As many of you already know, I got my start in wine when I went to Israel during the 2006 harvest and worked at a winery & in this winery’s vineyards. From there I went to Napa and worked at a large custom crush facility. Before returning to NYC I asked the winemaker whom I most respected and admired how I could speed up the training of my palate. Feeling a well rounded and critical palate was essential for me to succeed in the wine industry, yet recognizing that I was an inexperienced taster, I was seeking the secret to palate training. What I learned was that sadly there is no shortcut to palate training. With a shrug of the shoulder this world class winemaker told me “I’m sorry, there are no shortcuts, you must taste, taste, taste”. And with that, I embarked on a mission to taste as much wine as humanly (and financially) possible.
Which led me to “Meetup”. Meetup is a website that “makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face”. And through Meetup I became a member of a wine tasting group. It has now been a year and a half, and the core of the group is going strong. We have all learned A LOT together, and several of us have since transitioned into the wine industry.
I bring this all up as I recently attended the first of a series of Burgundy tastings. These tastings are with several of the original members of the wine tasting “meetup” club, and have become good friends.
On this night, we tasted Burgundy from Gevrey-Chambertin, a classified Burgundy region. We tasted 7 wines, although 1 of the 7 seemed to have been “off”. They ranged in price from about $50-$350 (although given our industry connections we did not pay full price). The $350 wine was a 1990 Domaine Jean-Claude Fourrier Griotte-Chambertin Grand Cru.
Amazingly, this 18 year old wine had a firm acidity, indicating many more years of life. It was a clear lite orange color, becoming almost peachy-pink at the rim. It had aromas of tart raspberry and mint and tasted of earth, mineral and berry. This gem had a nice long finish.
But my favorite of the night was the 1999 Dominique Laurent Mazis-Chambertin. This clear garnet wine with a slightly brick colored rim was fabulous. A very pretty nose of berries, perfume, flowers and limestoney minerals led to elegant berry and earth flavors on a beautifully round and subtle palate with a very long finish.
Happy Burgundy tasting palate training!
WTG
U have many great posts, very informative… but this is a subject that though you didn’t touch upon, does still confuse me. Several years ago I rec’d a handful of wine bottles, some that are seemingly decently old (early 90’s) – when i search their specific names to see if they have peaked or past their peak, I generally get nothing or similar wines with different years. How do I know if I should be drinking these bottles now, or if I can wait a few years? I would hate to learn that my good wine has gone bad becuase I waited to long to enjoy it. Thoughts?
Illona- You ask a very good question. Sadly there is no really good answer. There are some rules of thumb. Such as the better (and often more expensive) a wine the longer it will age. There are those who make a correlation between oak age and life of a wine.
But truly the only was to know if I wine is still alive is to try it. This is why consumers are encouraged to but several bottles of a wine they want to age. This way you can try the wine after a few years and begin to assess how much longer the wine has. (If you need someone to come help you try your aged wines the Wine Tasting Guy is just a phone call away… 😉 )
When tasting, things such as; color, structure, acidity, etc can help determine what stage in the wine’s life it is at.
Hope this was helpful for you..
WTG
Interesting! i get some emails from meetup but never made it to an event. Good to hear they are solid.