FREE online courses on Learn to Taste Wine - Learning to Taste Blind

 

Frequently tasting wines "blind," judging comparatively without knowing what's in the glasses until you've made your notes and announced your conclusions is a better way.

 

Nothing concentrates the wine taster's attention quite as intensely as having someone waiting to rib you mercilessly if you can't tell a Chardonnay from a Chenin Blanc.

 

Gaze under such circumstances at two near-identical glasses of golden Chardonnay, and it won't take long to discern the nuances of gold, bronze and brass, apples, chestnuts, figs and yes, even coconut in the wine.

 

Postgraduate Blind Tasting

 

Do you think it's easy to tell red wine from white?

 

Try doing it blindfolded sometime.

 

Some white wine drinkers who rarely touch red are convinced that the differences between the types are deep and fundamental.

 

Consider the stereotypes: White wine is light, fruity and refreshing, an anonymous tipple for casual sipping. Red wine is strong, complicated and (although fine for connoisseurs, perhaps) hard to get to know.

 

Experimenting

 

Do try this experiment all you need is someone to pour the wine. It doesn't matter if you see what's in the glass. It's a bit more complicated to compare red and white without looking, as a real (if temporary) loss of vision is required

 

Try, two white and two red wines for the test.

 

Like, two California wines - a red 1981 Inglenook Vineyards Napa Valley Petite Sirah and a white 1985 Gundlach Bundschu Sonoma County (Rhinefarm Vineyards) Gewurztraminer.

 

To mix things up, add a white 1985 Collavini Grave del Friuli Pinot Grigio from Italy and a red 1983 Premiat Dealul Mare Cabernet Sauvignon from Romania.

 

The results?

 

Differences do exist, but they're more subtle than you might expect. You will find it fairly easy to tell the red from the white, but it would have been much more challenging without the benefit of quite a few years' tasting experience.

 

Some of the results that you will get:

 

Glass No. 1 (the Petite Sirah) was easy. Scents of green olives and black pepper and the mouth-filling, fruity and acidic flavor gave away the grape variety in this gutsy, full-flavored wine, the best wine of the four at a bargain price.

 

Dry acidity and a hint of oak were the tell-tale signs that Glass No. 3 (the Romanian Cabernet) held the other red wine.

 

Glass No. 2 It could have passed for an inexpensive Rhine wine with a soft, faintly sweet taste. Its musky aroma, reminiscent of overripe canteloupe, wouldn't have been surprising in a Gewurztraminer, but the wine proved to be the Pinot Grigio.

 

A citrus quality with a faintly bitter aftertaste made clear that Glass No. 4 was white, but, misled by the Italian wine's muskiness, I failed to recognize this wine as "Gewurz;" it lacked the exuberantly spicy quality typical of this flavorful grape in Europe.