Pittsburgh BYOB gathering -Round 5

OK, starting a new thread to coordinate our next gathering.

At our last get-together, we briefly discussed a couple of ideas/themes:
1. A pinot noir tasting – bring in bottles from different states/countries/regions to learn, compare and contrast pinots

2. Choose a specific region/country or state, and select different varietals from that area to sample. Examples: Washington State; Italy; Rhone, etc.

3. Other ideas?

Date: Possible dates – Fri Jan 22, Fri Jan 29 – what works?

Place: One potential place might be Pizzutti's (BYOB) http://pizzuttisrestaurant.org/about_us in Shadyside. I had dinner there with a group not long ago. The food was decent, not outstanding; but there is a large offering of appetizers (if we choose that route again), and they have a room in the back that would accommodate a group of our typical size. The service was very good.

Any other places folks would like to try?

bigred - I'm good for two on the 22nd or one on the 29th (better half in Florida for a long weekend).

Restaurant looks fine to me - these gatherings help me learn my way around Pittsburgh. Any chance you can negotiate corkage for a group our size and do they have decent stems?

No preference on theme - whichever one we don't do this time we can do another time.

Thanks for organizing!

dontime

I could do the 22nd but not the 29th . Any theme is fine with me Bigred, you make the call!

I'm in for 2 on 22nd & can't make the 29th.

I'll break the trend & give you a vote for the Pinot (or some other varietal vertical) but I'll come bearing wine & a smile no matter the format.

I'm for Pizzutti's too as I've never been there. Another very good couple of BYOB's are Legends of the North Shore by AGH & Piccolo Forno or Tamari in Lawrenceville if you have any problems with Puizzutti

Alright,

Tentatively planning on Fri, Jan 22nd 6:30pm

I am also game for a Pinot tasting, and we can work out the details in the forthcoming days.

I spoke with Pizzutti's; they are fine to accommodate 8-12+ of us on that date and time. They do not offer corkage discounts; $5/bottle. Stems available, but these are just run-of-the-mill, you may want to bring your own if so inclined. We can do either apps only (which seem pretty hearty looking at the menu), or order dinners, including prix fixe 3-course ranging from $26-$40/person.
Important to note –Pizzutti's is CASH ONLY

I haven't been to any of the tastings yet, but I was at Tomato Pie the same night that you did the first (I believe it was the first) tasting. It looked like everyone had a really good time. This idea sounds like a lot of fun and my wife and I would love to come. I may also be able to talk my mother and her boyfriend into joining us. I'll be able to firm something up at the beginning of January. Is there a cutoff/reservation requirement date? Also, what price point of wine do most people bring? How many people normally show up?

I look forward to hearing more about this...

Jonradus, sounds great, would love to have you and anyone else you bring along. There are no cost guidelines, we don't want to make anyone uncomfortable about not spending as much as the next person. To date, the wines brought have ranged from under $10 to over $120. If someone wants to splurge, great, if someone else needs to watch their budget, that's fine too.

Typically as the date gets closer the number of people starts to firm up. It ultimately depends on the restaurant's ability to accomodate us but most are not in the business of turning people away! I am a little disappointed to see that Pizzutti's was unwavering on their corkage fee but I'll get over it. Guess they need to make money somehow.

As far as I know should be able to make it. No idea about my wife as yet.

I'm just pumped that a guy with the username "bigred" can get excited about a Pinot tasting! Or "too much pinot for me" jlburd ... never heard him say "too much cab for me" !!

So now, what to bring, what to bring...

I may have up to 4 people for this event (wife, brother and his girlfriend). Of course we'll confirm numbers the closer we get.

So, are we doing Pinot/Burgs or soemthing else? If we do Pinot/Burgs, does anyone have any Kosta Browne?? Not to sound opportunistic or rudely intrude on anyone's cellar but we're family now!!! I have heard so much about KB but never had a sip!!

I plan on coming. I'll firm up the number at the beginning of January (likely 4).

