Napa wine quiz

WINE TALK
1

Hi all! I’m still pretty new to this board, so I suspect this has been hashed out in some form or another already. However, I’ve always been fascinated with wine label art and design. Wine labels truly run the gamut from tasteful to gawdy. So many different approaches out there, and so many gimmicks as well. If I had to pick a favorite within California, though, I would actually choose Ridge. I think that label has a classic look, and it’s such a clean design (Ridge’s trademark font, Optima, is also shared by Estee Lauder, if you’ve never noticed). Ridge also writes some of the best back label notes around, IMHO.

On a related topic, I put together a somewhat unique quiz regarding Napa’s wine labels, and I have something similar for Sonoma in the works. Unlike my Burgundy quiz that made the rounds a while back, this is quiz challenges a totally different kind of wine knowledge (it actually quantifies “awareness” more than knowledge, I suppose). At any rate, I thought it was kind of a fun idea…

Cheers!

2

Quick question: If you looked at the Napa wine label quiz that I put together earlier this month (the link above), I was wondering if it was too hard/too easy (assuming that a person is somewhat wine-savvy in the first place)? I’m working on a series of these quizzes for other regions, and wonder if I was on the right track. Thanks in advance for any input!

[thankyou.gif] [cheers.gif]

3

I could identify only one: Heitz.

While I consider myself generally wine-savvy, I don’t drink a lot of Napa wine (and haven’t since the early 90s), and pay little attention to labels.

4

I tend to have a sort of creepy ability to remember what wine labels look like, so I thought I would do better than 8, but I haven’t had several of these wines. This type of quiz could help a winery figure out if their label stands out among the crowd though.

5

I only recognized four (SIlver Oak, Schramsberg, Heitz, and Duckhorn) but have never seen or heard of most of those wines.

I would agree about the Ridge label design. I also really like Heitz’s, even though it’s on the other end of the design spectrum, and if I remember it has a good story behind it.

6

Cool quiz. Got PlumpJack, Duckhorn, Robert Sinskey, Montelena, Silver Oak, Heitz, Turnbull, Diamond Creek.

7

MIssed only two. Granted I recognized the ones that I have or have had in my cellar right off the bat.

8

I guess I just don’t pay much attention to the outside of the bottle. Too hard for me.

9

I got 7, but I’m not up to date on newer Napa producers. Got away from Napa cabs when they became too over the top for me, just starting to get back into them now.

10

I got 8, but there are certainly a few obscure brands in there that I’m not familiar with…

11

I did very poorly with only a couple correct, but I love the idea of the quiz.

12

Twelve correct for me, half of which I knew without giving any thought. Of the 13 I missed, there were five I’ve never seen.

Wine labels are intriguing to me as well. It’s fun to line up the bottles from a newly received case received on the counter before putting them away in the cellar just to look at and read the labels.

Thanks for putting this together!

13

Ha! I got a half dozen, and of those I’ve only actually had 1. Never heard of a bunch of these wines.

14

9 for me…but I’d argue grapes on the Stony Hill should have been white (green) grapes.

15

Sporting an 11. Tough but cool quiz.

16

13, and I drink a fair amount of Napa wines. I thought it was pretty damn hard, and missed a number of wines I’ve had multipe times. Like Grgich, Paradigm, and pathetically, Heitz. Fun, though. I really enjoyed it.

17

Got Heitz. That was it. I suck at this.