Last week’s “Guess Them” blind tasting was certainly a hard one! Our thanks to everyone who came in and tried to guess the wines in those brown bags. We realized that it would be too hard to pick the actual wines (even though they all had descriptions on them in the store) and therefore requested just the grape involved.
That’s hard enough, even with clues, and I can tell you that I would have had just as hard a time figuring the wines out as anyone else.
Blind tastings are difficult - the fun part is that they get you to actually concentrate on the characteristics of the wine in your glass, how they interplay and whether or not you like them. One can first ask “Is it smelly?” (you could refer to this as the “nose” if you want to)? If so, is it really smelly or just a bit smelly? What are those smells? Do I like them?
Then onto how does it taste (the “palate”)? Is the taste consistent with the smell or does it have different characteristics? Bold flavors or subtle? Fruit, mineral or spice driven and which fruits or spices? Is it a substantial wine with mouth coating characteristics? Does it have big or rough tannins (the pucker you up factor that you might associate with some big Napa Cabs before they soften out for instance). Does the wine change over time, does it have “layers” of flavor or just one note. Etc, etc, etc.
The result can be that you learn some new things that you like or don’t like about certain wines or about wine in general, and can look for the same things, or avoid them, the next time you select a bottle.
In the end who cares if you guessed the wine - hopefully you had fun trying to do so.
Despite the last sentence we promised to give out a prize to the “Winner” of our little competition. Many people came up with 2 of the 5 grapes we served and had good guesses on a third but only one person came up with 3 of the 5 which demonstrates the degree of difficulty in this task.
That would be Fredi Moehl. He identified two of the grapes on his first written try and evidently kept going back to a third grape for more olfactory and gustatory clues (and knowing that Fredi is smart, probably more verbal ones as well). He correctly guessed Tempranillo after crossing out two other choices and his persistence makes him the Grand Pooh Bah of our tasting.
So Fredi, come claim your Wine Journal as a prize and thank you for playing along with the rest of us mere mortals!
WooHoooo! I hear that we have sunshine in store for us this Saturday and Sunday! Yards will dry out, cars will be washed, moods will soar and our cave may break 60 degrees - good times ahead!
Adding to the plethora of bounties, Saturday is our third week of Italian tastings focusing on Northern Italy (and adds a $10 Tasting featuring great wines from all over “the boot”).
If you can’t make it Saturday, or hanker for something domestic, you may want to stop by next Thursday evening to try the wines of C.G. DiArie from the Sierra Foothills. Chaim, the owner and winemaker, will lead us through those (see our weekly wine tastings page for more info).
With Valentine’s Day just a night away we thought we would supply a bit of Amarone in our tasting to go along with the Amore which you have to provide - although please know that we love you all!
We’ll have both $1 and $10 Tastings this Saturday from 2-5pm with the first wrapping up our three week tour through Italy and feature wines from Northern Italy. The $1 tasting will showcase wines from Piemonte, Valpolicella and Veneto while the $10 Tasting will add some of Italy’s stars to the wines in the $1 Tasting including two different 2001 Brunellos from Tuscany which are drinking very nicely for your comparison, the aforementioned Amarone which is the premier wine of Valpolicella, a Barolo from Piemonte and something else to round things out. Cheese, crackers and nibbles for everybody as well.
(a poor generic map but I can’t make the $@*%ing technology work to upload something better)
Northern Italian grapes differ significantly from their Southern and Central counterparts, dominated by varietals that you don’t find down south. It is also an area whose mindset seems to dismiss much of the country below the Po River Delta as a distant relative with problems.
In fact the mountainous, northernmost region of Italy, the Alto Adige or Suditrol) leading into the Dolomites and Alps considers itself as much Austrian as Italian - the region was annexed from Austria in only 1919. Italy truly is a country cobbled together with large regional differences throughout its expanse.
The Po River, which roughly marks the edge of Northern Italy is that country’s longest, extending about 400 miles from the French border to the Adriatic Sea and it’s Delta is home to about one third of Italy’s population. Despite it being the industrial heart of Italy (think Milan or Turin) there is a wide selection of grapes cultivated showing that even the north hasn’t strayed too far from it’s agricultural roots dominant only a few generations ago.
Thank goodness, for where would the world be without those young, mouth ripping Barolos? Hmm, those Italians must have a lot of patience as they outwait wines like that, consuming them decades after release.
Not us - we’ll slaughter a couple of bottles before their prime in the name of vinological education!
See you Saturday.
C.G. DiArie Tasting
On a different note, and continent than we’re currently exploring in our tastings, there is an upcoming tasting just scheduled that I wanted to let people know about in more detail.
I just finished speaking with Chaim, the owner/winemaker of C.G. DiArie Winery (above), and confirmed that he will be able to come pour his wines for us in just two weeks on Thursday evening 2/18 (5:30-8pm, $1). This will be our first weekday tasting since an Italian winemaker visited us in November and I know that many of you have been asking for another - so here it is. I think it will be one of the more interesting tastings you can attend given Chaim’s background. For information on the winery, Chaim or more visit their website: C.G. Di Arie
We’ve had many of C.G. Di Aries’ wines in the shop over that last few years and think they exemplify the Sierra Foothills (and a good winemaker’s) ability to produce excellent wines. The winery is located near the small town of River Pines, north of Fiddletown, northeast of Plymouth, west of Sacramento, … OK, you get the picture. It is perched at an altitude of about 1,700 feet, was founded in 2000 and comprises 40 acres of vineyards among the overall property and modern winemaking facility.
Chaim was born in Turkey, has a masters degree in Chemical Engineering from the Israel Institute of Technology as well as a Masters and PhD in Food Science from the University of Illinois. He helped develop the cereal Cap’n Crunch in the 60’s, spent decades in the Food and Flavor industries including founding and eventually selling his own successful company
Food Development Corporation - all on the way to his true interest - owning and running a winery!
I’ll let Chaim tell the story, and how it relates to wine, as I only know small parts of it. However, I would like to add that I had a very beloved cat named Capn’ Crunch in the 60’s before he disappeared for good on Long Island after disappearing, and then re-appearing many times before in New Jersey. That cat loved Cap’n Crunch cereal! I’ll be thinking of him.