Regarding the wine style: If we mix red burgundy in, I think it would be fun to compare the old world to the new world. I did a blind American pinot tasting at Legume a while back and tossed in a French burgundy. I had a Domaine Drouhin Laurene 04 pinot mixed in with some other pinots (Elk Cove, Flowers, and a couple others) for the tasting. We finished it off with a 1999 Drouhin Beaune Clos de Mouches. The burgundy was a big hit with everyone (maybe just because we were half in the bag by that time) and the difference was highly educating. I plan on bringing one American pinot and one French burgundy to this tasting, unless the rules dictate otherwise. Are we going to do this blind?

This looks to be a large turnout – terrific. 14-15 and potentially more. I will up the reservation, but I'm sure we will be fine.

I think if by early Jan we confirm the total attending, and decide on apps vs. dinner, that should work with the restaurant. However, from my past large group outing there, I think if we get past 15 or so, and choose to have dinner, we will need to choose the prix fixe as opposed to full menu.

Since there is plenty of interest, let's go with the Pinot/Burg theme.

We can do this as an open-tasting, or blind, as jonradus suggests; I am personally fine with either.
What might be a good idea, however, is (for those attending) to post what type of Pinot they intend to bring, as to avoid too many from one state/region, etc. No need to declare a specific winery (unless so desired, such as the KB that J2K is after!), but an indication of region, state, or country will help us have a nice variety.

I'll start it off with my intent –I'll plan to bring a Pinot from New Zealand.

I'll do my best to make it. Not sure of work schedule for the next month or so. Count me in. Does Valle Vista make a pinot?

Good idea with the declarations. I plan to bring a French volnay or vosne romanee, and an Oregon pinot.

They do - under several brand names. Feel free to bring any of these Valle Vista products...

Kistler
Kosta Browne
Williams Selyem
Rochioli

dontime

I'm good for 2 on the 22nd. I have not decided exactly what to bring as I will be in Florida between now and then and will look for something we cannot get in the state store. Most likely a domestic (CA, OR, WA) Pinot.

dontime

I will bring a nice Cabernet or the Stemmler '05 (still think it tastes like a glass full of flowers)

By that time I may in fact have a bottle of the Williams Selyem or will bring something else from central coast

J2K, bring your own damn Kosta Browne, currently available at pawineandspirits.com;-) The 2004's they have available should be drinking beautifully!

I like the idea of a blind tasting, the last one was a lot of fun. If nothing else it would be interesting to try to guess New World or Old. I'd like it think that that would be easy, but maybe not.

Plus, J2K could guess "Pinot" for everything and he'd get them all right!

MArk,
I didn't know Kosta Browne was available in PA. But the bottles they are selling are $250!!!! I know they have bottles for less than that (upon release at least). I guess after release the retail and auction price has sky rocketed. So, I don't expect to be drinking any KB soon!

I love tasting blind for the simple fact of not pre-judging a wine, region, producer, etc..

I'll probably bring a red Burg and something else I haven't decided on yet.

"Plus, J2K could guess "Pinot" for everything and he'd get them all right!"
...love it!! LOL !

Yeah I know J2K, was just teasing, but many people don't realize that they are available, however outrageous the prices. I believe that they are left over from the Wine Festivals last spring:
http://www.pawinetalk.com/talk/9_175_1.html
I think those may be among the best KB has produced, or at least they have among the highest numerical scores. Not sure if they will be offered up again at the '10 festivals, the price dropped, or what, but they obviously aren't selling.

I'll probably bring a red burgundy and a US pinot. I would love the opportunity to drink the Gundy Bundy and Ponzi along side some others to compare.

The 22nd works for me, but my brother-in-law probably can't make it on the 22nd because he's on call.

I'll still guess "cabernet".

