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Saturday Taste-Off to Pit LI Wine Country Against France, California

Nine wine pros will rate six Long Island wines against similar wines from California and France in a blind tasting called the 'Judgment of Riverhead' Saturday at Roanoke Vineyards in Riverhead.

A blind wine tasting by a panel of experts scheduled for Saturday at in Riverhead will pit some of Long Island's best wines against top-rated wines from France and California.

The tasting, dubbed "The Judgment of Riverhead," is meant to emulate the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, or the "Judgment of Paris." In the Parisian event, French judges blind tasted a group of top-quality chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon wines from France and California. To the surprise of many, California wines rated No. 1 among both reds and whites and the U.S. wines dominated the competition's top 10 finishers. The results put California on the world wine map. 

"We'll see how the chips fall," said Richard Pisacano, co-owner of Roanoke Vineyards, who organized the event with his tasting room manager, Adam Ehmer, and media-creative director, Scott Sandell.  Pisacano said the event is being undertaken "because we wanted to take an objective look at where [Long Island wines] are."

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 A blind tasting is one in which the tasters don't know what wines they are tasting until the end of each flight, or group, of wines.

On Saturday, the wines will be tasted by a panel that includes eight wine and restaurant industry professionals and one writer using a 20-point scale, as was done in the 1976 Paris event.  The Long Island wines will be matched against wines that were scored 90 points or higher by either the Wine Spectator or Wine Enthusiast magazines.

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A group of 55 attendees, who've paid $75 each, also will taste and score the wines during the sold-out event. Those scores will be tallied separately.

In all, the panel will taste nine chardonnays (three from each region), and nine reds, focusing on Bordeaux varietals, such as merlot, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon. Pisacano would not disclose the wines to be tasted, noting that the list hadn't yet be finalized. He did admit, however, that one of Roanoke Vineyard's wines likely will be among them. The wines, which will be similar in style, were selected by Ehmer and Sandell.

"It may be hard to distinguish one from another," Pisacano said.

To be sure, Saturday's tasting is not the first of its kind. In 2009, the , in an effort to demonstrate that East End sauvignon blancs, chardonnays merlots and cabernet francs were the equals of other domestic and foreign versions of those wines, staged a blind tasting for 40 top wine writers in New York City. That tasting included 10 Long Island whites and reds among 20 wines winnowed from a longer list by various professional tasting panels. Rankings, however, were not released, although the New York Times reported that the local wines fared well.

Also last year, the held a professional blind tasting of six of its wines against the best of France. Lenz won the top scores in two of four flights and was only one point behind in the other two. Lenz Winery's $55 2002 Old Vines Merlot, at 92 points, was just a point behind 2002 Chateau Petrus, which retails for $900.  

With the exception of wine importer David Milligan, former president of Seagram, Chateau & Estate Wines Co. and the author of "All Color Book of Wine," the judges for Saturday's event have ties to the Long Island wine industry. The other judges are Michael Cinque, owner of Amagansett Wines and Spirits; writer Louisa Hargrave, co-founder of Hargrave Vineyards;  Michael Kaminski, sommelier at restaurant, Jamesport; Kareem Massoud, winemaker at in Aquebogue; Mike Mraz, owner and beverage director of the , Southold; Tom Schaudel, author, executive chef and owner of in Mattituck and Coolfish restaurant in Syosset; Christopher Tracy, winemaker and co-owner of in Bridgehampton; and , who writes extensively about Long Island wines as executive editor of the New York Cork Report blog.

Pisacano said George Taber, author of  the book, "Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine" was invited to participate, but could not. He did, however, provide Pisacano and his team guidance on how to conduct the tasting.

Roanoke Vineyards is at 3543 Sound Ave., Riverhead, and can be reached at 631-727-4161.

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