This semester I chose to take Boyer's Geography of Wine class to familiarize myself with a product that I had generally avoided. Whenever wine was previously offered to me, I immediately assumed that it was simply going to taste bitter and dry and that I was not going to like it. I had even been exposed to some more expensive wine options thanks to my friend's parent's appreciation of great wines, but even the $50+ wine tasted just as nasty as the cheap wines. In retrospect, I realize that not only was I being closed-minded about wine, but that I also did not know the first thing about properly tasting and experiencing wine. This class, along with Wine Library TV (Gary Vaynerchuk), helped me develop a great appreciation for wine and taught me how to properly taste and enjoy wines. It also gave me a greater background on the wine regions of the world and what to expect from wine from different areas. Performing the weekly wine tastings was very insightful and allowed me to develop my palate and learn which flavors, scents, and traits that I appreciate and enjoy in wines. This blog provides a summary of my wine tasting experiences this semester and highlights a few of the wines I really enjoyed.
The Good:
One thing that I learned very quickly is that I enjoy predominantly red wines. I enjoy the complexity they bring to the table and, to a degree, that tannic bite that many reds provide. Admittedly, I feel that my preference for wine leans heavily to the "New World" style. I tend to really enjoy and appreciate fruit-forward wines with traces of oak and vanilla that come from barrel-aging. Unfortunately, my palate is not very advanced and the fruit flavors I experienced generally got linked to well-known varieties such as strawberry, raspberry, apple, peach, cherry, etc. In addition to fruit, I also enjoyed spice elements that were incorporated in many of the wines I tried. One thing that was particularly interesting to me was experiencing that occasional, off-the-wall descriptor that came to my mind instantaneously during tastings. A few notable descriptors include sweaty socks, vomit, popcorn, sauerkraut, cigarette smoke, pepper jack cheese, and lunch meat. These descriptors tended to hit me immediately while taking an initial "sniffy-sniff," and it was always funny when I would receive strange looks/comments from my friends -- until they smelled the wine and realized I was dead-on (usually). My favorite grape varieties appear to be Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, and my favorite regions are mainly California and Australia.
The Bad:
White wines.
Okay that is a bit harsh, but generally speaking I found almost all of the white wines I tried less-than-favorable. The good news in this is that, since I seem to dislike white wines as a whole, it is not any one single type of white that I dislike. I suppose that my palate is just not as welcoming to the crisp, acidic focus that many whites have. To me, white wine is almost expected to be sweet (because sweet white wines are the only kind that I can really tolerate) but I realized this is not always the case. Not only did I dislike many of the whites I tried this semester, but honestly they all tasted very similar to me. Occasionally one would be heavily oaked (YUCK) or fruit-focused, but overall they just seemed to blend together after a while. I was rarely able to detect fruit flavors in the white wines that I tried, and since that seems to be what I enjoy most in wine, it makes sense that I found white wines to be a turn-off. I found myself writing crisp, acidic, fresh, light, dry, etc. almost every time and it almost came to the point where I wanted to focus only on reds. I chose to persevere and realized the value of experimenting with white wines and expanding my palate. Maybe one day my palate will shift and I will find a place for white wine in my life.
Top Two:
These two wines stand out far above any others I tasted this semester. Interestingly enough, neither one of them were ones that appeared during scheduled wine tastings. My friend and I were at Kroger one day when he randomly spotted the Rubus and decided to give it a shot. The Louis M. Martini was recommended by my father and I shared a bottle with my parents of dinner one night during spring break. Both are rather affordable at about $13-$15 dollars, so I plan to grab a few more bottles of each this summer when I'm making a little more money. For my wine tasting notes on each of these, go here for the Louis M. Martini and here for the Rubus!
Bottom Two:
These two wines were the worst I tasted this semester, but for different reasons. I had the Sutter Home at home over spring break with my parents. They had a few lying around and I was curious to try it because I recognized the name. I knew it was a cheap wine going into the tasting so I wasn't expecting much, but even for $4.99 I found that this wine was severely lacking. In contrast, I tried the Tres Ojos at the Vintage Cellar in March. This wine had great color and a wonderful bouquet, but was a complete disappointment once I tasted it. For my wine tasting notes on each of these, go here for the Tres Ojos and here for the Sutter Home!
Conclusion:
All-in-all, I believe that these wine tastings provided the best learning experience for me this semester. It's one thing to read about wine and be lectured on the topic, but to actually go out and experience it first-hand was the greatest thing for me. While I enjoyed the format of the tastings this semester, I believe the following changes would have enhanced the experience even further:
- Sometimes at the Vintage Cellar tastings, the remnants from one wine would still be present when the next wine was being poured. This could have caused some mixing of flavor and skewed the results of each individual wine tasting. This was especially detrimental when going between white and red wines.
- The Thursday wine tasting organized by the Vintage Cellar was a great idea, but I felt like as the semester went on I began to get bored with the "value" wines in the store. To fix this, I went to the Saturday wine tasting for the last two weeks and enjoyed the experience much more. I did not feel as rushed and even had the opportunity to talk with a distributor first-hand -- he even let me try an $80 wine that wasn't on the list!
- Performing more wine pairings with food/cheese would have been greatly beneficial. I was able to perform a couple of wine tastings with a food compliment, but never directly pair a food with an appropriate wine.
- I would have liked to try more German and South American wines. I mainly tried wines from Australia, California, France, and Spain.
Even without any of these changes implemented, I feel like my knowledge on wine was greatly developed through wine tastings. I plan to continue tasting wines when possible and hope to continue to develop my palate.
