A Golden Nugget of a Tasting

I debated with myself about sharing this golden nugget of a wine tasting, and the good side of me won. When Sotheby's does a fine and rare wine auction they usually hold a pre-auction tasting. You will not get to sample the 1945 Mouton or a La Tache, but you can taste loads of wonderful, and to my budget, prohibitively expensive wines, all for a fair $75 fee.

Problem is, the tasting lasts for exactly one hour, and Sotheby's wine staff open 1, that is one, uno, a singular bottle of each wine that they serve at the tasting, and first come first serve it is. That means you have to nudge your way in to get a taste of the "best" bottles, and you must make sure to prioritize your tasting in order to ensure that you don't miss out on something rare. So I hope that only a few out of the hundreds of thousands of you who read this blog will come to the tasting - I don't want to knock you down on my way to sample the 1970 Montrose.

Deetrane first told me about these tastings and took me to one a year ago. There was a Stag's Leap Cask 23 vertical from 1982 to 2003, a series of 6 or 7 Red Burgundies from the 1997 vintage, some of them premier cru wines, several Kistler Chardonnays from the early 1990s, 4 old Italian wines, and several other lots. You could spend a half hour exploring the differences between the wines in any of those lots. Deetrane tries to taste every wine at the tasting, and I give him credit - his memory for flavors is remarkable. I may have to focus on certain areas.

Here are the wines they will pour at the tasting, as well as a link to the auction catalog. There are fewer this time than last, so I will do my best to taste them all. If you go to the tasting, look for me. I'll be the guy sweating the white Burgundy section.