It’s been nearly five years since Joe Roberts visited with a dozen Pennsylvania winemakers to learn about their commitment to quality dry wines, so an invite to the recent PA Sommelier Judgement Day event — hosted at Nectar restaurant in the Philadelphia suburb of Berwyn — seemed like a good opportunity to check in on the industry’s progress during the past half-decade.
Organized by Nectar sommelier Scott Zoccolillo alongside the PA Wines consortium, the event was a sequel of sorts to the same restaurant’s 2014 Judgement of Pennsylvania blind tasting between the best of our commonwealth and a selected group from California. Back then, although two PA whites (Penns Woods Chardonnay Reserve, Waltz Old Line Chardonnay) bested the left coasters, the resulting shockwaves were far less impactful than those of a certain Paris tasting a few years prior.
This time, there was no competition, just a top 10 list for tasting and a promise of overall winners from within the bunch. I sampled the full list while chatting up the producers, and came away with the following conclusions…