Treasury Wine Tasting

Treasury Wine Tasting. This is a tasting of  iconic wines.
It was held at Top of the Mark at Mark Hopkins Hotel.

view from Top of the Mark!

Wines were mostly red but there were some white and sparkling wines.

Etude Chardonnay had good refreshing acidity and fruitiness.
Beringer Private Reserve Chardonnay 2015 was good, just a little too oaky to me.

Etude Fiddlestix Vineyard Pinot Noir Santa Rita  Hills 2014
Ripe, very intense red fruit. Coffee and vanilla.

Beaulieu Vineyard Tapestry Red Wine Napa Valley 2014
Fresh red fruit. Fine tannin.

Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages Sonoma County 2014
Fresh raspberry, cranberry and chocolate.

Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2014
Cherry, raspberry, incense and coffee. Powdery tannin.

Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2014
Black fruit. Structure is strong but not aggressive.

Provenance Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2015
Coffee and vanilla. Texture was rich.

Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 had aromas of flowers.
Penfolds Bin389 Cabernet Shiraz 2015 was perfumey with high and soft tannin.
Penfolds RWT Shiraz 2015 had strong structure.
Bin 407 was my favorite.

Penfolds Grange 2012
Shiraz made with grapes from multi-vineyards.
This was the most popular wine of the day.
People were taking selfies with the bottle!
The bottle was just opened and it tasted still closed.
The harsh tannin was overwhelming so we decided to hold on to the glass and wait for a while.

After one hour, we tasted again.
It was much softer.
Red fruit, medicinal, herb, incense, vanilla and meatiness.
This type of big wine is not necessarily my favorite, but even I could tell this was a good wine, and would be great if I could have waited longer.

Stags' Leap Winery The Leap Napa Valley 2014
Coffee and ripe fruit. Very good wine, especially with food.

Stags' Leap Winery Ne Cede Malis Petite Sirah Napa Valley 2014
Blueberry and cinnamon.

Sadly, some of the wineries whose wine I tasted this day suffered damage caused by the big fires around Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino happening right now.
Hope those will be contained soon.