Who Will Win? Virginia Tannat Versus The World

There is a series of books for young readers that became super popular when I was still working in a school-based position. It was all about who would win theoretical matchups between different animals, and kids ate these books up. Any kind of comparison competition is just fun, and it’s great to see what everyone thinks will happen and what people prefer.

Matt organized something much similar, comparing Virginia Tannats to other Tannats, primarily from Uruguay and one from Bolivia. Each round featured a Virginia Tannat paired with a Tannat from somewhere else. If you know me, you know I truly love this grape, and it’s one of my favorites in Virginia, (see my favorite event of 2023 here). I think Virginia does a fantastic job with this grape, and as a standalone wine or as a component in a blend, Virginia Tannat makes its presence known and generally brings a powerful punch with strong fruit and tannin. Here is his post on the event.

This tasting was conducted fully blind, with Matt promising that he had matched a Virginia with a non-Virginia in each round (even he wasn’t clear which bagged wine was which!). He arranges these really well, this was only the second one of his I’ve been to in all the years we’ve been wine blogging. Despite our ongoing frenemy status, I have to give credit where credit is due – the man organizes a great blind tasting event!

We drank the following from Virginia:

Walsh Family Wine 2019 Bethany Ridge Tannat

Stinson 2017 Tannat

Narmada 2019 Tannat

Maggie Malick 2017 Tannat

And from South America, we sampled:

Batovi “T1” Tannat 2016

Garzon 2022 Tannat

1750 Uvairenda Tannat (vintage 2018) (Tannat from Bolivia!!!!)

Amat Tannat 2015

Among the participants we had a really interesting range of experiences and roles with Virginia Wine:

Matthew Corrigan who has worked with wine and promotes Virginia Wine on his YouTube channel.

Sedale McCall who is a wine writer.

Jeremy Ligon who makes wine for Barrel Oak Winery.

Frank Lynch who writes and does social media for and works at Effingham and Pearmund (longtime readers may recall that I met him at the 2024 Fauquier County Wine Showcase).

Kendall Anderson who makes wine at the Winery at Bull Run.

He has posted about the tasting notes and round winners, so I want to focus more on bigger takeaways I had from the tasting and discussion. I gotta tell you, this was a great showdown and there are a few key takeaways for me from this – while I really wanted to go full spoiler and tell you about the winner before Matt did, I was warned my wine privileges would be revoked if Matt doesn’t get to post it first. Sigh. Now that he has posted his blog about it, I can tell you that the 2017 Stinson, (the wine yours truly guarded and saved for an event just like this) won the day!

Virginia Tannat compares amazingly to the Tannats we had available. Matt pointed out that what we can generally acquire through retail here is not the top tier production from Uruguay – most of that stays in Uruguay for consumers there. While we also shared a 2015 French Tannat (and a single varietal there is rare) after the event that was yummy, I maintain that our Virginia Tannat is superior in clarity and freshness of fruit presented along with pleasant juiciness of tannins. Many will disagree with me, but I am sticking to my opinion here.

While many winemakers still use substantial oak to ease the punch of Tannat, especially when it’s young, I argue this is unnecessary. Unless the fruit is poorly grown or flawed, the oak doesn’t do a lot that I enjoy. At times, soft oak in the background is ok and may add smoky flavors to the Tannat, but too much and the fruit is drowning and muted and the wine has to sit for years to integrate and dissipate the overpowering oak flavor. Kendall shared his observation that the percentage of new oak isn’t nearly as impactful as the amount of “toasting” the oak has, which I found really interesting – this is far outside my experience, but really resonated in at least one of the wines we tasted. His comments about toasting the barrels and fermentation temperature impact on the wine have given me more ideas to chew on as I think about the wines I’m sipping and talk with winemakers about their processes.

When comparing a Virginia Tannat to one from elsewhere, Kendall again shared an insight that had a big impact on my thinking – he noted that one of the two wines we were comparing just felt more familiar and must be the Virginia one. I gravitate heavily towards the Virginia versions of these wines because they are familiar and have more of a sense of home, which explains my strong preference for Virginia Wine whenever possible. Virginia Wine is really my good good friend that I can sit and gab with for hours about anything. After Kendall shared that insight, it helped me clarify which wine in each pairing I thought was Virginia. I’m pretty sure I got them all right.

One of the big shocks of the evening was a Uruguayan Tannat that actually had butter on the nose and a shocking creamy texture. The entire group spent some time considering this wine carefully as we went through it, and it was definitely enjoyed by all. This wine also changed significantly over the course of the tasting, and was different at the next pour. The way wines shift with time in the open air is one of my favorite things about wine – evolution over time. While I wound up voting for this wine in the final round (and I had a sense I was voting against my beloved Virginia Tannat), I really enjoyed the shifting textures in this wine and felt it was something special. I could never call Stinson’s Tannat a Runner-Up, it too was exceptional.

After the comparison and the winner being chosen, we had some fun with other Tannat that came to the show- Matt opened the French one mentioned above, I brought a 2011 Chateau O’Brien Tannat, Kendall brought a 2022 Bull Run Tannat, and we also had palate cleansers from Barrel Oak, their award-winning 2022 Sauvignon Blanc, and Effingham’s 2023 Petit Manseng. This was a ton of wine, and needless to say, I poured out a LOT more than I normally do. Lucky Matt, he hosted and didn’t have to drive home. Plus he got leftovers. Sigh. Tannat is a very special grape here – with 14 years on it, that 2011 vintage Tannat (bear in mind that 11 was a wet growing season in Virginia), was still good – bold, nice fruit in it, with only a hint of mustiness about it. And as a juxtaposition, the very young 2022 Bull Run Tannat was gorgeous – young, fresh, lovely fruit, and showing good balance. Both of these wines will evolve and continue to be delicious. That’s what is wonderful about Virginia Tannat.

What I enjoyed most about this event was hearing so many perspectives on the various wines. I do not consider myself in any way to be a wine expert, and you know I lack any formal training in this area. We all agreed and disagreed about various aspects of the wines and while some winners in each round were overwhelming, there were also split decisions, and people made clear cases for what they preferred and why. Everyone perceiving the wine in different ways helps us understand the wines better as we talk through what we individually sense.

I keep holding verticals of beloved wines on my rack in the hopes that I’ll be organized enough to do something like this one day. At the end of the day, this is what makes Virginia Wine incredible. Because we have so many microclimates here, and varying soil types across the different growing regions, and because our wines are so dependent on growing year conditions and the place they’re grown, comparing them lets us notice the various aspects growing season and place impart. Unlike grocery store wine, which is all made to taste the same, Virginia Wine is never going to be the same year over year, winery to winery. It’s our little time capsule. Grab a couple of bottles and do a comparison tasting like this for yourself, you’ll love it!