. Readers might have concluded that since we were enjoying our work, the whole exercise might have been a bit frivolous.
We don’t think it was.
My colleagues on the 13-judge San Francisco panel all were professionals in the field of wine and/or food, as were those who judged in Los Angeles the day before and in Seattle the day following.***
The event is defined as the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition. The oysters were supplied by the sponsoring Taylor Shellfish Farms of Shelton, Washington, so they all qualified as “West Coast.” Wines were all “West Coast,” also, as entries were accepted only from producers in the province of British Columbia and the states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and California.
This year 159 wines were entered. A preliminary judging in Washington narrowed that number to 32 and then those were further scrutinized in a second round to reduce the finalists to just the 22 that we judges in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle were to consider. Our task was not to find the 10 best wines, but to find the best 10 wines to accompany oysters. The wines were served a bit cooler than they would have been were we just judging them on their own. Both the oysters and the wines were served at an optimal chill. We were looking for that perfect combination, or the “bliss factor,” as competition organizer Jon Rowley described it. “You’re looking for a wine that’s dry, crisp and clean-finishing,” he said.
We were requested not to swirl and sniff our wines before tasting them. The drill went this way: suck in an oyster, chew it a bit, take a sip of wine. How would you rate the synergy of these flavors and textures? Sometimes the exercise required a second oyster. Often, an additional sip of wine was necessary.
For me, the hallmark of a great oyster is that taste of the sea. There’s both a freshness and a salinity—a seemingly contradictory combination. The textural quality is more viscous than creamy. Chewing the oyster releases more flavor than just letting it slide down the throat. What wine works best? Well, one that doesn’t dominate. It would be a shame to mask that wonderful fresh oyster taste. Neither should the wine be so pallid as to be subordinate to the oyster. A synergy is the goal. The whole exercise is definitely one of those in which “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Waiters have come upstairs at the Waterfront Restaurant with platters of Kumamoto oysters displayed on beds of crushed ice. They move about the room, pouring wines from bottles encased in silver bags. We judges watch to be sure that the letter on the bottle matches the letter on the glass into which our sample is poured. We’re not told the varieties we are to taste, nor are we aware of the producers. The pouring of the 22 wines is broken into four brackets—the first two include six samples each; the latter two, just five. Italian bottled water is available at the right of each judge’s table; bread is on the left.
The room is quiet during the couple of hours we’re judging. We’re busy with the tasting process and our own note-writing and rating schemes. A couple of times while waiting for another flight of wines to be poured, I gaze out the windows. The day is beautiful. It has included an intermittent gentle rain and some periods of sunshine. Through the windows to the right I can see past Wilfred Wong and Narsai David to San Francisco Bay. Behind Rod Smith on my left side is a great view of Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower. I make a mental note to return to this place when eating, drinking and enjoying the view are the only priorities.
I could drink any one of these 22 wines with a dozen oysters and not be unhappy. But some are clearly better than others—for my palate, anyway. My notes say one was “unusually toasty on the opening taste—o.k. but not what I’m looking for.” Another was “fine, but not exciting.” One tasted near the end seemed “toasty, buttery”—not qualities I liked in this context.
Others merited notations such as “full of flavor. Voluptuous, but still somewhat ‘steely’.” Two of my favorites prompted “pretty damn close (re. the “bliss factor”) and “smile getting bigger.” Not the precision of a 100-point scoring system, perhaps, but this is a sensual experience and, as such, a tough one to quantify.
Each of us selects the 10 wines he likes best and turns in a scoresheet. Most of us adjourn to the bar for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a chance to talk shop. Soon Jon Rowley reappears with the identities of those wines we only knew by letter a few minutes earlier. Later in the week, after scoring from judges in all three cities is aggregated, we receive an e-mail of the results.
Winners of the 2005 Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition
(in alphabetical order)
**Buena Vista 03 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $ 7.00
*Chateau Ste. Michelle 04 Pinot Gris (WA) $13.00
*Chateau Ste. Michelle 03 Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc (WA) $10.00
**Dry Creek Vineyard 04 Dry Chenin Blanc (CA) $10.00
Dynamite Vineyards 03 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $11.99
Foris Vineyards Winery 03 Pinot Blanc (OR) $13.50
**Geyser Peak 04 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $12.00
Kunde Estate Winery & Vinyds 03 Magnolia Lane Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $11.00
*Lake Sonoma Winery 03 Dry Creek Fume Blanc (CA) $14.00
Pomelo 04 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $ 9.99
*St. Supery 04 Sauvignon Blanc (CA) $18.00
*Prior "Oyster Award" winner
**Multiple Prior "Oyster Award" winner
2005 Finals Judges ***
Los Angeles
* Peter Birmingham, Sommelier and General Manager, Norman’s
* Anthony Dias Blue, Blue Lifestyle
* Jonathan Gold, restaurant critic, LA Weekly
* Stacie Hunt, wine reporter, NPR, Partner Du Vin Wine & Spirits
* Mary Sue Milliken, proprietor, Border Grill Santa Monica & Las Vegas, Ciudad; author; co-host, “Hot Dish” KFWB AM, “Talk of the Table” KPCC FM
* Susan Moon, proprietor, Delmonico’s
* Russ Parsons, food writer, Los Angeles Times; author
* Martha Rose Shulman, cookbook author
* Dr. Robert Small, Dean and Professor, Collins School of Hospitality Management, Cal Poly Pomona
* Matt Stein, Seafood Officer, King’s Seafood
San Francisco
* Kimberly Charles, owner, Charles Communications
* Dan Clarke, Editor/Publisher, California Wine and Food, Taste California Travel
* Narsai David, Food & Wine Editor, KCBS Radio
* Jerry Anne Di Vecchio, writer
* Gilian Handleman, Director of Marketing & Education, Wine & Spirits
* Millie Howie, wine writer
* Stephen Ledbetter, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant
* Jan Newberry, editor, San Francisco Magazine
* Rod Smith, wine columnist, Los Angeles Times
* Tim Teichgraeber, wine writer, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
* Robert Thompson, wine writer
* Wilfred Wong, Cellarmaster, Beverages & More!
* Olivia Wu, food writer and columnist, San Francisco Chronicle
Seattle
* *David Bailey, wine consultant
* Sherry Bell, Wine Steward, Magnolia Thriftway
* Shayn Bjornholm, Sommelier, Canlis
* Danielle Custer, Executive Chef, Seattle Art Museum
* Greg Hinton, General Manager, Elliott’s Oyster House
* Brian Huse, General Manager, Flying Fish
* Chuck Hill, wine writer, author, publisher “Joy of Oysters”
* *Lane Hoss, Marketing Director, Anthony’s Restaurants
* *Richard Kinssies, proprietor, Wine Outlet; wine columnist, Seattle PI
* *Dan McCarthy, McCarthy & Schiering Wine Merchants
* Lori McKean, food & wine writer; co-author, “Joy of Oysters”
* Craig Miller, “Wine Guy,” Top Foods
* Bill Taylor, President, Taylor Shellfish Farms
* *Gerry Warren, Enological Society Pacific Northwest; Slow Food Puget Sound
*Preliminary Judge
Editor’s Note: For more information about the competition visit www.oysterwine.com .