The 2nd year of the Tasting Across America came to a conclusion with the February TAA. It finished with more of a wimper than a bang. However, the second year was quite interesting. We set records for most members and fewest memers participating in a month. Before I present the TAA Awards, here are some interesting facts:

Hosts
For the first time we had hosts from outside the US this year. Here is a breakdown of the members hosting the TAA:

United States- 9
~California- 3
~Illinois- 2
~Connecticut- 1
~Delaware- 1
~Texas- 1
~Washington- 1
Canada- 2
Holland- 1

Wines
The wines this year where heavily weighted towards the red variety. We did however have our first sparkling wine and dessert wine. Here is a breakdown by style and color:

Dry reds- 8
Ports- 2
Dry whites- 1
Sparkling- 1

When it came to the regions where the wines came from, we were more diversified than the 1st year (6 of the wines came from the US in Year 1). Here is a breakdown of the wines by region or country for Year 2:

California- 3
France- 3
Portugal- 2
Australia- 2
Italy- 1
South Africa- 1

A full listing of all the wines, scores, hosts and prices for the 2nd year can be viewed here.

Awards
Now for the Awards:

Highest Scoring Wine(s): A tie between 2 wines which each scored an average of 89.9 points from those participating.
~2000 Guigal CdP picked by JimmyV
~2001 Seghesio OV Zin picked by Wineismylife

Lowest Scoring Wine- 2001 Marilyn Merlot picked by Pyang.

Highest Priced Wine- $30 for the NV Mumm Cordon Rouge Brut picked by Stevie Cage.

Lowest Priced Wine- $13.43 for the 2002 Marquis Philips Shiraz which I picked.

Best Turnout- 43 members tried the 2002 Marquis Philips which I picked in August, 2003. Honorable mentions go out to Wineismylife who had 22 members participate in his TAA and Otisabdul who had 21 try his wine.

Worst Turnout- I feel very bad for Sir Willy who ended up being the only member who tried the 2000 Perron Madiran in February, 2004.

Thanks to all the hosts who spent time researching their wines and organizing the monthly TAA's and the members who participated and shared their comments for the betterment of this board.

VM

Vino Me,

Thanks for the update...

Highest scoring ave. " 89.9" For some reason I would have thought the scores would have been much higher. Just seems "most" score their wines when they post on this board from 87-97.

Vino Me,


You should of had some German wines.

elmo,

I do like the way you think

elmo- Except for the 1 month when I hosted, I do not have any say in picking the wines. We did have a German wine during the 1st year of the TAA and it is still the highest scoring TAA wine ever.

291- It is very difficult for a wine to get a very high score when you take averages because it only takes 1 or 2 members who do not like the wine and score it accordingly low for the average to drop.

VM

VM -

As always, thanks for being the record keeper!!!

Mike

"I'll take Swords for $200, Alex." - Saturday Night Live

A lesson learned from the TAA is how difficult it is to find a wine that is available across continents. I expect that the restrictions on price make that more difficult, but I still thought it would be easier to find wines that were for sale in both Europe and North America, as well as elsewhere.

BTW, has an Aussie or Asian (in Oz or Asia) ever participated in a TAA?

snow sucks, cold is worse.......