I love a great glass of wine, but I'll be the first to admit I don't know a lot about the subtleties of wine tasting.
I've been to countless wine tastings. I've biked through the Niagara on the Lake wine country sampling Merlots and I've sampled vintages in both Napa Valley and France.
I have tried to smell that hint of flint, bouquet of rose petals, and the after note of pencil lead to no avail. I feel like a total dork at a wine tasting. I should be able to get all the nuances of a wine, I write cookbooks for heaven's sake. I appreciate, marvel at it and bow down to the aficionados who can tell a 1998 Merlot from a 1999. Me? I'm happy that I knew it was a red. Maybe I'm just too impatient or too eager to have the flavour hit my palate and then my brain. But anytime I hear wine tasting I usually head for the hills.
Which is why I was intimidated when the people at Wine Australia invited me to a wine tasting event. I mustered up some foodie fortitude and accepted the offer only to renege in the end when my summer holidays changed and I had to go up to Muskoka the week of the event.
I did the professional thing and emailed to tell them I wouldn't be able to attend and why so imagine my surprise and delight when five bottles of Australian wine were hand delivered to my house for a sampling up north. I packed my cache of booze along with an array of cheese, fruit, and proteins to accompany the tasting and headed up Highway 400 to cottage country.
Maybe it was the fact that the sixteen people who sampled the fabulous wines were sitting on my friend's dock on Lake Muskoka on a Saturday afternoon in August when it wasn't raining. Or maybe it was the assortment of food that accompanied the wines, or maybe it was the fact that even a tiny sample of five different wines can get you slightly plastered. Whatever the reason it was an amazing party.
Armed with some great tips from the Australian wine people my guests tasted the wine blind. They suggested that preconceived notions like price and the label can influence your palate. I dutifully wrapped each bottle in a tea towel and poured about 1 oz per person. The standard taste is 1 ½ oz. per person and at a tasting one bottle will usually serve ten people, but I squeaked it through for my sixteen guests.
I asked everyone to look at the wine first to see the colour, give it a whiff to experience the aroma and then sip. What did you taste? Did you like it? Then I passed around a food that I had paired with the each wine so we could experience how a food can change the flavour of the wine.
The rule of thumb is the lighter the wine the lighter the food. So whites go with milder flavours and reds go with stronger flavours.
I asked people to write down their comments. Personally I don't care if a wine starts off soft and finishes smooth with a hint of mushrooms. I don't really care if it has a heady nose and a strong body; characteristics I may look for in the opposite sex, but in my wine I'm all about the look, aroma, sip, savour, and swallow technique. I've never claimed to be a wine expert and most of my tasters weren't either.
Their comments ranged from:
Apricot nose with a mild acidity Pleasing nose and lingering finish Great wine for drinking in the hot tub I'm so drunk Yummy
Once we had finished sampling I took a poll on who liked what and then a showing of hands for the rankings. Turned out that one of the whites, McWilliam's Hanwood Estate 2007 Chardonnay which was only $13.95 got great reviews from my crowd of both wine and beer drinkers. But the hands down favourite was a red, Mitolo 2007 Jester Cabernet that sells for $21.95.
The bottom line for a do-it-yourself wine tasting is there isn't any right or wrong answers. If they like it, great, if you don't like it that's okay too.
The whole afternoon was just a fabulous way to get a group of friends together to laugh, drink wine, eat some nibbles, laugh some more and enjoy each other's company. It was such a hit that I'm going to have another rookie wine tasting party in the fall.
Here are the Australian wines we tasted. There wasn't a dud in the group:
Yalumba 2007 Shiraz Viognier $15.95
Hanwood 2007 Chardonnay $13.95
Jacob's Creek Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir $13.95
Mitolo 2007 Jester Cabernet $21.95
WolfBlass 2008 Dry Riesling $14.95
I've been to countless wine tastings. I've biked through the Niagara on the Lake wine country sampling Merlots and I've sampled vintages in both Napa Valley and France.
I have tried to smell that hint of flint, bouquet of rose petals, and the after note of pencil lead to no avail. I feel like a total dork at a wine tasting. I should be able to get all the nuances of a wine, I write cookbooks for heaven's sake. I appreciate, marvel at it and bow down to the aficionados who can tell a 1998 Merlot from a 1999. Me? I'm happy that I knew it was a red. Maybe I'm just too impatient or too eager to have the flavour hit my palate and then my brain. But anytime I hear wine tasting I usually head for the hills.
Which is why I was intimidated when the people at Wine Australia invited me to a wine tasting event. I mustered up some foodie fortitude and accepted the offer only to renege in the end when my summer holidays changed and I had to go up to Muskoka the week of the event.
I did the professional thing and emailed to tell them I wouldn't be able to attend and why so imagine my surprise and delight when five bottles of Australian wine were hand delivered to my house for a sampling up north. I packed my cache of booze along with an array of cheese, fruit, and proteins to accompany the tasting and headed up Highway 400 to cottage country.
Maybe it was the fact that the sixteen people who sampled the fabulous wines were sitting on my friend's dock on Lake Muskoka on a Saturday afternoon in August when it wasn't raining. Or maybe it was the assortment of food that accompanied the wines, or maybe it was the fact that even a tiny sample of five different wines can get you slightly plastered. Whatever the reason it was an amazing party.
Armed with some great tips from the Australian wine people my guests tasted the wine blind. They suggested that preconceived notions like price and the label can influence your palate. I dutifully wrapped each bottle in a tea towel and poured about 1 oz per person. The standard taste is 1 ½ oz. per person and at a tasting one bottle will usually serve ten people, but I squeaked it through for my sixteen guests.
I asked everyone to look at the wine first to see the colour, give it a whiff to experience the aroma and then sip. What did you taste? Did you like it? Then I passed around a food that I had paired with the each wine so we could experience how a food can change the flavour of the wine.
The rule of thumb is the lighter the wine the lighter the food. So whites go with milder flavours and reds go with stronger flavours.
I asked people to write down their comments. Personally I don't care if a wine starts off soft and finishes smooth with a hint of mushrooms. I don't really care if it has a heady nose and a strong body; characteristics I may look for in the opposite sex, but in my wine I'm all about the look, aroma, sip, savour, and swallow technique. I've never claimed to be a wine expert and most of my tasters weren't either.
Their comments ranged from:
Once we had finished sampling I took a poll on who liked what and then a showing of hands for the rankings. Turned out that one of the whites, McWilliam's Hanwood Estate 2007 Chardonnay which was only $13.95 got great reviews from my crowd of both wine and beer drinkers. But the hands down favourite was a red, Mitolo 2007 Jester Cabernet that sells for $21.95.
The bottom line for a do-it-yourself wine tasting is there isn't any right or wrong answers. If they like it, great, if you don't like it that's okay too.
The whole afternoon was just a fabulous way to get a group of friends together to laugh, drink wine, eat some nibbles, laugh some more and enjoy each other's company. It was such a hit that I'm going to have another rookie wine tasting party in the fall.
Here are the Australian wines we tasted. There wasn't a dud in the group:
Yalumba 2007 Shiraz Viognier $15.95
Hanwood 2007 Chardonnay $13.95
Jacob's Creek Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir $13.95
Mitolo 2007 Jester Cabernet $21.95
WolfBlass 2008 Dry Riesling $14.95
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