Best and Worst Tastes - 2013

We thought it would be fun to have a few lists of our top tastes.  We will break them up in the same big three categories that we did for the statistics.

Top Beer

These are the top 10 beers from 2013.  While some of their scores don't match their rating here, it's been very hard to be consistent with rating over months and months.  

1. Westvleteren Abdij St. Sixtus - Westvleteren 12 (XII) - This was an amazing beer and a gift from Brett's brother Brian.  This is the number one beer on Ratebeer.com and well deserving of its ranking.  It is incredibly complex and delicious.  
2. Hill Farmstead Brewery - Susan - We had this on our summer trip.  This is an IPA with floral and citrus notes from the hops on the nose.  The taste is complex and not just all hop like many IPAs and is full of citrus and caramel with a long mellow finish.  
3. Dogfish Head Brewery - 60 Minute IPA - We tasted this at the brewery in Delaware. This is the classic East Coast IPA and has an excellent reputation that has been honestly earned. 
4. New Belgium Brewing Company - Lips of Faith - Transatlantique Kriek - This is from New Belgium's Lips of Faith series and is a traditional kriek.  It starts life in Belgium, then is shipped to Fort Collins, CO and blended with a golden lager.  It's deliciously sour and fruity.
5. Hill Farmstead Brewery - Edward - Another great beer from Hill Farmstead, we had this on our trip as well.  This is an American Pale Ale and not as hoppy as Susan, but just as delicious. 
6. Hill Farmstead Brewery - Everett - You might be sensing a trend.  In this case, Hill Farmstead has created an excellent porter.  Full of dark chocolate, coffee, and nutmeg - this is even better than Brett's perennial favorite, Fuller's London Porter.
7. Maine Beer Company - Lunch - We bought a bottle of this while in Maine and brought it home. Sticking with the trend of breweries to make lots of different IPAs, this is a nice example. It is bottle-conditioned which is pretty different in this day and age and it's one of the best-balanced IPAs. It's very smooth and easy to drink.
8. Dogfish Head Brewery - Palo Santo Marron - This is a brown ale aged on a very dense, hard to get, South American wood.  The brewery managed to get their hands on 20 blocks which was used to age the beer.  This is a very unusual beer with licorice flavors as well as chocolate and dark malt.  
9. Brouwerij Van Steenberge - Gulden Draak - We had this in Denver at the Cheeky Monk.  This is an incredibly drinkable Belgian strong ale with notes of caramel and toffee.  
10. New Belgium Brewing Company - La Folie - This a great sour red ale which is thankfully widely available.  We both love this beer - great tastes and aromas of sour cherry, cranberry, and caramel.  

We have some clear preferences here - 3 from Hill Farmstead and 2 each from New Belgium and Dogfish.  

Worst Beer

Here's a list of our 2 worst beers.  We've eliminated any that were clearly faulty in the bottle.  These two are actually terrible and even if you were dying of dehydration, you should probably skip them. We had other beers that weren't great, but these are actively bad.  If you see these, just run the other way or pour them down the drain.

1. Carton Brewing - Intermezzo - Not only was this disgusting, it was probably one of our most expensive pints of the year.  We think we finished maybe a third of it.  If you can imagine liking a beer that is reminiscent of a urine-soaked sweat sock that has been left in the back of a gym locker all year and then barfed on, this is the beer for you!
2. Anheuser-Busch InBev - Wild Blue - After gifting us the Westvleteren XII, Brian then dug out this terrible excuse for a beer.  AB has clearly tried to copy Flying Dog's art and font, but didn't bother trying to copy the quality.  This was terrible.  If you imagine a blueberry soda, dump all the syrup into a glass, and dilute it with some additional artificial sweetener and a bit of carbonated water, then add some vodka for the alcohol content, that's what you have.  Smells like convenience store pre-packaged blueberry muffins and tastes worse.
   
    

Best wines

Here's our top 10 wine tastes for the year.  

1. 1997 - Salon - Champagne - Brut - Blanc de Blancs - This was from our champagne tasting in December.  At the cost per bottle, this should be darn near the top and it is!  A classic French champagne, with aromas and taste of pear, apple, and bread.  
2. 2008 - Abelis Carthago - Toro Fighting Bulls - A classic Spanish wine made from a classic grape, tempranillo.  A very big wine with lots of complexity and flavor.  
3. 2007 - Saint-Cosme - Châteauneuf-du-Pape - This is a red Rhone-blend, very round and a bit spicy on the palate.  
4. 2009 - Bodegas y Viñedos Maurodos - Toro Viña San Román - Another tempranillo, this one has a velvety mouthfeel and almost a port-like feel to the finish.
5. 2005 - Bodegas Muga - Rioja Gran Reserva Prado Enea - Hmm... another tempranillo, but in this case it's a blend - fruit, red meat and some acidity.  This would go great with food.
6. 2010 - Domaine Serene - Pinot Noir - Evenstad Reserve - An Oregon pinot noir, this is fruity, peppery, and chewy.  It's quite expensive, but it's very good.
7. 2000 - Donatella Cinelli Colombini - Rosso di Montalcino - We brought this back from Italy. Presumably, this was past its prime, but nobody told the wine that.  This was excellent and we are going to open our last bottle we brought back from Italy, a Brunello, very soon.
8. 2012 - Chakana - Estate Selection - This is an Argentine red blend.  This is a delicious round, complex, smooth drinking wine.  
9. 1998 - Krug - Champagne Vintage Brut - A second champagne from our tasting in December.  While not quite as expensive as the Salon, it was very close to being as good.  
10. 1968 - Gaja - Barbaresco - Brett's 40th birthday gift from Brian and Teresa, this was another wine that should have been past its prime. Was it?  Probably, but it was a delicious experience to try a 40 year old wine and while it might have been a bit past its prime, it was still holding up very, very well.

