Linden Winery Still Making Top Chardonnay

The Washington Post decided to hold their own version of “Judgement of Paris,” the famous 1976 taste test that put California Wines on the map. They based BottleShock on this tasting. Now WaPo has pitted Virginia Wines against some of the best California and French Wines. Virginia didn’t come in first. But they came in third and fourth.

From the WaPo here:

Where California was in the 1970s — underappreciated for its quality — Virginia is today. So when we decided to hold our own Judgment of Washington, it wasn’t just to see whether the United States would best France today. It was to see whether local wines might surprise the judges now as much as Napa Valley bottles did more than three decades ago.

When the scores were totaled and the wines unveiled, a California wine narrowly edged out a French rival for the top spot in each category. But Virginia was nipping at their heels.

In third and fourth place came two Virginia chardonnays: Linden Vineyards 2006 Hardscrabble and the Michael Shaps 2007. Fewer than 1.25 points separated the first four chardonnays, two of them from Virginia. The judges were unanimous in thinking the Shaps was from Burgundy. The Linden was mistaken for French by three of the judges, while the others suspected the West Coast.

What conclusions can we draw from our exercise? That U.S. wines are the equal of the French is no longer the surprise it was in 1976. We cannot ignore that wines produced within a two-hour drive of Washington stood toe-to-toe with highly touted competitors from California and France.

I do like the Linden wines. In fact, both of the wines that won in this competition topped the list of wines by Travel and Leisure magazine. I wrote about that here in 2007. But atop the next mountain over from Linden is Fox Meadow Vineyards, which I may be partial to since I have had so much of their wine with friends over the past few years. But I think its even better. Thanks to Mary for the tip on this article!