Wine tasting: It was eye-opening'

By By Stan Torgerson / wine columnist
Nov. 5, 2003
A number of wine lovers who attended last week's tasting discovered they knew a great deal less about red wine flavors than they thought they did.
It was a blind tasting of six different reds, shiraz, zinandel, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, chianti and grenache. By a blind tasting we mean the six were each placed in brown paper bags, then secured around the neck with a tight rubber band so the labels could not be seen. We even cut off all the neck labels to prevent giving a clue of any kind.
Then each wine was poured individually and the group was given 10 minutes or so to taste, discuss it among their fellow table members and then make a consensus choice which was duly recorded, table by table.
All six wines were handled the same way. Only myself and Northwood Country Club manager George Constance knew which wines were which. I knew because I picked them. George knew because he opened them.
The six wines were:
Columbia Valley Merlot, Washington State ($16)
Ruffino Chianti, Italy ($24.50)
Rosemount Shiraz, Australia ($12)
Gallo of Sonoma Cabernet, California ($16)
Ravenswood Zinfandel, California ($12.25)
Clarendon Hills Grenache, Australia ($35)
A prize consisting of lovely double cream cheese from France was offered to the winning table. As it turned out, two tables tied for first place. Believe it or not, they each had only two right, but it was good enough to win.
Two other tables picked one correctly and others had none right at all.
It was eye-opening.
The table with those tasters who were supposedly most knowledgeable, collectors and people who serve wine often to their friends and themselves, missed them all. The two men allegedly most expert in the field each had zero correct.
I was trying to make a point, and I did. People who maintain they only like merlot or cabernet or any other varietal wines say that simply because they choose not to try others. They are habit buyers. They sell themselves so they buy the same wines over and over and over.
The same is true of label buyers. They repeatedly buy wines from the same vintner because they are convinced that these are wines made by superior methods and are beyond comparison for the dollar. That's why we included some familiar names in the wines selected for the tasting the Rosemounts, for example, the Ravenswoods and the Columbia Valley.
No one was really familiar with Clarendon Hills, and Gallo of Sonoma is that company's premium wine and bears no relation to Gallo's lesser and cheaper products. As for Ruffino, it is one of the better chiantis, but chianti is not that much in favor at the moment.
All the wines turned out to be very tasty and none of them were disappointing. There was very little use of the dump buckets on each table. Without knowing the price and the winery from which it came, each bottle was enjoyed equally for what it was by our tasters and praised. No one could believe the $12 wines were as competitive with the higher priced selections as they were.
So the message is this: Experiment. Don't be a creature of habit. Try different wines in different price ranges and discover how much fun it is be to be your own critic. There are many, many lovely wines on today's market in the $10 to $20 price range if only you give them a try.
I have a friend who can well afford to buy wines by the case but chooses not to do so. Instead, he will purchase 12 different bottles for a mixed case and then taste them one-by-one in order to compare. He's got it right.
We'll do this again in a couple of months but this time with white wines, the chardonnays, pinot gris, rieslings, sauvignon blancs and two others.
Next tasting
As for the immediate future, our final tasting of the year will be Nov. 20 because Thanksgiving falls on the 27th, the last Thursday of the month, our normal day for tastings. The theme is our annual pre-holiday champagne tasting, and we'll run the range of everyday sparkling wines anyone can afford to several premium French champagnes that are considered among the world's best. The price will be $35 (the same as it has been for several years) and reservations are being accepted now. Call 482-0930 and reserve your place for this premium tasting.