Worst wines

Throwing out the bottles that were obviously flawed, these were the worst 5 wines of the year.

1. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Frosty Morn - This supposed to be a dessert wine so it's not unusual for it to be sweet, but this was disgustingly syrupy sweet.  
2. 2011 - Ferrari-Carano - Bella Luce - Again, very sweet with burned eraser notes on the finish.  
3. NV - Lamplighter Vineyards - This is supposed to be a chardonnay blend, but this tastes about as much like chardonnay as Twinkies taste like steak.  
4. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - "Chili Dawg" - Any wine tasting that they squeeze Cheez Whiz on your hand so you can lick it then take a shot of the "wine" deserves to be in the bottom 5.  
5. NV - Leo Grande - Roaring White - Like sweet?  Want even more sweet?  Try this!

Best foods

Here's our top foods from the year (not in any particular order).

• Mike's Pastry (Boston, MA) - Boston Creme Pie - We had this while we were in Boston and it was absolutely delicious and rich.  
• Mike's Pastry (Boston, MA)- Chocolate Ricotta Cannoli - Also from Boston, this was also very good.
• Sea Dog Brewing (Portland, ME) - Risotto arancini - deep-fried risotto with nice spiced breadcrumbs, lots of umami, delicious;  served with pomodoro for dipping.
• The Summit (Christiansburg, VA) - Apple Rutabaga Bisque - On first blush, this probably sounds like a very strange combination, but it was quite good, so much so that we asked if we could get a container to go (obviously, we'd pay for it). 
• The Summit (Christiansburg, VA) - The Brigadier - Brett had this.  The steak was literally melt in your mouth tender, the gorgonzola sauce was not overdone and the flavor of the steak was fantastic. 
• The Summit (Christiansburg, VA) - Chocolate creme brulee - In short, it tasted like a super delicious chocolate mousse with caramel on top with a bit of sea salt on top.  
• Villella's Ristorante (Niagara Falls, NY) - Lemoncello Gelato - It's a dessert of creamy vanilla gelato served in a flute with lemoncello.  Think of it as a refreshing and adult ice cream float. Hard to imagine that the best Italian food we've had since we left Italy was in a Super 8.
• Britt's (Carolina Beach, NC) - Glazed donuts - These are apparently the second best donuts in the US.  Neither of us really care about donuts, but man these were good!
• Natty Greene's (Greensboro, NC) - Turkey Razz sandwich - Megan says this was amazing and all her mayo should be raspberry.
• Cooking Light - Chicken and Black Bean Burritos - We made these and took them on our trip. Fast, easy, healthy and delicious.

Worst food tastes

• Cabot - Horseradish Cheddar - Neither of us like horseradish and this was way too much for either of us.
• Oregano vinegar - This flavored balsamic vinegar was like chewing on oregano.
• Whole fruit persian lime olive oil - lime peel and lime juice - not really very olive oil-like.

And that's the end of our 2013 summary.  We'll have new tastes starting up in 2014 soon!

2013 - Summary and statistics

Here's a quick summary and some statistics from our 1177 tastes from 2013.

First, here's the total tastes divided up by wine, food, and beer.

We were interested in the statistics based on the wine we tasted since that's where we got most of our tastes.  Obviously most of our wine tastes were from free sampling which means that we were somewhat at the mercy of what was available, either at the winery or Vintage Cellar (ie, the distributor at Vintage Cellar doing the tasting).  We limited ourselves to the top 100 wines we rated of the 540 total we tasted.

First, here's the breakdown by type of wine.

Here's the breakdown by country.

Here is the same list broken down by vintage.

We didn't break down the beer tastes, because conveniently RateBeer already broke everything down nicely in a summary page.  It doesn't include every beer we tried in 2013 as some of our ratings were done after January 1st.  Here's a quick screenshot of the tastes by type, but there's lots more information available here.

