Hmm Cabernet or Malbec Watson?
Now if I could pick one talent to have (and comic book superpowers were off the table) it would be a toss-up between being able to play the guitar like a rock god, speaking several languages fluently or being a supertaster a la Robert Parker. Who, as an aside, claims that he can remember every wine he has ever tasted! One thing I’ve learned is that don’t improve on anything by sitting around, so I was really happy that I had a chance to attend one of the regular wine classes that the Frederick Wine House co-hosts. It was titled ‘Wine Detectives- The Art of Identifying Wine Blind.’
Not surprisingly it turned out to be a great evening with good company and a wonderful wine exercise. The host, Shawn Clopper, from Monument Fine Wines led about 80 of us through a tasting of eight different bottles of wine. He helped us break down the tasting process starting with appearance (clarity, color, brightness and viscosity) and then the smells and then finally tasting the wine. He gave everyone a wonderful handout with the categories and subcategories of flavors. Breaking it down into a standardized methodology allows you to isolate the variables with the goal of helping you to identify the wine. In this case we were going for the varietal. After we went through all eight wines and made our notes the winemaker’s tasting notes were provided to us. It was fascinating to see how divergent our notes were from the winemakers’. After that came the great reveal and then everyone made a bee line for their favorites and finished off all of the leftover wine. I could not believe how fast two hours went by. I am embarrassed to say that I went 1 for 8 while Mrs. F went 2 for 8. Of course there is only one solution for this situation practice! Reportedly one of the participants got 6/8
Lastly I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the nice hors d’oeuvres that were served with the tasting and that the evening started off very nicely with a vintage prosecco. An excellent way to spend an evening. I will post here when they announce the next class.