I just enjoyed another article written by Laurie Daniel for the San Jose Mercury News. This one titled “Blind tasting Can Be A Real Eye-Opener”. OK, the title is a little old-man-pun style, and the article was written citing some recent research done by Standford Business School and California Institute of technology (regarding how price influences people’s appreciation of wine)…but she sheds some light into wine appreciation. And as an advocate of blind tasting, I like to see other people touting its unique ability to force people to appreciate what it is the glass as opposed to its label, reputation or price tag.

I like blind tasting for a multitude of reasons. As someone who DOES NOT profess to having a master palate it is OK when in a blind tasting I pick a (supposedly) inferior wine over one priced much higher or said to be much more highly regarded.

I also like blind tasting as a result of an experience from my time working in the lab at a Napa custom crush. There was a producer who made their wines there that consistently had trouble maintaining the natural balance of their wines. They would doctor the heck out of their wines just to get them into better balance. Yet these same wines carried a triple digit price tag and a reputation to match. Proof that marketing, a high price tag, or for you conspiracy theorists - paying off critics, is enough to “fool” consumers. (One of the many reasons why I STRONGLY advocate tasting wine YOURSELF and buying wines YOU like - not those you are told you should like).

The last reason I’ll mention here as to why I am such a fan of blind tasting has to do with my affinity for Israeli wines and my STRONG belief that they are STILL under appreciated. We Israeli wine people joke that simply being “Israeli” means that critics will (subconsciously??) deduct 3-5 points from their scoring of the wine. Oh how I would love to set up a blind tasting for well known critics and sneak a few Israeli wines in with some other New world wines.

Bottom line, read the Laurie Daniel article, and know that when you are contemplating that $100 bottle vs. the $30 bottle, yes you may enjoy the $100 bottle more - but it will only be BECAUSE it cost you $100 and NOT because you were drinking a better wine…

Now how do you go enjoy that $500 bottle of Bordeaux after reading that…????….SORRY!

Happy drinking!

WTG.

I could list the 7 Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s that we tried and my corresponding tasting notes for each. But that would be boring. I’d rather make fun of myself and the group.

There were 10 of us in attendance last night, 7 women & 3 guys (gotta love the ratio). The wines we tried were from the ‘04 & ‘05 vintages. Included in the tasting was the Châteauneuf-du-Pape Rouge, Beaucastel ‘04 - a $100 wine that is considered to be one of the best. And the Châteauneuf-du-Pape Rouge, Clos des Papes ‘04, a $75 bottle and another stalwart.

We do our tastings blind and one of the things we typically find ourselves doing is trying to guess which is the “fancy” or expensive wine. Sure enough we unanimously chose a $35 bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Dom. Saint Prefert ‘05 as our favorite.

The point of this post is simply that wine is something we all should have fun with. Don’t listen to critics, bloggers, sommeliers, or snobby know-it-all friends. Go to wine bars, wine shops, restaurants & try as much wine as you can. And when you find one you like, WRITE IT DOWN. To hell with what the critics tell you you should like. Do you listen to critics about what movies to like (ok, maybe) what music to listen to (OK, maybe), or what politician to vote for??? OK, so I guess critics do hold a prominent role in our society. And the bottom line is, these people gain the status of critic because they devote a TON of time to a specific topic and become (so-called) experts on that topic. But when it comes down to it, it is YOU who is buying the wine, YOU who is drinking the wine & YOU who needs to enjoy the wine.

Have fun - Drink wine. And don’t let anyone tell you what you SHOULD and SHOULD NOT like!!!!!
-WTG.