Final tastes from 2013

We headed to Colorado to see some of Brett's family after Christmas.  We had a very early flight out of Virginia so when we got to Denver, we decided to go to REI as they were having a post-holiday garage sale.  We found a couple good deals and then were surprised that there was a belgian-style pub right across the street, The Cheeky Monk (this is their Westminster location, rather than downtown Denver).  We shared 3 beers and an appetizer.

1127. BBQ Spud Buds - Bite size BBQ potato loaves filled with shredded pork, Jack, cheddar, and BBQ sauce. Served with sweet BBQ aioli.  These are seriously addictive and why no one out east has thought of these yet is a mystery.  
1128. Brouwerij Van Steenberge - Gulden Draak 
1129. Elevation Beer Company - Apis IV - an excellent quad 
1130. Dry Dock Brewing - Paragon Apricot Blonde 

On the 29th, we went to Brian and Teresa's house (Brett's brother and family) and shared some beers. Our cousin Blake provided some homebrewed beer to try (we didn't get to try all of them and honestly Brett forgot to write notes down so shame on him).  Brett had also sent Brian some beers from the East Coast that aren't distributed here for him to try so we sampled some of those.  Brian then pulled out a very very special beer to try.

1131. Homebrew by Blake - Blackberry wit
1132. Homebrew by Blake - Lemon wit
1133. Homebrew by Blake - chai-spiced porter
1134. Starr Hill - Double Platinum
1135. Wild Blue - This is probably the second worst tasting beer I've ever had.  Imagine fake blueberry flavor, overwhelming, with the syrupy consistency of cough syrup and then add some weird twig like flavor.  Apparently, although the label looks very much like that for Flying Dog, it's actually made by Anheuser-Busch.  It's disgusting.  If you see this, you should earn some karma by buying it then either killing your enemies with it or pouring it down the drain.  Have we mentioned it is utter swill.
1136. Westvleteren Abdij St. Sixtus - Westvleteren 12 (XII) - This is, seriously, the number one beer on ratebeer.com.  This is possibly the best bottle of beer ever consumed.  It's rich, round, velvety, almost rum-like.  It's subtle, yet complex and utterly delicious.  We can't thank Brian enough for allowing us to share that bottle and experience near perfection.  In one night we went from lowest of the low with Wild Blue to the utter reaches of beer heaven with Westvleteren 12.  

On the 30th, Brian joined us first at lunch at Dad and Dude's, then on a tasting trip to Epic Brewing's downtown Denver tasting room. 

1137. Dad & Dude’s Breweria - Dank IPA 
1138. Dad and Dude’s Breweria - Rough Draft 
1139. Epic Brewing - Sour Apple Saison-Style Ale - If you like sour apple, this is crisp and refreshing (and as far from the skankiness that is Carton Intermezzo as Mordor is from the Shire).
1140. Epic Brewing - Brainless on Peaches
1141. Epic Brewing - Utah Sage Saison - If you really, really like sage, you could drink this without food.  If not, you're gonna need food with this.  
1142. Epic Brewing - Brainless on Cherries
1143. Epic Brewing - Copper Cone Pale Ale
1144. Epic Brewing - Smoked & Oaked Belgian-Style Ale
1145. Epic Brewing - Santa Cruz Brown Ale
1146. Epic Brewing - Hopulent IPA
1147. Epic Brewing - Big Bad Baptist
1148. Epic Brewing - Barley Wine
1149. Epic Brewing - 825 State Stout
1150. Epic Brewing - Brainless Belgian-Style Golden Ale - This was just plain excellent.  
1151. Epic Brewing/Strange Brewing - Epically Strange - This is the absolute best beer of the tasting in Brett's opinion.  Complex, tart, round and warm.  Mix sour cherries from Cherry Kriek from Strange Brewing and Big Bad Baptist from Epic and you have a match made in heaven.  
1152. Epic Brewing - Escape To Colorado IPA
1153. Epic Brewing - Hop Syndrome Lager
1154. Epic Brewing - Mid Mountain Mild Ale

Finally, on New Year's Eve, we went to New Belgium in Fort Collins and then met up with Blake and Shannon to go to The Welsh Rabbit for dinner and then Coopersmith's for pool.  

Megan's flight at New Belgium:

1155. New Belgium - Frambozen - Most excellent raspberry sour brown.  
1156. New Belgium Lips of Faith - Yuzu - Yuzu is weird, but delicious.
1157. New Belgium Lips of Faith - Wild² Dubbel
1158. New Belgium Lips of Faith - Cascara Quad
      

Brett's flight at New Belgium:

1159. New Belgium - Abbey
1160. New Belgium - California Route Lager
1161. New Belgium / Cigar City Lips of Faith - Ale Brewed w/ Anaheim & Marash Chiles - Strangely weird and strangely good.  Must be excellent with spicy foods.
1162. New Belgium Hop Kitchen - Rewind India Pale Ale 
      

We had some wine at The Welsh Rabbit, but honestly it was mostly forgotten after eating cheeses, olives, and chocolate.  And, well, we didn't write a darn thing down about it.  Here's a list of the cheeses and one chocolate that were new.

