On Sunday, February 1st a group of 11 wine tasters evaluated ten Virginia sparkling wines. Participants in the blind tasting judged the sparkling wines. All ten wines were ranked one through ten by each individual taster and then data from all tasters were combined.

The tasting was held at Wedmore Place at Wessex Hundred also home to the Williamsburg Winery. The group of tasters included wine authors, writers, bloggers, a winemaker, distributor and winery staff. Ten sparkling wine flutes were placed in front of each taster and all ten sparkling wines were poured. We were given the directions to use whatever method we would like to use to evaluate the sparkling wines. Then to place them in order with one being the best all the way to ten.

Virginia sparkling wine tasting

I had a sparkling wine evaluation form set us as a spreadsheet on my computer. I used this form from the text book Wine Tasting A Professional Handbook by Ronald S. Jackson to evaluate the ten Virginia sparkling wines. In ranking the sparkling wines from one to ten, I had three samples that were tied. I then threw out the score sheet and retasted each of those three and ranked them. Afterwards, I had my rankings from one to ten.

The sparkling wine that took the top, number one, ranking from the group was the Trump 2009 Blanc de Blanc. Second place went to the Veritas Scintilla. Third place went to Thibaut-Janisson Extra Brut. I was interested in seeing how my ranking compared to the group. In my rankings I had the Veritas Scintilla ranked first, with the Thibaut-Janisson Fizz as second and the Trump 2009 Blanc de Blanc in third. Compared to the group two of my top three sparkling wines were also in the group’s top three.

Virginia sparkling wines ranked in order of the group rankings

Like the blind tasting I participated in last summer in Santa Barbera County, California, all the tasters took their job seriously and concentrated on the wines they were evaluating. I am curious to see how Virginia sparkling wines would rank with others from the United States and France. This event was organized by Frank Morgan of Drink What You Like.

Cheers,
Terry