30/10/2012 15:30 Juhu, Bombay
Heavily traffic jam as always in our big cities like Bombay, India. Somehow I managed to reach juhu on time from new Bombay wow!! It self a winning experience for someone who lives in New Bombay after struggling a bit to locate "melting pot" in less than five minutes I was happily strolling melting pot between all
At my first glance..more than hundreds of bottles, nicely covered and kept aside. All ready at the wine counter. Well Placed table among highly professionals like Exporters, Proprietors, wine and spirits gurus, winery like sula's representative, Nine hills, fratelli.
"You like wine. you drink a lot of wine and are pretty comfortable describing it....that's right"
Why Blind Tasting ? the best ways to formulate an unbiased opinion about the wine. The best way to make an honest assessment is to know nothing at all.They give it a couple of sniffs, a couple of swirls and most importantly a couple of sips. They tell you exactly what they are drinking, they even tell you what vintage it was from, perhaps even the producer it seems incredible and most amazing part of it.Out of so many wine out there, both good and bad, they tell you what this particular wine is.
Of course this isn’t the first time that wine critics have been caught out trying to identify a wine in a blind tasting. For my own part, I find trying to identify the wine in a blind tasting the most humbling and certainly a terrifying experience any professional wine journalist can put themselves through, most of you must agree with me.
Any knowledge that you have about a wine can cloud your judgement or influence your assessment. Perhaps you don’t like Merlot? Any Merlot you taste will already have one strike against it before it even hits your lips. Maybe the wine was ultra-expensive. You may be willing to give that wine a better report card simply because it cost you an arm and a leg. These factors and many more can sway your opinion, subconsciously or otherwise. The best way to make an honest assessment is to know nothing at all.
Does the color of wine affect how we taste? You bet !
I tend to believe that blind tasting is the only “moment of truce” to decide weather you like the wine or not. I completely agree with the list of factors which influence the perceived taste of wine – the mood, the company, the information on the label, the temperature and many other factors. Considering the number of unknowns which need to be resolved in the process of blind wine tasting, it is not surprising that such thing as adding coloring to the white wine, as totally unexpected, will influence the decision quite a bit. Great article!
There is another reason to taste blind. Tasting a wine blind forces the taster to concentrate on every tiny aspect of the wine. Since he or she may be struggling to pinpoint the style or origin of the wine they will try even harder to identify aromas, flavors or styles. Most wine professionals taste in either a single-blind (where you may know a piece of information such as the country of origin or grape varietal) or double-blind fashion. Double-blind means that the taster knows absolutely nothing about the wine before it is poured. This is a very good tool to use in honing your tasting skills.
The point is identifying the provenance, vintage and vine variety of a wine blind is fiendishly difficult. Anyone who tells you otherwise should immediately be challenged. Perversely I have found the more one knows the more confused one becomes. The pinot that tastes and smells of a village in Burgundy…wait a minute could it be from the north Island in New Zealand? Etc.
Take a sip of the wine. Roll it around the inside of your mouth so that it coats all parts of your tongue. Each part of the tongue identifies different sensations so it is important to hit them all. Can you taste any residual sugar? Is the wine high in acidity or tannins? Is it simple or complex? Is it of a low or high quality? These and many other questions can be answered with the palette.
Tell your guests not to wear perfumes or smoke. Aroma gives the best hints in blind wine tasting.
What was interesting about the Gates experiment was how the experts assembled were writing down notes associated with red wine even though the wine was white. In other words their whole experience of the taste of the wine was influenced by its color. I wonder how much our mood; the company we are in, the temperature, glassware and so on affect our taste. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on this but would welcome your comments and thoughts.
Are you a good shopper – guess the price. A variation of Name the Country game. Here you pass out a wine tasting guide listing all the purchase prices and ask the guests to map the bottle to the value. I’ll be sure to let you know how I get on.
In my short experience, I think the things we taste in wine are extremely subjective. A friend wanted to know how to taste wine — I opened a bottle, gave him a sample and asked him to describe it. Then I tasted it and gave him a different description at which point he retried the wine and agreed with me. Then I told him that I had made up my description, it was all false. I believe this is why some vintners will go to great lengths to describe the wine before you taste it ( which I prefer them no to do), so you are primed to those tastes. Enjoyed the article and thank you.
Making a correct assessment of a glass of wine is never easy. The
masters may make it look like a piece of wine-soaked cake, but they have
been doing it for years and have a well of experience to rely upon.
We stopped at winery well-known for exceptional wines but found we couldn’t take more than a sip out of every wine attempted – first, they used an especially strong smelling cleaner in the dishwashers (smelled like dirty sox) installed under the counters, which blasted the steam out non-stop. To further that experience, the cleaner left a residual on the glassware – tasted detergent more than wine. We mentioned the problem and they agreed it was a problem but the owners refused to address the issue. Bet if they considered the dollar value of their daily sales loss they might reconsider.