1163. Honey chevre
1164. Humboldt fog - Megan didn't like this at all.  Brett could eat a huge wheel of this.  Seriously. Adding it to my birthday/Christmas/whatever day wish list now.
1165. Gouda extra aged (5 years)
1166. Grana padano
1167. Chimay grand cru
1168. Hafod
1169. Hopper - don't remember much about this one
1170. Espresso bellavitano - Again, Brett liked this and Megan, who doesn't like coffee, didn't.
1171. Bison pastrami - This was tasty.
1172. Chorizo - this was dried and we've never had it dried like this. 
1173. Napoli - a nice italian salami.
1174. Saucisson sec - also, quite good.
1175. Chocolate salami - this had lime zest, pistachio in chocolate  

And, last but not least, the two beers we tried at Coopersmith's.

1176. Coopersmith's - Black Powder Barleywine
1177. Coopersmith's - Horsetooth Stout

And that wraps up the final tastes of 2013.  We've already had some new tastes in 2014 and are looking forward to another great year!

Wine catch up post

As noted in the last post, we have about 100 extra wine reviews that happened before the holidays. Because of the number, these will mostly just be direct links to our full review on CellarTracker.com.

1020. 2009 - Louis Latour - Meursault-Blagny - 1er Cru - Château de Blagny - We liked this a whole lot.
1021. 2008 - Guarachi - Chardonnay
1022. 2009 - Bouchaine - Chardonnay - Chêne d'Argent Estate Vineyard
1023. 2011 - Stags' Leap Winery - Viognier
1024. 2011 - Sonnenband - Riesling
1025. 2010 - Valley of the Moon - Pinot Noir
1026. 2010 - Viña Bisquertt - Syrah - Casa La Joya - Reserve
1027. 2011 - Wine Men of Gotham - Shiraz-Grenache
1028. 2007 - Montes: Napa Angel - Cabernet Sauvignon - Aurelio's Selection
1029. 2009 - Rocca di Montemassi - Monteregio di Massa Marittima - Sassabruna
1030. 2010 - Pure Love Wines - Garnacha - Layer Cake
1031. 2007 - Bonterra Vineyards - The Butler - Single Vineyard
1032. NV - René-Henri Coutier - Champagne Brut - Grand Cru
1033. 2011 - Innocent Bystander - Pinot Gris
1034. 2011 - Coquena - Torrontés
1035. 2012 - Domaine Pouillon - Gewürztraminer - Columbia Gorge
1036. 2012 - Patricia Green Cellars - Pinot Noir - Reserve
1037. 2012 - Ken Wright - Pinot Noir - Guadalupe Vineyard
1038. 2009 - Paitin di Pasquero-Elia - Barbaresco - Sorì Paitin - This is an excellent Barbaresco.  
1039. NV - Chambers - Rosewood Muscat - Rutherglen Muscat
1040. 2006 - Long Shadows Wineries - Pedestal - This is an excellent, complex merlot made with Washington grapes by renowned French winemaker Michel Rolland.  
1041. 2012 - Domaine de Saint-Lannes - Vin de Pays des Côtes de Gascogne - Blanc
1042. 2011 - Domaine Baumann-Zirgel - Pinot Gris - Schwenkel
1043. 2011 - Château de Champteloup - Touraine
1044. 2012 - Chateau Clou du Pin
1045. 2010 - Château Les Paruades
1046. 2010 - La Celestiere - Vin de Pays de Vaucluse

The next few tastes were during a special tasting at Vintage Cellar by a member of the winemaker's family.  The Jaume family has had the winery for many generations and it is currently done by two brothers while their sister does promotion.  She was in the US working with her distributors to promoter her family's wines.  The lowest scoring wine we tasted we gave an 88.  

1047. 2012 - Domaine Grand Veneur - Côtes du Rhône - Blanc - We gave this a 94.
1048. 2012 - Domaine Grand Veneur - Châteauneuf-du-Pape - Blanc - We gave this a 92.
1049. 2011 - Domaine Grand Veneur - Vacqueyras - Grande Garrigue - We gave this a 93.
1050. 2011 - Domaine Grand Veneur - Lirac - Clos de Sixte - We gave this a 92.
1051. 2011 - Domaine Grand Veneur - Côtes du Rhône - This is one of their cheaper bottles and we gave it an 88 - it's a real bargain.
1052. 2011 - Domaine Grand Veneur - Côtes du Rhône - Reserve - We gave this a 94.

Back to our regular tasting notes.

