blind tasting advice

"Tom" wrote in news:1162349830.224047.3220 @f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Relax. Like any test think carefully and go with your gut. You may be wrong but like on any test one must risk wrong to reach right. Our first impressions are more often right than our long deliberated analyses.

Go for the zen approach to tasting, be the wine.

There are no tricks. You taste, and respond according to your knowledge, experience, and tastes. You gain knowledge and experience - and develop your tastes - by tasting. So simply enjoy, and don;t sweat trying to get it right.

Peek at the label! ;-)

Tom, As others have said, there is no trick. What there are are various factors that you consider in trying to figure out what is in the glass:

1. appearance -- what is the color? is it browning at the edge?
2. taste/aroma -- what wines does it remind you of? what is the acidity level like? how tannic is it?
3. mouthfeel -- how full bodied is it? how alcoholic is it?

When you have amassed all your impressions, you then try to piece them together like a puzzle? How old? Old World vs. New World? Modern vs. Traditional? Hot climate vs. cool climate?

Even very experienced tasters have great trouble getting it totally right without prompting or clues. It's a bit of a parlor game, really, and the point is to have fun. Just tonight, I mistook a CA Pinot Noir for a French Syrah... go figger!

Mark Lipton

And bottle shape or colour.

pk

. Just tonight, I mistook a CA Pinot Noir

and at our last blind tasting I mixed up a cabernet with a Grenache.......and that's after 27 years of blind tastings

so go and enjoy yourself, but for one tip I would offer, is that first impressions do count,

JT

I would suggest Michael Broadbent's pocket guide to Wine Tasting from Simon and Schuster. This little pocket book has been around a long time in several editions, and it is inexpensive. It has several good color illustrations to help in evaluation of a wine's color. There is of course no need to make a fuss about wine tasting. Many are content to just enjoy it. Especially for people new to wine, it is helpful to jot down names of wine you like or dislike to aid in purchase of wines to try in the future.

"Tom" wrote in news:1162349830.224047.3220 @f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Tom,

if you think a blind tasting purpose is to show how many wines you guess, then you are going to be severely dissatisfied for a long time.

relax and ask yourself: what does this tastes like? and then compare your prediction with the actual wine. And try to learn in the process. Learning and tasting without prejudices is what blind tastings are for.

S.

You cannot be serious. What is it you're trying to prove? Why not actually DRINK some wine, with a meal, as the product is intended to be used?

Has it ever occurred to you that many winemakers intend for their wines to tasted in comparative tastings?

Tom,

You know full well that "wine tasting" is just flat wrong! NOT.

Good comments so far, on just relaxing, enjoying and learning all that you can. Even if there is a "grade," don't worry about it, unless the prize is a '70 Latour, or something just as good.

Andrea Immer (now Robinson) has done a few books on wines and tasting. One of the best bits of advice, that she's offered in this area, is to break wines first into Old World/New World. Compare/contrast the differences in how most major varietals are handled/produced/grown in those two usually distinctly different locales. Next, go for the varietal - Cab S, Merlot, Zin, etc. If you are serious about the "contest," then maybe do a few tastings at home, beforehand. Do you know the general makeup, i.e. whites, reds, Old World, etc .? Also, if your facilitator is like I am, he/she might well though in a few curves, i.e. New World Chard, done in a decidedly Old World style, or a Zin, that thinks it's a Cab S. That sort of trickery. OTOH, if they play it straight, then one can usually do a fair job, with some thought and by elimination. You know, tasting a red, and ruling out the varietals, that you know it is NOT. In these sorts of things, I usually do a very good job. However, at a recent tasting, the facilitator chose wines with divergent styles, and blew us all away. I can normally nail 90% and may even get, say Rutherford within Napa, but this time we all fell far short - big buttery SBs, austere Chards, a Merlot that should have been a Cab Franc, that sort of stuff, and we all missed 90% of the danged wines!!!! It happens, even if one is in top form and very analytical.

Most of all, have fun and take notes on your impressions of each wine, then try and correlate your thoughts with the actual wines.

Hunt

Sibeer,

Didn't see your post, before I made mine. Sage advice. Eliminate first, then define hemisphere, then work down from there.

Hunt

First, thanks to all for the advice. I actually ended up opening/pouring the wines this week, so they weren't blind to me. for others searching threads later I would say the best advice seemed to be go with your first instact...it seems that many people tonight had the correct varietal then second guessed and changed it.

as for the seriousness of it, it is for fun, but the person who guesses the most correct varietals gets to pick any bottle from the store's cellar to have in a later tasting.

And I do keep a record of all the wines I have. One of the benefits I see in tastings is that i do not have the $$ to buy full bottles of everything I would want to try, so i keep notes on what I like and don't like and enter them into an excel file (i also have a terrible memory and need to keep records). Seeing that I have only legally been allowed to drink wine for a few months i think i'm on a good start

again, thanks to all for the advice

-Tomw

Experience'll only come with time, and a lot of tastings. Don't worry too much about it, and don't feel too intimidated. Main thing - simply relax and enjoy the wine as you taste it. Don't be afraid to throw an opinion out - nobody's expecting you to pick a blend or the terroir correctly. As far as getting things wrong - you won't be the only one who does it, and the entire group's mistakes usually do make for a good laugh at the end of it all.

Salil

As others have stated, main thing is to learn and have fun. And accept you'l be wrong, often! I think advice re eliminating and narrowing is very valid. And getting clear the elements you expect from a particular variety in your head can help. Sure there are Pinot Noirs that are big, burly, blackfruited

- but they are the minority.

Tom wrote:

No. If they do, they're morons and traitors to their craft. I buy wine that tastes godd in the context of a meal. Full stop.

No. If they do, they're morons and traitors to their craft. I buy wine that tastes good in the context of a meal. Full stop.

TomW,

Thanks for the follow up. Usually a poster will inquire regarding a wine, a pairing, etc. and never be heard from again. Most of us here have no idea if we helped, or hurt their cause.

I commend you on the record keeping. I always think that I can recall my impressions from all of the wines, but then, when I sit at the keyboard the next day, a good 25% are lost, and gone forever. To help me, I'm even picking up a tiny Olympus micro-recorder, as so many tastings (food AND wine) do not offer a space to place even a small tablet on. I'm usually trying to juggle my plate of crackers and my tasting glass, and even with a "clippie" to hold the two together, writing on a pad is often impossible. Now, if I can get a blue- tooth mic for the recorder, and not pour my wine into it...

Seems that you had the fun, and that's what it is all about.

Hunt