I recently went to an amazing blind wine tasting challenge at Total Wine. This wine store has great wine selection and offers interesting classes. By the way, Pasadena location is now open!
We had 8 wine tastings in pairs: 2 glasses of white wine followed by 2 glasses
of red wine and then another round. The challenge? Figure out the variety and the
producing region.
Image from http://www.totalwine.com/
The bottles were hidden, the wine was poured from a decanter, and the only known was the color of the wine in the glasses.
Our instructor Jon was enthusiastic, knowledgeable and funny – and he made the
whole experience an enjoyable one. We had 4 white and 4 red varieties to choose from, and they were all mainstream ones - Merlot,
Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Malbec for reds and Chardonnay, Pinot
Grigio, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc for white. Guessing where the wine came
from was much tougher (by the way, the winning answer was “from Total Wine”)!
Sommelier exam is definitely no joke! WATCH VIDEO HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKNmcCCE15E
Our class was much longer and much more fun!
Here are the basics (the 4 S’s) of the wine-tasting:
- Swirl – Look at the viscosity, shine, and color. Did you know red wine has over 20 hues? Nice for vocabulary-building!
- Sniff – 80% of our sense of taste is actually in our nose.
- Sip – Aha!! This is the moment we were waiting for!
- Spit – I am not a big fan of this one unless I am not enjoying the wine.
The “Sniff” step was fascinating! We sniffed a wine and tried to see what color it brought to mind. Do we ever think of colors having a smell? Or of smells having a color?
For example, for one of the red wines, we smelled –
surprise! – red. Was it cherry red, or more plum red, or maybe it was actually
more black than red? Black cherry, perhaps?
A lot of smells are connected to memories, and, of course,
everyone’s nose is different. Some people have very sensitive noses and can
distinguish a variety of interesting and subtle smells. Someone smelled a hint
of green pineapple – now, I do not think I have even seen a green pineapple so I
need to go on a field trip to a market and see if I can spot and sniff an
unripe pineapple! Tasters also got petroleum, red rose, and honeysuckle, among
other smells.
Someone actually smelled mud. Well, what color did the mud
smell? Did it smell chalky? Or rich red? Was it dry or was it more like earth
after the rain?
Another fascinating tidbit was that Old World (Europe) wines
are usually crafted to pair with food, whereas a wine from New Word (Americas, Australia, etc.) can be enjoyed by itself. I am sure there are
exceptions but it worked pretty well in our class. We tasted a French Cabernet
Sauvignon, and I could not really imagine enjoying it without food. This was
one of the few wines in the class that warranted spitting. We then moved
to a Central Coast Californian Cab – and yes, I could (and did!) enjoy it
without any food!
I definitely learned a lot about wine in this class but I also paused to
think how we usually rush through our experiences and do not pause and smell
the mud.
Did you try any interesting wines recently? Did you smell
any interesting colors? Drop me a line!
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