I recently tasted and wrote about a few samples from Hop Kiln Winery, and the nice people at the winery wanted to make sure I had tasted the most recent vintage of their Generations Pinot Noir. The 2008 vintage received a gold at the San Francisco Wine Competition. There is plenty of good commentary on the interwebs about the advantages of wine competitions (Wine Competitions: It Won A Medal - It Must Be Good!, Another Wine Blog 9/1/2009).
Whether you put faith in wine competitions or not (or specifically the San Francisco Wine Competition, which I hope to see someday so I can form my own opinion), the laws of statistics dictate that these competitions have to get it right some of the time. The 2008 HK Generations Pinot Noir is a good wine. The nose is smooth and round with lots of black pepper and and smoky vanilla. There is some very fleshy smooth cherry on the taste and the wine is very pleasant to sip.
