Wine Samples

I sometimes get wine samples. Often these are specifically sent for some sort of online event, like the twitter tastings, but occasionally they simply arrive for tasting at my leisure. I do my best to taste them promptly, but, like others ,I sometimes fall behind, and, perhaps not like others, start to lose far too much of my dining room floor space to bottles. If I had better storage this would not be as much of an issue, but in an urban apartment, space is at a premium. 

The samples though, do need to be tasted. So rather than tasting them alone, I asked a few friends over to taste with me. I told them ahead of time that we would be tasting random samples and that they could be wonderful or awful or most likely, something in between. The food: burgers, inspired by a bottle of Cheeseburger Red. 

To drink: 4 bottles of red and a sparkling rosé to start. We all tasted each bottle and wrote a short note. Everyone could then have more of their favorite or, if we didn't like any of them, we could open something else. The group that joined me is both understanding (read: willing to humor me on this) and wine drinkers, but not experts.

I'll post the tasting notes here because the contrast in opinions is kind of fun to see. Not all of the comments are positive and I thought about not posting some of the more negative ones, but instead, they appear, as transcribed from the wine-stained, hand-written note pages. The comments are in the same order for each wine, person #1 is comment #1 for each wine, etc.

Gloria Ferrrer 07 Brut rosé:
"Delicious."
"Crisp. Easy to deal with (inoffensive) bubbles. Very drinkable, would have more than 1 glass."
"Salmon colored. Full and rich with many small bubbles."
"My favorite."
"Dry, light: banana citrus as it warms, peppery melon."

Cheeseburger Red: Blend: 28% Petite Sirah, 44% Barbera, 28% Syrah.
"Not bad"
"Label unappetizing. Good with potato chips."
"Sweet, smooth, not edgy. Paired well with the burger. Better than I expected."
"Flintstones vitamins."
"Sharp, peppery, hot chocolate."

Ridgeline 05 Cabernet Sauvignon (Magnum)
"Fave thus far for the reds."

"Super tanniny, very dry. Good with olives."

"Tanniny. Just dull."

"D."

"Berries. Dry finish. Fruity apple."

Folie a Deux 09 Amador Zinfandel
"Like. Tastes good with the burger"
"Sweeter than I normally like but easy to drink."
"Not for me. Bad aftertaste."
"Eww."
"Roasted red pepper, pesto, cranberry."

Chateau Moulinet-Lasserre 03 Pomerol
"Barnyard."
"Oaky, generic."
"Very light."
"My favorite of the reds."
"Strawberries, leather, brown sugar on finish."