Wine & Spirits Top 100 tasting

Ever wonder what these events are like? Here's what you got for $125 on Tuesday night in San Francisco:

You walk up red-carpeted steps into the U.S. Mint building, which is practically never open to the public. Just seeing the inside of this place is worthwhile. The trimmings are all steel, perhaps to repel Goldfinger (though who would ever push away Pussy Galore?)

You grab a Wine & Spirits logo glass and walk between various theme rooms. Each room has small tables holding two (or occasionally 3 or 4) wines from each winery listed in the top 100. Pours are more generous than in tasting rooms, and some people ask for seconds, although with all these wines to sample, it's easy to just keep moving.

Each room also had 2-4 items of food prepared by local restaurants. I wish I had taken better notes on these foods, because some were outstanding, like pancetta-wrapped chicken with sage skewers, tarako potato salad, and roast duck mini-sandwiches.

Bubbly and crisp whites are outside; that's where I started, sampling '03 Iron Horse and '97 Diebolt-Vallois just to warm up. There were unlimited oysters on the half shell, but I tend to just taste wine until I feel hungry to keep my palate fresh.

Bubbly highlights: 1988 Veuve Clicquot Brut was one of the best things I had all night, rich and Sherry-like on the long finish.

Crisp wine highlight: 2007 Santorini Assyrtiko, an amazing Greek white with plenty of Meyer lemon and fresh herb character. One of the best Greek whites I've had.

In the "rich whites" room, I got into a depressing conversation with the importer of 2006 Tahblik Marsanne. Great wine, earthy and interesting, but he admitted that it keeps getting dropped by different distributors because few consumers risk $15 on Australian Marsanne.

The "floral whites" room allowed me to try the 2006 Fox Run Seneca Lake Reserve Riesling, which stands up to good German Rieslings in its price range. This is one grape New York does better than the West Coast.

I loved the 2005 Hartford Court Far Coast Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, a very pretty wine with nice cherry fruit that I wish I'd had a whole bottle of for dinner. On the other end of the scale, the 2004 Lucien Le Moine Les Epenots Premier Cru Pommard was the most intensely aromatic wine I sniffed all night, with graphite and smoked pork jumping out of the glass along with black and red fruit.

In the Rhone Family room, the 2007 E. Guigal La Doriane Condrieu was a revelation: bright and beautiful, with plenty of apple and floral flavors and a rich, long finish.

The least-pleasant room was the Cabernet Family; the bright lighting made it noticeably hotter than every other spot, and people were visibly redder and sweatier. Perhaps the organizers were trying to push patrons into the underattended Italian/Iberico chamber, but it didn't work.

And how could it, with an opportunity to taste gems like the 2004 Diamond Creek Red Rock Terrace Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon? Great wine, quite complex and elegant. I admit I didn't linger in this room, but I can see why people did.

I tasted maybe 80 wines and didn't lose my palate (I always spit, of course), but did find myself explaining how to find a good eyeglass shop to somebody who clearly didn't care. You know you're absorbing a little too much alcohol when you sound loud, even to yourself. So I bailed, having one last sip of '88 Veuve Clicquot for the road.

If you get a chance to attend this event next year, do it.