1053. NV - André Clouet - Champagne - Grand Cru - Rosé Brut
1054. 2011 - Suavia - Soave Classico
1055. 2012 - Force of Nature - Pinot Gris - This was a very tasty pinot gris - we gave it a 93.
1056. 2012 - Montinore Estate - Pinot Noir - Willamette Valley - This is a tasty Oregon pinot noir that is ready to drink now.  We gave it a 94.
1057. 2006 - Bodegas Valdemar (Martinez Bujanda) - Rioja - Conde de Valdemar - Reserva
1058. 2011 - Force of Nature - Cabernet Sauvignon - Mossfire Ranch - We liked this (92), but it needs to age for a couple years to reach its potential.
1059. 2010 - d'Arenberg - Shiraz - The Love Grass
1060. 2011 - Finca Villacreces-  Ribera del Duero - Pruno - We gave this a 94 and if we've discovered nothing else during this 1000 tastes, it's that we really like Spanish reds.  This has enough complexity to be enjoyed alone, but not so overwhelming that it couldn't be enjoyed with food.
1061. NV - Château Gaudrelle - Crémant de Loire
1062. 2011 - Adegas Valmiñor - Albariño - Rías Baixas
1063. 2009 - Ancien - Chardonnay
1064. 2008 - Ancien - Pinot Noir - Carneros
1065. 2012 - Señorío de Sarría - Navarra Rosado
1066. 2010 - Burgo Viejo - Rioja Reserva - This is an inexpensive, but very tasty Rioja (92).
1067. NV - Lovisolo
1068. NV - Quatremillemetres vins d'altitude - Valle d'Aosta - 4478 - Nobleffervescence - Brut QualIty Sparkling
1069. 2012 - Ten Sisters - Sauvignon Blanc - Single Vineyard
1070. 2009 - Cascina Montagnola - Colli Tortonesi - Morasso - This is a very unusual white made with a grape rarely seen in the US.  It's a very complex white and we enjoyed it a lot (94).
1071. 2010 - Villa Mottura - Primitivo di Manduria
1072. 2007 - Sandro Fay - Sforzato di Valtellina - Ronco del Picchio
1073. 2010 - Boeger Winery - Zinfandel

The next set of tastes were at the special champagne tasting (technically sparkling wine, since one was from California).

1074. NV - Piper-Heidsieck - Champagne - Brut Rosé Sauvage - 94
1075. NV - Agrapart & Fils - Champagne - Terroirs Extra-Brut - Blanc de Blancs - Grand Cru - 89
1076. NV - Champagne - Lallier - Champagne - Brut - Grand Cru - 90
1077. NV - Roland Champion - Champagne - Brut - Grand Cru - Blanc de Blancs - 84
1078. 2006 - Duval-Leroy - Champagne - Brut - Vintage - 85
1079. 2007 - Caraccioli Cellars - Chardonnay - Brut Cuvée - 92
1080. 1998 - Charles de Cazanove - Champagne - Stradivarius - 83
1081. 1998 - Krug - Champagne - Vintage - Brut - This was absolutely excellent, but for $300 a bottle I suppose it should be!  96

Back to regular tasting notes.

1082. 2005 - Rutz Cellars - Pinot Noir - Dutton Ranch
1083. 2010 - Marimar Estate - Chardonnay - Acero Don Miguel Vineyard
1084. NV - Coastal Vines
1085. NV - Domaine Chandon - Brut
1086. 2010 - Michel Lynch - Sauvignon Blanc - Bordeaux Contrôlée
1087. 2011 - Rosemount Estate - Pinot Grigio
1088. 2005 - Principato - Bianco
1089. 2011 - Niederkirchener Weinmacher - Riesling - Blue Fish
1090. 2010 - Bonterra Vineyards - Riesling
1091. 2011 - Ferrari-Carano - Bella Luce
1092. 2009 - Castle Rock - Pinot Noir - Central Coast
1093. 2000 - Heritage - Grand Vin Bourgeois
1094. 2000 - Heritage - Heritage Chateau
1095. 2008 - Mas de Libian - Côtes du Rhône - Bout d'Zan
1096. 2005 - Contemassi - Brunello di Montalcino
1097. 2007 - Contemassi - Toscana IGT
1098. 2010 - Francis Ford Coppola - Diamond Collection - Scarlet Label
1099. 2008 - Trinchero - Meritage
1100. 2009 - Michael-David Vineyards - Zinfandel - Sloth
1101. 2010 - Château Sénéjac
1102. 2010 - Château Rollan de By
1103. 2010 - Château Charmail
1104. 2010 - Château de la Dauphine - Full of chocolate and berries on the nose and palate (93).
1105. 2010 - Château Côte de Baleau
1106. 2010 - Château d'Arsac - Margaux
1107. 2010 - Château Fontenil - Made by Michel Rolland (91).
1108. 2010 - Château Lilian Ladouys - This is bright, fruity, and complex. (94)
1109. 2010 - Rubus - Barossa
1110. NV - Voirin-Jumel - Champagne - Blanc de Blancs - 1er Cru
1111. 2012 - The House of Independent Producers - Chardonnay - La Bourgeoisie Dionysus Vineyard
1112. 2010 - Ramey - Chardonnay - Russian River Valley
1113. 2011 - The House of Independent Producers - Merlot - La Bourgeoisie Bacchus Vineyard
1114. 2011 - Hedges Family Estate - Red Mountain
1115. 2008 - Worthy - Sophia's Cuvée
1116. 2012 - Mönchhof Robert Eymael - Riesling Spätlese - Mosel Slate
1117. 2012 - Raventós i Blanc - Penedès Silencis
1118. 2012 - Domaine de Villargeau - Coteaux du Giennois Les Genêts Gris
1119. 2009 - Raventós i Blanc - Cava - Gran Reserva de la Finca
1120. 2011 - Ken Wright - Pinot Noir - Shea Vineyard
1121. 2011 - Guimaro - Ribeira Sacra
1122. 2011 - Masia del Bielsa - Garnacha Viñas Viejas
1123. 2011 - Porter Creek - Carignane - Old Vine
1124. 2011 - Domaine La Grange Tiphaine - Montlouis-sur-Loire Clef de Sol
1125. 2008 - White Rock Vineyards - Claret
1126. 2006 - Lyeth - Pinot Noir - Heritage Reserve

