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In my previous post I talked about blind tasting and why I see it as a valuable tool to improve your palate, knowledge of wine and have a good time in the process. I tend to do a fair bit of blind tasting, either by myself in an international wine bar such as Monvinic, or with friends who are also working/studying in the industry. Last week we met after a three week break to have another late-night session with our usual format: everyone brings a bottle of wine to the tasting with the bottle covered up, or often in a different container altogether. We all pour each other a glass of wine one at a time, analyse the wine and then go round, talk about our analysis and put our cards on the table as to what we think the wine is, where did it come from, which grapes were used and which vintage were the grapes picked in. The below are the results of my analysis/conclusions:

Wine 1: Pale lemon-green wine with a quite low intensity of green apples, green pears, nettles, peach and some vegetal notes. Fresh but not aromatically complex. Lots of acidity on the palate and a little spritz, medium alcohol, a nice intensity and lots of fresh fruit.
Guess: Gruner Veltiner, Austria, Wachau, 2015
Reality: Gruner Veltiner, Austria, Weinviertel, 2015

Conclusion: I’ll take that! This was a bit of a ‘fist-pump’ moment for me as GV has been a wine I’ve always struggle to identify blind in the past. I’ve had so many mis-calls with Gruner Veltliner when I started blind tasting and I finally feel that I can recognise it versus say, a Pinot Grigio or an Albarino. A nice wine and a good way to start the tasting. Other guesses from around the table included Albarino, Pinot Grigio and Torrontes.

Wine 2: A pale lemon-green wine with simple aromas of green apple, green pear, light white flowers, peach and slate. Young and fresh but nothing really going on here. Nice level of acidity, medium everything else.
Guess: Pinot Grigio, Italy, Veneto, 2015
Reality: Sauvignon Blanc, France, Pouilly-Fume, 2015

Conclusion: This was our ‘dud’ bottle – the person who brought it was also very confused as apparently it had been singing when he opened it 2 hours prior at home! Other guesses included Pinot Grigio and Aligote, such was the neutrality of the wine. Not much to read into here, sadly.

Wine 3: The wine has a medium lemon colour and nice aromas of ripe lemon, peach, apricot, green apple and some obvious yeasty notes. There’s a little florality here and some toasted oak character as well. A taste of bitter phenolics on the finish.
Guess: Viura, Rioja, Spain, 2014
Reality: Godello, Valdeorras, Spain, 2011

Conclusion: Swing and a miss; I missed this wine on two counts. One was the oak character and bitter phenolics; there was neither, it is apparently a signature of the grape when grown on particularly slatey soils. The other was misreading the acidity which would have led me away from an oak-aged Viura as it was just too high. Not a million miles away, though. Other guesses included Xarello from Penedes, Chardonnay from around the world and Albarino from Spain.

Wine 4: Medium, ruby coloured wine with a medium- intensity of red berry fruits, some stalky , tobacco leaf and slight touches of pepper and toast. The wine is dry with very light, soft tannins, medium+ acidity and medium+ alcohol. Quite simple
Guess: Gamay, Cru Beaujolais, France, 2014
Reality: Grenache, Spain, Priorat, 2014

Conclusion: Terrible tasting from myself here. Missed the alcohol, flavour profile and more or less everything associated with Grenache from Priorat. Nodding off a little. Other guesses included Grenache from Montsant, Syrah from the Southern Rhone and Merlot from somewhere warm.

Wine 5: The wine had a dark, purple colour with a medium+ intensity of ripe dark fruits, burnt rubber, smoke, pepper, leather, licorice and spice. Powerful, earthy and full of alcohol, glycerol and spice. This week we were doing mono-varietal but this was mentioned to be a dual-variety.
Guess: Carignan/Grenache blend from Spain, Priorat, 2011
Reality: Carignan/Grenache blend from Spain, Priorat, 2011

Conclusion: After two bad misses, nice to completely nail a wine. Priorat smells an awful lot like Priorat, which is something that confused me about the preceding wine. The huge levels of alcohol, smoky character and purple colour led me to a traditional style of wine produced with a majority of Carignan – it’s nice to be right! Other guesses included Bordeaux blends, Syrah from the Northern Rhone and Merlot.

A nice evening with lots of lessons learnt. A shame about the dud bottle but I’ll take 2/4 as a relatively successful tasting. Next one will be the 1st September when hopefully the weather has cooled off just a touch, and the week after I’ll be recommencing my weekly tastings at Monvinic. Onwards and upwards!