Do you really think you'd be able to tell them apart?
On a recent Tuesday evening I entered the Royal
Automobile Society's gracious headquarters on Sydney's Macquarie Street and
handed over $40 to drink 54 bottles of wine. Rather, to taste and
compare 54 different Australian shiraz viognier blends.
This faddish purple-red blend is a wine style from the northern Rhone region of France (under the appellation Côte Rotie) and is mostly shiraz with around 5% of viognier. Yes, a dash of white wine in a red wine. You have to wonder if it was invented by accident or alcoholic misadventure, but, amazingly, it works.
Shiraz viogniers are having their fashion moment around the world right now, helped by an overly-influential wine critic from the US, Robert Parker. I like to think Australians have the confidence to judge for themselves if they like a certain wine style, basing their tastes on more important factors like, say, alcohol content. And these styles are extremely alcoholic.
But what do they taste like? Like a silky shiraz. There's a burr of soft tannins - subdued from the addition of the white wine - and, sometimes, a hint of apricot, as if they were peeking out from between red velvet curtains.
This wine tasting was organised by the passionate folks at Divine magazine and the entry price bought three hours of self-serve pours (until the bottles ran out), as well as your fill of crackers and water. The bottles - encased in brown paper bags - were divided between a long table marked '$20 and over' and one lonely table of 16 bottles of 'under $20'. Most people, not surprisingly, gravitated around the expensive examples of the evening's liquid assets.
Spittoons were provided for those who prefer to spit rather than swallow and it didn't take long before the snowy white tablecloths were spattered with pink. Or for me to resolve to only eat the crackers set well away from the swill bucket.
The tasting crowd of around four dozen was mostly blokes in their late thirties to fifties, talking earnestly about mouth feel and "burnt" flavours, with a few professional-looking couples in suits. About an hour into the tasting a trio of thirtysomething girls entered the men's zone and immediately caused a collective preening and straightening of backs. As the tastings proceeded and inhibitions lowered a circle formed around the new arrivals, thereby establishing wine tastings as a good place to meet men. Mature men, that is. Presumably with good wine collections.
But back to the wine. The fun of a blind tasting is to nominate your favourites before receiving a list identifying just what it was we were tasting. We didn't do too well: neither I nor my partner in wine crime managed to recognise the best (i.e.: more expensive) ones. I also didn't recognise a favourite (2004 Castagna Genesis, $60) and didn't love the 2005 Clonakilla - a pre-eminent Australian example of the style which will set you back $70.
The ones I loved were revealed to be the musky 2004 Eden Hall Yakka ($29) with its tastes of violets and mint and incredibly intense perfume, and the savoury 2003 Métier Manytrees Vineyard ($32) which tasted of liquid pepperoni. The Mitchelton Parish ($29) also got my vote for its opulent velvety fruit, as did the hints of vanilla in the 2003 Meerea Park Terracotta ($55).
I guess the high-end examples didn't push themselves forward enough; such is the quandary of a wine tasting. In the end the walloping ones (high alcohol, upfront flavour) overpower the beleaguered palate and they win the day, to the detriment of the quieter, subtler (dare I say, more refined?) candidates.
I love the conviviality of wine tastings... pitting one's opinions against your friends, seeing who can come up with the purplest prose and the resulting arguments which ensue. But the whole process of a wine tasting is a wee bit artificial; while it's a great opportunity to sample so many different bottles, one's enjoyment and judgement of wine is seriously compromised without food to accompany it. Sip wine, take a mouthful of food, add a little bit of conversation and laughter then repeat: that's the recipe for a sweet life.
It was still a fun night, despite the ringing headache the next day. Seems those dry crackers don't soak up much of the alcohol at all.
Over to you: do you frequent wine tastings? How useful are they in identifying new favourites?
This post originally appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.
This faddish purple-red blend is a wine style from the northern Rhone region of France (under the appellation Côte Rotie) and is mostly shiraz with around 5% of viognier. Yes, a dash of white wine in a red wine. You have to wonder if it was invented by accident or alcoholic misadventure, but, amazingly, it works.
Shiraz viogniers are having their fashion moment around the world right now, helped by an overly-influential wine critic from the US, Robert Parker. I like to think Australians have the confidence to judge for themselves if they like a certain wine style, basing their tastes on more important factors like, say, alcohol content. And these styles are extremely alcoholic.
But what do they taste like? Like a silky shiraz. There's a burr of soft tannins - subdued from the addition of the white wine - and, sometimes, a hint of apricot, as if they were peeking out from between red velvet curtains.
This wine tasting was organised by the passionate folks at Divine magazine and the entry price bought three hours of self-serve pours (until the bottles ran out), as well as your fill of crackers and water. The bottles - encased in brown paper bags - were divided between a long table marked '$20 and over' and one lonely table of 16 bottles of 'under $20'. Most people, not surprisingly, gravitated around the expensive examples of the evening's liquid assets.
Spittoons were provided for those who prefer to spit rather than swallow and it didn't take long before the snowy white tablecloths were spattered with pink. Or for me to resolve to only eat the crackers set well away from the swill bucket.
The tasting crowd of around four dozen was mostly blokes in their late thirties to fifties, talking earnestly about mouth feel and "burnt" flavours, with a few professional-looking couples in suits. About an hour into the tasting a trio of thirtysomething girls entered the men's zone and immediately caused a collective preening and straightening of backs. As the tastings proceeded and inhibitions lowered a circle formed around the new arrivals, thereby establishing wine tastings as a good place to meet men. Mature men, that is. Presumably with good wine collections.
But back to the wine. The fun of a blind tasting is to nominate your favourites before receiving a list identifying just what it was we were tasting. We didn't do too well: neither I nor my partner in wine crime managed to recognise the best (i.e.: more expensive) ones. I also didn't recognise a favourite (2004 Castagna Genesis, $60) and didn't love the 2005 Clonakilla - a pre-eminent Australian example of the style which will set you back $70.
The ones I loved were revealed to be the musky 2004 Eden Hall Yakka ($29) with its tastes of violets and mint and incredibly intense perfume, and the savoury 2003 Métier Manytrees Vineyard ($32) which tasted of liquid pepperoni. The Mitchelton Parish ($29) also got my vote for its opulent velvety fruit, as did the hints of vanilla in the 2003 Meerea Park Terracotta ($55).
I guess the high-end examples didn't push themselves forward enough; such is the quandary of a wine tasting. In the end the walloping ones (high alcohol, upfront flavour) overpower the beleaguered palate and they win the day, to the detriment of the quieter, subtler (dare I say, more refined?) candidates.
I love the conviviality of wine tastings... pitting one's opinions against your friends, seeing who can come up with the purplest prose and the resulting arguments which ensue. But the whole process of a wine tasting is a wee bit artificial; while it's a great opportunity to sample so many different bottles, one's enjoyment and judgement of wine is seriously compromised without food to accompany it. Sip wine, take a mouthful of food, add a little bit of conversation and laughter then repeat: that's the recipe for a sweet life.
It was still a fun night, despite the ringing headache the next day. Seems those dry crackers don't soak up much of the alcohol at all.
Over to you: do you frequent wine tastings? How useful are they in identifying new favourites?
This post originally appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.
No comments:
Post a Comment