Thus ends all of the wine tastes from 2013.  We have a few more tastes we did before the end of the year and that will be our wrap up post for 2013.  We'll have a post listing our best and worst tastes for the year and then we'll start tastes for the new year.

Extras beyond the first 1000

We actually have a number of tastes that went beyond the first 1000, but we were holding these back to use specific tastes for the last 5.  We'll start off with some extra new food tastes:

1001. Chuao - Honeycomb bar - This is a dark chocolate bar with caramelized honey bits inside.  The texture is similar to a crisp bar with rice, but there's a pretty subtle honey taste.  
1002. Spiced apple squares with maple whipped cream - Brett made this for Christmas day and they are delicious.  Recipe is here.
1003. Idahoan - Steakhouse bacon and ranch potatoes - We were looking for some quick potatoes as a side dish one night when we were busy.  It clearly wouldn't be hard to make these on your own, but the quick convenience was nice and they were actually pretty tasty. 

We have a number of beer tastes backlogged as well.  

1004. Elysian Brewing - Bifröst Winter Ale - This was part of the last shipment of the beer of the month club Megan won.  It was okay, but nothing too special.
1005. Founders Brewing - Breakfast Stout - This is one of the highest rated stouts on ratebeer.com, and rightly so.   Brett just slightly prefers their Imperial Stout, but this is darn good.
1006. Elysian Brewing - Loser Pale Ale - This was the other selection from Elysian in the last shipment.  It's very drinkable and went very well with dinner.  Not the best pale ale, but certainly good.
1007. Anchor Brewing - Our Special Ale (2013) - This year's version was good but our notes were based solely on a small taster.  We have a bottle to try at home, but this actually ages well so we might hold it to next year too.  
1008. Brouwerij Corsendonk - Christmas Ale - Again, part of a tasting, but this was also pretty good.
1009. Sly Fox Brewing - Christmas Ale - This was also part of a tasting - a little too much clove for my taste, but it might age and mellow out.  
1010. Mikkeller - Santas Little Helper (2013) - Another taster, this has an 11% alcohol content and it is clearly there in the taste.  It's not overwhelming, but a nice winter warmer.   
1011. Bell's Brewery - Cherry Stout - If you buy this, I hope you like cherry!  Brett loves a fruit beer, especially cherry stout, but this is way overbalanced to the cherry side of things.  
1012. New Belgium - Snow Day - Found this in the cellar, way past its "best by" date, but it was still very good.  
1013. Brouwerij De Ranke - Père Noël
1014. Brouwerij Het Anker - Gouden Carolus Noël (Christmas) - Do you like anise/licorice?  This is the beer for you!  Good grief there's a lot of licorice flavor in this.  People we talked to say that this did not taste like this last year.
1015. Perennial Artisan Ales - Fête de Noël - The flavor on this is reminiscent of a spiced rum - very warm and round in your mouth.  
1016. Dubuisson - Bush de Noël (Scaldis Noël) - Surprisingly, flavors of toffee and caramel were prevalent in this.
1017. Liefmans - Fruitesse - We had a bottle of this in the cellar.  It's a lambic blended with berries (strawberry and raspberry) and then some added sugar.  To Brett, the added sugar made this too sweet and totally overwhelmed the tartness and farmyard flavors you would expect in a fruit lambic.  Megan thought it wasn't too sweet and liked it quite a bit.
1018. Boston Beer Co - Samuel Adams Merry Maker - This is a gingerbread stout.  On its own, it's flavor is a little too dominated by black coffee with the ginger and spices playing second fiddle. But, if you want to try something fun, pour 1 - 2 oz of good quality egg nog into a glass and add the stout.  Leave plenty of head space as it's going to foam like crazy, but you know have a gingerbread-egg nog-stout shake which is delicious. 
1019. Lagunitas Brewing Company - Lagunitas Sucks - Like many breweries today, Lagunitas cannot keep up with their demand, even though they've recently increased their brewing capacity.  They did not have enough time to brew their regular holiday ale, so they instead brewed this.  It's an American strong ale, brewed with 4 grains (barley, wheat, oats, rye) and then hopped to a reasonable 63 IBU.  We believe they should just add this to their regular line-up!  

