Paul Lin

Paul's interest in wine extends beyond simple appreciation and enjoyment.  As an academic, he's never without his notepad and pen, and he loves to analyze a wine the way a scholar might pore over a fine piece of literature.  After being bitten by the wine bug during graduate school, Paul embarked on his wine journey out of a sense of intellectual curiosity and romantic self-indulgence.  Recently, he has turned his sights from simply drinking and writing about wine to actually making the stuff.  In 2007, under the label Terra Novus, Paul produced his first barrel of Pinot Noir from grapes from the Sonoma Coast. 

Eric Anderson

Eric first became interested in wine in 1983, after sampling the 1982 Bordeaux vintage. It was a watershed event, and he immediately began to accumulate a library of wine books, and spent the next several years attending as many wine tastings and seminars as possible. Since 1990, Eric has chronicled over 600 visits to wineries, both in the U.S. and Europe. Aside from simply enjoying the beverage, he found his interactions with winemakers and proprietors has further enriched his life, and continued to nourish his interest in wine. Eric is also part of GrapeRadio, the James Beard nominated podcast series.

Everyone would probably agree that wine tasting is a subjective matter - maybe even highly subjective. One person's "stunner" might be another person's "blah." Yet, there are also occasions when there is a meeting of the mind as to what is in the glass. We've always wondered just how much and how often tasters will differ in their opinions of the same wine. With that in mind, we felt it would be downright interesting, if not instructional, to have two tasters sample the same wines and write tasting notes on each - for side-by-side comparison.

Overall impressions: this lineup of wines made by Mark Aubert included not only his own eponymous label, but also several wines that he made while at Peter Michael and Colgin. Such breadth offered an interesting opportunity to taste through many vintages, giving us a nice cross-section of wines. It's probably safe to say that we were looking forward to the several of these near ledgendary wines. This event was held at Pinot Provence, in Costa Mesa, CA.

Our two tasters agreed, relatively speaking, on several of the wines poured at this tasting. Yet, they obviously had differing opinions about some of the other wines - some quite notable. In fact, when reading the notes, you might even wonder if they were tasting the same wine. So, who's right? Well, if you learn one thing from this episode, there is no right or wrong - just differences. There are differences in how we each perceive aromas and flavors, differences in how we think one thing compares to another, and so on. There are also external forces at work at most tastings. For instance, the fact is that this was also a dinner tasting, and thus the food component could have easily swayed one into a positive or not-so-positive opinion about a given wine. So, let's take a look at the same wines from 'both sides now.'

Flight #1 - 2001-03 Aubert Chardonnay
1st course - sashimi of big eye tuna, dungeness crab, blood orange, shisho sprouts.

Flight #1 - 2001-03 Aubert Chardonnay
1st course - sashimi of big eye tuna, dungeness crab, blood orange, shisho sprouts.

2001 Aubert Chardonnay Ritchie Vnyd - Sonoma Coast
A well-aged and honeyed Chardonnay with rich tropical fruit notes. 90-91 points. (90 pts.)

2001 Aubert Ritchie Chardonnay - Touches of toast and caramel accent the lemon-lime nose and mouth. Smooth, rich, very nice acids - with some nice edges on the palate. Beautifully smooth with the tuna course, which seemed to intensify a butter quality in the wine.