Vertical tasting at Burnley Vineyards.

Went to a vertical tasting of cabernet sauvignons at Burnley Vineyards yesterday. As usual, it was both fun and informative.

A vertical tasting is when you taste the same wine from the same vineyard over a number of different years. (Similarly, a horizontal tasting would be tasting the same wine from the same year from a number of different wineries.) This tasting had cabs from 1995 through 2001. The winemaker - Lee Reeder - pours the wines for you, and tells you something about that year's vintage that makes it different, and which you may be able to tell in the wine: whether the summer was hot and dry, or cool and wet, or when they changed to a heavier toast in the barrels the wine ages in, or when they changed to a better, more gentle wine press.

It's this focus on education, making sure you have a written description of the differences in each year's production and allowing you to study and savor one year's wine before going onto the next, that makes their vertical tasting so good. I've been to vertical tastings at a couple of other Virginia wineries, and they tended to be poured by people whose knowledge of the wine was limited to what was on the label ("This is the 1998."); not nearly as good an experience.