We have over 100 wine tastings yet to add so we'll stop this post here and make one gigantic wine tasting post next.  

Numbers 996 - 1000!

We're down to our last 5 tastes until we hit the 1000 mark.  Here's our final 5 tastes and because it's the last 5, we've saved some great ones and we'll give a full description of each one.  Numbers 998 - 1000 were all had the same weekend at Vintage Cellar and we provided two of them (#998 and #1000) while #999 was provided by another customer.  The remaining 5 tastes, #996 and #997, were had during a special Champagne tasting.

996. Gruyère Gougères - To go with the champagne tasting, Megan made some great little appetizers that are delicious cheese puffs. These were light, tasty, and went incredibly well with the champagne.  They went over so well, she was asked to just mail out the recipe to all attendees. Brett will definitely be begging for them to be made again (soon).  The recipe is here.  
     
997. 1997 - Salon Champagne - Brut - Blanc de Blancs - Megan belongs to a women and wine club. They were having a special champagne tasting (okay, there was one sparkling wine from California, the rest were true champagnes), but there weren't going to be enough members attending so men were allowed to come.  Brett jumped at the chance to join Megan for the tasting.  There were a lot of great champagnes that night, but this was the top of the night. This was also the most expensive wine of the night at $400/bottle.  Would we ever buy a bottle for ourselves?  Probably not especially when there were many other champagnes that were almost as good but at a significantly lower price.   Our review summary:  aroma - pear, apricot, bread; taste - sweet, honey notes, not too tart, smooth, creamy and buttery, walnut and almond oil, creamy, almost like brie; this is very very good.  
     
998. 2011 - Atlantic Brewing Company - Brother Adams Honey Bragget Ale - It's fairly rare that a beer has a vintage on it, but this one does!  We brought this back from our trip to Maine on a whim while we were at the brewery.  While this is a bragget (an ale brewed with honey), this was made in the style of a barley wine, meaning big alcohol (almost 12%).  After having this, we wish we had brought more home with us.  What a great winter drink and one bottle is plenty to share between two or three people.  Our review summary:  A 2011 bottle consumed in 2013. This was delicious and makes me wish that I’d brought more back from the brewery. Aroma - lemon, honey, toffee, cherry jolly rancher, butterscotch, becomes more raisiny as time passes after opening; taste - sour, tart, warming with bread baking, honey. This has aged amazingly well. If you have some, let it age and see how well this ages.  As we noted, the aroma and flavor changes so much from the moment of opening until the last sip, that it drinks more like a wine than any barley wine we've had.  This was most excellent.  
     
999. 2003 - d'Arenberg - Shiraz - The Dead Arm - As noted above, on the same weekend we were finishing our 1000th taste at Vintage Cellar, we were lucky enough that another customer had brought in this amazing Shiraz to share.  Originally this wine when purchased, from Vintage Cellar, was almost too big to drink.  After 10 years, it had aged beautifully and maintained all the rich fruit flavors shiraz is known for while mellowing out some of the intenseness that it was originally known for. Our review summary:  aroma - cherry, blackberry, black cherry, eucalyptus, fun and happy smelling like jumble berry pie; taste - chewy, round, okay but not overwhelming, dried oak fruits, so many berries, smoky with mineral on the finish, hint of mild tobacco.  This was amazingly delicious.  
     
1000. 1968 - Gaja - Barbaresco - Brian and Teresa Taylor (Brett's brother and sister-in-law) gave this to Brett for his 40th birthday.  It's been sitting in the cellar since then, awaiting the "perfect" occasion to open.  If we've learned nothing about this project, it's that we should be less worried about when to have a new taste and rather to just have the experience.  The event itself can be made special by having that taste.  We decided that we would share this with our friends at Vintage Cellar as they have helped us reach the magical kilotaste!  This barbaresco is pretty old - most barbarescos are to be consumed in 15 - 20 years, not 45!  The cork was moderately decayed and we were worried that with its age and the state of the cork that it could be spoiled.  We poured everyone a small glass.  Our review went like this:  This was 45 years old, but surprisingly delicious. Color - brown, red/black plum juice; pours with some sediment, looks a lot like when you make homemade grape jelly as you boil it before adding gelatin; aroma - a bit of funk on the pop and pour, slate, mineral, caramel, smoke, nutmeg shows up after bottle is opened after an hour or so; taste - cherry, not really chewy, but very complex, plum, bright strawberry and juicy, finish is tart berry followed by olive, leather, tannins, finish is slightly drying; pepperoni/cured meat at the back. With proscuitto, becomes creamer, but smoky at the finish. With bleu cheese, the wine loses its fruitiness. With a sweet cheese, the wine exhibits lots of bright fruit/strawberry flavors. What an unbelievable bottle after 45 years!!!  In short the wine was surprisingly excellent and had aged quite well.  Everyone was excited to have the opportunity to try, especially us, and it was an excellent choice to be the 1000th taste.  Thanks very much to Brian and Teresa for the bottle!  
      

