Darioush Wine Tasting

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

ABC Fine Wines & Spirits in Long Beach hosted a Darioush tasting tonight.  The upstairs room was packed with 38 people. Difficult to move around. About 8 people to many. The amount of people also made it hard for us in the back to get our pours. We were forgotten a few times and had to bring it to their attention.

It started out with a tasting of Lurisia Sparkling Spring Water from Italy. Then we proceeded to the Lucien Albrecht Brut & Brut Rose. These are from the Alsace region and for the price point were very nice.

All the Darioush wines were Napa Valley. First wine was a 2008 Signature Chardonnay.  Too oaky for me so Jan got a big pour of it. Next we had a 2007 Signature Merlot. Nice wine but overpriced at $55 .I am probably not the best judge of this because I do not particularly like Merlots. 2008  Cravan Cabernet was next.  This wine is a second labe for Darioush. It was listed at $49.99. I used to get it from a rep for $18 quite  a few years ago. Last wine was the 2007 Signature Cabernet Sauvignon. 94 points with the Wine Spectator and priced at $85. They actually poured from a 375 ml bottle. Both the 375ml &  the 750 ml were listed but only the one poured. I think it would have been interesting to see the difference in the wine because of the bottle size. I would imagine that the small bottle was more drinkable at this time. It was still tight and had many years to go.

There was a 2008 Darioush Signature Syrah listed but not being poured. It was available for purchase only.

So for $30 it was a good tasting because of the price of the wines but I feel if they produce a flyer that lists 8 wines they should pour 8 wines.  38 people times $30 is $1,140. The price listed for the wines was the stores retail price not what they paid. Retail costs on the amount of wine poured was approximately$650. They get an industry discount so I feel they could have included the other two wines in the tasting. We were getting about 1-1/2 ounce pours on the red wines. About 2 ounce pours on the sparkling.