Wine Course Blind Wine Tasting Practice: John and A Mystery White

Monday morning quarterback time: If you saw John’s blind wine tasting below you know he got the grape right-yay! The best thing about blind tasting with someone (especially a Master Somm or other seasoned taster) or  video-taping your tasting, is you can evaluate the play-by-play for what went right and wrong. Since everything in our house is about the kids, food and wine or sports, here’s our “play-by-play” analysis.

Blind wine tasting takes a lot of practice to get good, and if you don’t take it too seriously, it can be fun! So here’s another game of “beach blanket blind tasting” from the Caribbean, mon. John got the varietal here based on the opulent fruit profile, golden color and–important one, evidence of barrel fermentation and aging, namely, butter, vanilla, toasty or sweet spicy notes. If you think about it, very few white wines other than Chardonnay classically see barrel fermentation and aging. In fact, I can only think of one example–the white wines of Bordeaux (both dry styles like those of Pessac-Leognan, and the sweets of Sauternes and Barsac)–and wines made in that model such as Robert Mondavi’s Napa Valley Fume Blanc and Far Niente’s Dolce sweet wine. But keep me honest on that – leave a comment if you think of another classically barrel-aged white. And let us know what you think. What clues did John miss that would have led him to the right region?

Ramey-Ritchie-Chard

 

4 replies
  1. sky2011@sbcglobal.net
    [email protected] says:

    Per Jill’s comment – his video featured a great interaction between you guys, but not just fun camera-banter, as (again) we all got a vibrant lesson in how to approach a complex wine. Even when John misses, he is always more right than wrong. Based on this episode, I plan to compare a Ramey Chard with a (’06 perhaps??!) Louis Latour Criots-Batard-Montrachet to see if I can internalize all of what I learned today. Now, those ‘rubber tires’ would be Pirelli – right?!

    Reply

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