Agreed! Blind tasting is intimidating and difficult. I have been trying to remember markers for each grape variety that I taste non- blind just to help me with my blind tastings. Good luck!
Heavily traffic jam as always in our big cities like Bombay, India. Somehow I managed to reach juhu on time from new Bombay wow!! It self a winning experience for someone who lives in New Bombay after struggling a bit to locate "melting pot" in less than five minutes I was happily strolling melting pot between all
At my first glance..more than hundreds of bottles, nicely covered and kept aside. All ready at the wine counter. Well Placed table among highly professionals like Exporters, Proprietors, wine and spirits gurus, winery like sula's representative, Nine hills, fratelli.
"You like wine. you drink a lot of wine and are pretty comfortable describing it....that's right"
Why Blind Tasting ? the best ways to formulate an unbiased opinion about the wine. The best way to make an honest assessment is to know nothing at all.They give it a couple of sniffs, a couple of swirls and most importantly a couple of sips. They tell you exactly what they are drinking, they even tell you what vintage it was from, perhaps even the producer it seems incredible and most amazing part of it.Out of so many wine out there, both good and bad, they tell you what this particular wine is.
Of course this isn’t the first time that wine critics have been caught out trying to identify a wine in a blind tasting. For my own part, I find trying to identify the wine in a blind tasting the most humbling and certainly a terrifying experience any professional wine journalist can put themselves through, most of you must agree with me.
Any knowledge that you have about a wine can cloud your judgement or influence your assessment. Perhaps you don’t like Merlot? Any Merlot you taste will already have one strike against it before it even hits your lips. Maybe the wine was ultra-expensive. You may be willing to give that wine a better report card simply because it cost you an arm and a leg. These factors and many more can sway your opinion, subconsciously or otherwise. The best way to make an honest assessment is to know nothing at all.
Does the color of wine affect how we taste? You bet !
I tend to believe that blind tasting is the only “moment of truce” to decide weather you like the wine or not. I completely agree with the list of factors which influence the perceived taste of wine – the mood, the company, the information on the label, the temperature and many other factors. Considering the number of unknowns which need to be resolved in the process of blind wine tasting, it is not surprising that such thing as adding coloring to the white wine, as totally unexpected, will influence the decision quite a bit. Great article!
There is another reason to taste blind. Tasting a wine blind forces the taster to concentrate on every tiny aspect of the wine. Since he or she may be struggling to pinpoint the style or origin of the wine they will try even harder to identify aromas, flavors or styles. Most wine professionals taste in either a single-blind (where you may know a piece of information such as the country of origin or grape varietal) or double-blind fashion. Double-blind means that the taster knows absolutely nothing about the wine before it is poured. This is a very good tool to use in honing your tasting skills.
The point is identifying the provenance, vintage and vine variety of a wine blind is fiendishly difficult. Anyone who tells you otherwise should immediately be challenged. Perversely I have found the more one knows the more confused one becomes. The pinot that tastes and smells of a village in Burgundy…wait a minute could it be from the north Island in New Zealand? Etc.
Take a sip of the wine. Roll it around the inside of your mouth so that it coats all parts of your tongue. Each part of the tongue identifies different sensations so it is important to hit them all. Can you taste any residual sugar? Is the wine high in acidity or tannins? Is it simple or complex? Is it of a low or high quality? These and many other questions can be answered with the palette.
What was interesting about the Gates experiment was how the experts assembled were writing down notes associated with red wine even though the wine was white. In other words their whole experience of the taste of the wine was influenced by its color. I wonder how much our mood; the company we are in, the temperature, glassware and so on affect our taste. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on this but would welcome your comments and thoughts.
Are you a good shopper – guess the price. A variation of Name the Country game. Here you pass out a wine tasting guide listing all the purchase prices and ask the guests to map the bottle to the value. I’ll be sure to let you know how I get on.
In my short experience, I think the things we taste in wine are extremely subjective. A friend wanted to know how to taste wine — I opened a bottle, gave him a sample and asked him to describe it. Then I tasted it and gave him a different description at which point he retried the wine and agreed with me. Then I told him that I had made up my description, it was all false. I believe this is why some vintners will go to great lengths to describe the wine before you taste it ( which I prefer them no to do), so you are primed to those tastes. Enjoyed the article and thank you.
We stopped at winery well-known for exceptional wines but found we couldn’t take more than a sip out of every wine attempted – first, they used an especially strong smelling cleaner in the dishwashers (smelled like dirty sox) installed under the counters, which blasted the steam out non-stop. To further that experience, the cleaner left a residual on the glassware – tasted detergent more than wine. We mentioned the problem and they agreed it was a problem but the owners refused to address the issue. Bet if they considered the dollar value of their daily sales loss they might reconsider.
Agreed! Blind tasting is intimidating and difficult. I have been trying to remember markers for each grape variety that I taste non- blind just to help me with my blind tastings. Good luck!
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