Sean P. Sullivan - Washington Wine Report Note: Site has moved to www.northwestwinereport.com

One of the most enjoyable aspects of drinking wine is discussing it with others. Discussing wine helps you hone your wine tasting skills and enhances the experience.

Starting this month, I am launching a “virtual tasting” group. You are invited! Each month I will select a particular wine or wines. Two weeks after I announce what the wine will be for the month, I will post my write-up and rating of the wine.

Here is where you come in. During the intervening period, I encourage you to go out and try the wine, maybe even invite a few friends over. When you try the wine, consider writing some notes about it. What should you write? Whatever you like. For example - What do you get on the nose? What do you get on the taste? Do you like the wine? Consider rating the wine using my system (see sidebar) or another rating system, such as the widely used 100 point scale. To complete our virtual tasting, I encourage you to post your comments on the wine once I put my review up.

Of course, I can’t guarantee that you will always like the wines I choose. I might not either. That is just the way it goes and is part of wine tasting. I will generally try to find wines that are in a reasonable price range and that receive decent distribution where possible.

For this month’s virtual tasting, I have selected L’Ecole No. 41’s Recess Red 2006. L’Ecole is one of the top producers in the Walla Walla area. The Recess Red is L’Ecole’s table wine and typically retails for under $20.

If you live in Washington state, this wine receives a fairly wide distribution. If you live outside of Washington or if this wine is not available in your area, I encourage you to order the wine directly from the winery (see blog on Buying Washington Wine).

In two weeks time, on August 18^th, I will post my write-up and rating of the wine. Let our virtual tasting group begin!