I've got a 6-bottle blind tasting kit, i.e. it has 6 bags. This definitely won't be enough, but if someone else has a similar kit, we can do 12. Or, I could pick up another kit. If everyone covers their wine upon entry, we can designate one person to collect all of the bottles, bag them, number them, trim the top foil, and pop the corks. We can then rate the bottles from 1 to 12, add up the totals, and figure out what order we rated them in. Then we reveal what the wines are. Is this similar to how did you do it last time?

jonradus - each of us brought our wine in a brown bag with the bottle foil removed. The wait staff took care of opening them (out of our sight). We numbered the bags and tasted in order of the numbers. I think Mark supplied tasting note sheets for us to record our impressions on.

I'd prefer not to get into a competition. "Wine of the night" is fine (and more fun when everyone does not agree!) but personally I wouldn't want to be called out for having brought the worst wine. Regarding the scoring sheets from the last blind tasting, J2K brought them, he said he found them online somewhere, J2K can you bring them again?

So is it blind then? if so, I guess we'll brown bag the wines and remove the foils?

On another note, I check and use cellartracker.com all the time. I was looking at some reviews today and noticed that J2K is signed up. It's kind of cool to check out his reviews, since a lot of them are chairman's selctions that I've tried also. I'm looking forward to meeting J2K and everybody else.

It's bigred's call - he did the planning. We've talked about doing Pinots and red burgs and doing another blind tasting. Several have already "declared" so as not to end up with several bottles of the same juice. So, bigred, is it a blind Pinot/Red Burg tasting with some declaration to prevent duplicates. Or ????

I'm on cellartracker also although not a prolific as J2K with tasting notes. And ecola is on cork'd.com although he posts all of his notes here (PAWineTalks) also.

I would say that since there seems to be a general interest in blind tasting, and because I missed the first one that was done blind, let's go ahead and do that.

For the blind tasting, I support Mark's comment that this should not be competition-oriented; rather, highlighting the wine(s) of the night (favorite 3-5?) and providing general tasting comments on all the wines would be beneficial and fun.

If we all bring our wines in a brown bag, foil removed, I'll ask the staff if they can help prepare for drinking. Can someone (J2K?) bring in enough scoring/tasting sheets? It looks as if we are going to have a good 20 attendees (I have updated the restaurant on # guests), and we will likely end up with 20+ bottles as some are planning to bring more than 1.

As far as variety, I think the declarations to this point indicate that we will have plenty of variety; so I would encourage those who have not mentioned what they intend to bring to do so. However, in order to avoid having this thread compete in size with the health care bill, I don't think we have to get much more formal on that 

As far as my contributions, I have one Pinot from New Zealand, and another from Germany to bring.
Oh, and there is a very strong chance that my wife will join us (yes, she exists!)

I can bring the same scoring sheets as last time. Although with so many copies needed, I charge a "copy fee" of $5. But since Mark is bringing his $250 Kosta Browne, I will agree to waive my "copy" charge ;-)

Let's move this back to the top...

Just a few notes:

I spoke with the restaurant;

• They said the staff will be happy to assist us with the blind tasting by gathering the bottles (already brown bagged by us), taking them in the back and uncorking; bringing them out at whatever pace we wish.

• Given the size our gathering, they will need a final count of attendees 1 week in advance (est is 20-24). I'll post what I think is the list of attendees by mid next week, and everyone can update that accordingly -

• Also need 1 week lead-time to let them know if we are doing the pre-fixe dinner option, or just appetizers (I'm fine either way, but doing the apps might allow more flexibility in working through all the bottles in a blind fashion). I'll go by whatever feedback comes from the group in the next several days or so.

• Reminder – cash or personal check only

Looking forward to it !

OK, so since we'll be bringing the wines in bags and the wait staff can "shuffle" them in the back room and presumably mark them, can we say here what we're going to bring to avoid any duplicates?

As I stated earlier I'm really excited to try the Ponzi and Gundy Bundy along side others to see how they compare blind. But I also want to bring a Burgundy. So, if anyone is thinking of bringing either of these please speak up and I'll bring the other one. Or if among everyone they are both going to be brought that'd be great too, and I'll bring another Cali Pinot (I have some others in mind).

BTW bigred it looks like I'll be alone for the evening.

Thanks for putting this together!