Letting wines speak for themselves

I was thinking about our visit to Fidelitas yesterday, and how impressed I was with the woman who served our wine tastings. She didn't make any mention of whether these wines won any awards, but rather let the wines speak for themselves. This way our palate wasn't influenced by what other people thought of the wines. There was no tasting fee for any of the eight or so wines we sampled, and we loved each of these amazing reds. It was tough to decide which to walk away with, but finally settled on the Optu Red, and a Columbia Valley Merlot. It didn't escape our notice that each of these was from the 2006 vintage. It's a year to watch.