The Blind Tasting

Because I'm in the wine industry, I have been fortunate to meet and become friends with a number of people that are also very interested in learning about wine. This has lead to some really fun nights. I am part of a certain group that likes to get together once a month, and blind-tastes wine. What is blind tasting? It is simply tasting wine that you don't know what it is, and trying to, out of your own past experiences, ascertain what the wine is. Some people get all geeked out over single-blind versus double-blind. Single blind is where you know the varietal (say cabernet), but don't know anything else about the wine. Double-blind is where you don't know anything about it. The group that I'm in does both.

Here's how we do it-
we pick a night (usually a weekend, so people can sleep in the next day if they over-indulge), and a place. The host picks the theme. This last weekend, it was to bring any white you wanted, and a bottle of something cabernet-based. We then show up with the bottles covered with either foil or newspaper, and start pouring. The goal is to guess the varietal, country of origin, and vintage of each wine. It really is amazing how much stuff you taste in a wine when you are really paying attention. The whole thing is all in good fun. What I like about this group is that people bring cool, interesting things, and don't necessarily try to "one up" each other by bringing the biggest, baddest, most expensive wines. Don't get me wrong, cool stuff is definitely poured- we had 1975 and 1982 Bordeaux, Pride, Caymus, a wine from Lebanon, White Burgundy, White Hermitage, and all kinds of other amazing wines. I even tried to sneak a two-buck-chuck in there, to see what happened. Needless to say, it didn't win the "wine of the night" prize. However, the group didn't get mad- they laughed at it.

So, if you want a really simple, inexpensive party idea, give this a shot. It's a lot of fun, and you really do learn a lot about what you like and don't like regarding wine.

Cheers!

The Blind Tasting Club

There's a wonderful group of people that gets together on a semi-regular basis to blind taste wines. I have had the opportunity to taste with them a couple of times, and then hosted the group on Saturday night at my house. These tastings are a blast, and I am honored to have been included in them- and to get to know some great wine lovin' folks.
Basically, everybody brings a bottle or two of wine that are covered, and we try to guess vintage, varietal, and country of origin. On Friday, we each contributed a bottle of red, and a bottle of white. Unlike traditional "professional" tasting groups, we don't always spit. In fact, we rarely do. This means that we are faily accurate on the first few wines, but it goes downhill from there. Here is the lineup from the Friday tasting, in no particular order:

Gruet NV Rose (palate primer, not tasted blind)
2001 Heinz Schmitt Leiwener Klostergarten Eiswein
2003 Eagles Trace Cabernet (375 ml, not tasted blind)
2003 Rotlan Torra "Tirant" from Priorat
2004 Nicolas Joly Coulee de Serrant
2007 Shane "Villain" Syrah
2006 Rock "Hudson Vineyard" Syrah
2004 Domaine de Lises Crozes Hermitage
2007 Domaine de Lises Crozes Hermitage (my favorite "value" wine of the night)
2002 Leroy Montagny (over the hill)
2002 Penfolds RWT (stunning!)
1999 Donhoff Nicherhauser Hermannshohle Riesling Spatlese
2007 Louis Latour Pouilly Fuisse
2004 Eagles Trace Latitude 38 (375 ml, not tasted blind)
2007 Saintsbury Carneros Chardonnay (used to demonstrate the proper use of a Porron)

As you can see, there wasn't a dog in the bunch. After glasses were broken and pizza was ordered, I'm glad that everyone made it home safely.

Thanks again to the crew that brought the wine!

Until tomorrow, Cheers!