To test everyone's arrogance with wine, it was time to put on a new tasting event. For this tasting, as long as it was red, it is welcome. A worldwide, blind tasting event! We were in for some surprises. When our family gets together, there's one thing you can always count on: we're going to consume a LOT of wine. If we can organize ourselves in time, we'll put on a small blind wine tasting event to test everyone's senses since our last engagement. With my sister in town from Boston, that's just what we did.
Everyone was told to bring a bottle of red wine- any wine at all. My mother chose to be the referee and opened all the bottles and bagged them. For whatever reason, we didn't have those fancy wine bags so we did the next logical thing - cover them in tin foil! The foil worked quite well actually. Keeping the bottle balanced and hidden - everything we needed.
We were only tasting four bottles which allowed to really focus. Not knowing varietal, vineyard, or even region was a first for us. We usually stuck to "California Cabernets" or "California reds" - stuff we could all enjoy and are familiar with. This time around though, it was anyone's guess; and guessing was the theme of the night... for me at least.
Bottle 1 Notes
lots of mineral qualities and really big in green pepper. earthy. raspberry punch in the finish. possibly a zinfandel??
Bottle 2 Notes
lots of cherry and big in oak. Very light bodied though. Soft, and silky. quiet finish... not intense but easy going. All the flavors of a typical cab but without the big structure... I like this...
Bottle 3 Notes
fresh fruity nose. Silky medium bodied. earthy - clay and sandy soil. soft fruit. Ridge Grenache.
Bottle 4 Notes
definitely a cabernet. big in cherry, vanilla, oak. well rounded tannins. tobacco/leather finish. I'm lovin' this!
For nearly all of them, they needed time to open up. At everyone's first go around, we all had a hard time pinpointing the wines. After some time, we all re-tasted them again and found them more expressive and those that I initially disregarded seemed much more enjoyable and even downright great!
I'll admit it though. These wines had me stumped! The third bottle was a gimmie since I brought it and had just a few nights prior. (I wanted to get other's opinion on a Grenache) but the first and third had me blundered. The forth wine, I was confident I nailed. Though I never tasted it before, it seemed like a wine that would have come from Chateau Souverain. So out of the three that I did not know, I was only confident that I knew one and the other two, I wasn't even sure about the varietal...
The time came to reveal the labels. The part everyone gets extremely giddy about.
Bottle 1 was...
2002 Two Hand Bad Impersonator Single Vineyard Barossa Valley Shiraz $35
This blew me away. It had incredible amounts of green and black pepper to me. I thought it was a zinfandel. I've only tasted a few Australian shiraz and most had a new world style to them. I can think of one that was noted to be true to their terrior. A lack of experience on my part for this blunder.
Bottle 2 was...
2001 Chateau-Haut-Bages Liberal Pauillac $18
Holy blooming vines Batman! Here I thought it was an extremely thin Cabernet. At least I was close... it does contain cabernet juice... This was the revelation wine for me. At first, I didn't care for it but it quickly grew on me. By the end of the day, I consumed most of the bottle! Again, my lack of experience with French wines got the better of me. I need to start venturing out more apparently.
Bottle 3 was...
2001 Ridge Lytton Estate Grenache $24
This was a gimmie. I brought it because I wanted to get everyone else's thoughts about it. A couple people tried it knowingly and dismissed it. I wanted to see if their opinions about Grenache would true even in a blind tasting. Everyone liked it more this time around. Perhaps because compared to the prior two, it is closer to what they typically drink. I had it a few nights ago so I was able to pin this immediately. No surprises here.
Bottle 4 was...
1999 Chateau Souverain Stuhlmuller Vineyard Alexander Valley $60
We all knew this was something good too. I noted this as my favorite of the four. I noticed that as we were tasting blind, no one poured this out - every drop was consumed. This Cabernet is a great example of what this family defines a great wine as!
So in summary, I stunk this time around. Clearly, I need to practice with wine outside my comfort zone. The French Bordeaux was the shock to me. This is the second time that I walked from a tasting event loving the French wine over the bigger New World style. I think my father and sister took home the gold for this event but being that 3 of the 4 bottles came from my father's cellar and he told my sister the possibilities he was going to choose from, I think the event was tainted... but I'm not bitter.
