In years past we had been tasked with bringing a bottle of
the appropriate style and price range, but that led to a
surplus of wine and some pounding heads, so the last couple
times people have been encouraged to double or triple up
so we can have less alcoholic haze and a more interesting
experience, as we are now able to sample things that might
have been out of our price range before. This plan seems
to have worked well.

We started with a couple fizzies before going on to the 
first of the Rieslings.

J. Lassalle Champagne Premier Cru Preference Brut
 Good bubbles, yeast and lemon on the nose. This was
 pretty standard good midrange Champers, with toast,
 citrus, and particularly apple. I don't generally
 drink this sort of stuff except on or near airplanes,
 but this was good enough to partake of any time.

Taittinger Champagne Brut Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne 06
 Hard to turn this down either, as Comtes is a great wine
 even not counting the bubbles. A complexity that goes well
 beyond most sparklers - yeasty but not really, citrusy but
 which citrus?, pineapple, no, but not real apple either, maybe
 Asian pear. Also some spice. Really plays around with your
 head. This was a wine to make a pleasure out of the tasting
 process. Also a small bit of oxidation that didn't hurt at all,
 enhancing the toast aspect. Small subtle bubbles, long subtle
 finish.

Richmond Plains blanc de noir
 Honeysuckle, slightly off dry, pleasant. I thought
 it slightly out of its depth here, but then perhaps
 that's because it's not my style; to me there are so
 many more interesting things to do with Pinot Noir grapes.
 And truth be told, I've never been that much a fan of New
 Zealand Pinots, either. Oh, well.

Martinborough rose from I'm not sure whom, perhaps Martinborough
 Moderate concentration, orange blossom and lemon peel,
 pleasantly quaffable but the pour was sadly not enough
 to quaff.

Two typical clean modern dry Rieslings served next to each other:
Kuentz-Bas Geisberg Alsace Grand Cru 15
 Especially lively acid on the palate with lots of lemon and 
 grapefruit - quite pleasant;

Schloss Gobelsburg Tradition 12 
 Seemed to me to be more in a modern style despite its name: 
 maybe the apple and stone fruit harked back to the olden days,
 but I'd have looked for a bit more richness from the tradition
 part. Oh, it was extremely well made and had no kind of fault 
 or flaw,  but I didn't find it embodied the German tradition
 (this is said to be one of the few Austrian wines that can go up
 against the great Germans). I'd gone in on this bottle, a mag.

D nnhoff Roxheimer H llenpfad Riesling trocken 15
 Very dry, minerally, acid. Lots of apple. I thought it a
 classy wine, but it's not my style either.

Christmann Konigsbacher Idig Riesling GG 14 - don't remember this
but people say it was there.
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