We're thankful for any and all who have followed our progress.   We learned a lot, about ourselves and our likes and dislikes.  We also learned that Brett can't divide and realize 1000 new tastes is ~ 3/day when he first proposed this.  We have gone well over 1000 tastes so we'll post those beyond the kilotaste mark before the end of the year.  We'll also post some of our top 10 (maybe top 5) lists, summaries of our tastes by types, and more.   

We will continue updating this blog, but we aren't going to actively try to do another 1000 next year as it was a lot of effort and we sometimes sacrificed other activities to complete the 1000.  We encourage everyone to try lots of new things and enjoy the opportunities life throws out at you.  

New Tastes - Catching Up

We've been super busy with the end of the semester and finishing up refinishing our countertops, then we both got sick.  The good news is we made it through the semester and we've more than made 1000 tastes.   We will take this list up to 995, then over the next few days wrap up the remaining 5 with some big tastes.   We will then have a couple best of and worst of lists.  Once we get those done, we'll continue the list from 1000 on.  Because we're catching up from almost a month, there won't be tons of descriptions here.

961. Chuao - Maple Bacon Milk Chocolate - This was the first thing from Chuao that we didn't really like.  It has a "bonfire smoked salt" which was just completely overwhelming.  There was bonfire on the palate and bonfire in your nose the whole time you chewed, but it wasn't like wood smoke, it was like wood and some plastic/rubber/trash.  The smoke was just way too overwhelming to enjoy this.  It's possible that the small taster we got was just out of proportion from a full bar, but we're both a lot gun-shy to try it again.
962. New Belgium Brewing - Accumulation - This is their new seasonal white IPA and normally that's not a style either of us are huge fans of, but this is very good.  Brett surprisingly like this a whole lot.
963. Brouwerij Rodenbach - Rodenbach - Classic Belgian red sour from Belgium and it's delicious.  
964. Einbecker Brauhaus - Einbecker Winter-Bock - nice winter bock
965. Anchor Brewing - BigLeaf Maple Autumn Red - Virginia finally got some of this, well past fall, but better late than ever.  
966. 2006 - Blackwing Shiraz
967. 2012 - Nautilus Estate - Sauvignon Blanc
968. 2011 - Yalumba - Vermentino
969. 2011 - Langmeil - Hangin' Snakes
970. 2012 - Yalumba - Shiraz - Galway Vintage - Barossa Valley
971. 2010 - Yalumba - Cabernet Sauvignon - The Cigar - The Menzies
972. 2010 - Reichsrat Von Buhl - Riesling - Medium Dry - Maria Schneider Jazz
973. 2012 - Viña Robles - White4
974. 2010 - Viña Robles - Cabernet Sauvignon
975. 2010 - Viña Robles - Petite Sirah - Estate
976. 2010 - Viña Robles - RED4 - Paso Robles
977. 2012 - Locations CA - This is super delicious.  It's a ridiculous label with just "CA" and the California flag on the label.  
978. 2009 - Pietra Santa - Chardonnay - Twin Terraces
979. 2011 - Pietra Santa - Pinot Gris - Amore
980. 2006 - Pietra Santa - Cabernet Sauvignon - Signature Collection
981. 2009 - Pietra Santa - Cabernet Sauvignon
982. 2009 - Pietra Santa - Merlot
983. 2008 - Pietra Santa - Sangiovese
984. NV - Cantina del Taburno - Falanghina Folius - Falanghina - Extra Dry
985. 2012 - Domaine Bois de Boursan - Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc
986. 2008 - Brewer-Clifton - Chardonnay - Mount Carmel
987. 2012 - Zind-Humbrecht - Gewurztraminer
988. 2011 - Wwe. Dr. H. Thanisch (Erben-Thanisch) - Berncasteler - Doctor - Riesling Kabinett
989. 2008 - Brewer-Clifton - Pinot Noir - Mount Carmel
990. 2012 - Patricia Green Cellars - Pinot Noir - Freedom Hill Vineyard
991. 2010 - Domaine Serene - Pinot Noir - Evenstad Reserve
992. 2005 - Bodegas Muga - Rioja Gran Reserva - Prado Enea
993. 2008 - Azelia - Barolo - Margheria
994. 2008 - Girardet - Gewürztraminer - Frostbite
995. 2009 - St. Clement - Sauvignon Blanc - Napa Valley

That's all for now.   Check back for our final 5 tastes very very soon!