The other week a few members from my wine meetup group and I went to Uncorked in Neenah for their blind red wine tasting. The blind portion consisted of 7 wines, and Keith shared 3 of them before the actual blind event started, letting us know what it was that we were tasting. He provided a sheet of details on all 7 of the wines, including aromas, flavors, color.
I came in a little late, so had to rush through the first selection which was a Merlot, and then he gave us a Malbec and Cabernet (Joel Gott 815). (I should have kept the sheet telling me what all the wines were; that would have been so much better for this blog.)
When we had tried and evaluated the 3, Keith covered up all the reds and we went through the blind tasting. (You’d think it would be easy to guess those we had already tasted.) The only easy one was the Australian Shiraz — Jip Jip Rock. Can you guess why? (I’ll tell you at the end of the blog.)
The tasting was so interactive and so much fun because what you believe you know (a Zinfandel and Syrah) when tasting blind can be similar or remind you of something else that you may guess incorrectly.
The 7 wines varietal:
Sangiovese, Malbec, Merlot, Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet, Pinot Noir
There were easy guesses: Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Sangiovese and there were no so easy guesses (the nose really threw me off on a couple). I’m not a sommelier and they are well trained in noticing the little nuances of wines to select each and every one correctly.
In the end, I ended up getting the Malbec and Merlot mixed up (it was the nose — the Malbec when I smelled it in the first three had a very distinctive scent, and at the end of the evening, apparently my senses were fatigued, because everything had that same aroma).
It was fun to talk through what you thought, to evaluate and compare and ultimately to find out if you knew as much as you thought you knew.
I will be trying a blind tasting for my wine meetup group in the near future — perhaps a blind white or a blind Cabernet with price points. Want to join us? Let me know.
(The Australian Shiraz was easy to guess because it was the only wine with a screw cap aka Stelvin closure.) Read more on different wine closures in this thorough article: Wine Closures
