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Geja's wine tasting competition
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This past Sunday (Nov. 1st) several dozen winelovers gathered at Geja’s Café on Armitage for the 36th straight year. This, the country’s longest running wine tasting contest, draws wineaux from all over the area to compete.
This year, as in all past, hopefuls were provided with 8 unmarked carafes, 4 holding white wines and 4 holding reds. In an hour’s time, tasters had to deduce (“guess”, “hope”) as much as they could about each wine. They were asked to name the country, state or region and sub-region of the wine, its vintage, the producer and, the biggie in terms of most points, the grape variety.
However, unlike in years past, the selected wines were, let us say, more international in flavor. Usually there’s a Pinot noir wine in there and, sure enough there was. But was it Burgundian, from Oregon, a Russian River Valley interpretation? Nope: good old German Pinot! There was a Syrah not from the Rhône or Australia or California, but from Argentina. There were also some grapes that are indeed classic but which normally don’t come to mind right away: Aglianico and Torrontes. In short, it wasn’t an easy tasting, but once you got the sense of what Geja’s owner, John Davis – who picked the wines – was doing, it became a lot more fun.
Per usual, the group was divided into “Professionals” (folks who earn their living in the wine trade) and “Amateurs” (who don’t). 3rd place was a tie between regulars Jim Clark and Dennis de la Mata. Another seasoned amateur, Mark Hoffman, took second and 2nd time competitor Aron Tronche took Amateur honors.
In the professional section, this writer took 3rd place, wholesaler Augie Sievers placed 2nd and Barbara Herman, buyer for Binny’s, took 1st place. This was her 7th win: a remarkable record that, in this steroids-free environment, is likely stand as long as Joltin’ Joe’s; that said, she had to fend off many requests to swab her palate and find her genetic secret.
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