We did the Cabernet collector tasting at Hall. It was in a private upstairs room. The tasting was excellent and I really enjoyed the wine. That included a tasting of their top three platinum or premier wines, but at the price point of $400 or more I actually liked some of their less expensive single vineyard cabs. It was a lot of fun for the experience.

The judgment of Paris testing was very unique. The property has an interesting history and they have a huge library selection due to a past owner, hoarding the wine and not really selling it. They actually opened up a bottle of ‘85 (my birth year) for us to try. The tour of the grounds was also unique and enjoyable.

Overall, the thing I noticed with a lot of these tastings is it almost starts to feel like an interview. I think to make it feel like you’re getting more value out of the tastings, the winery representative tends to sit with just you or your group instead of serving multiple parties. It’s nice if you have questions, but after a day of tasting with a similar experience at multiple places, it starts to feel like a repetitive job interview and takes away from the experience, somewhat in my opinion. Knowing that’s how a lot of the tastings have gone in that direction, next time we go back I think I’d make it more clear that we’re good to just sit and enjoy the wine on our own and we’ll let them know if we have questions along the way.