3 secrets for a 100% score at blind tastings

The other night I attended a blind tasting. Well, actually it was a so called semi-blind tasting. This implies that you get the name of the grapes and/or the region where the wine is produced.

In this particular case, a flight of nine wines were to be tasted, and this is the information we received:

Pinotage – South Africa (3 wines)
Pinot noir (1 wine)
Cahors (1 wine)
Zweigelt – Austria (1 wine)
Zinfandel (3 wines)

And guess what, I got them all nine correct: a 100% score. Great, isn’t. Was their luck involved? Well, I guess so since I had some doubts over a couple of wines and switching just one of these couples would imply already a penalty of two and then I would have ended up with 7 out of 9.

But that is not so important, the most important thing is how to approach such a blind tasting. Well, let me kick of with the first well kept secret:

1. It is all about elimination.

Just an example, one of the wines had a low intensity in color. A type of color through which you could easily read your newspaper. Just on the basis of color I could easily exclude Cahors, which produces in general heavy colored wines. So this one I could easily exclude. Also wines on the basis of the pinotage grape are in general more colored. But I played it on the safe side and did not immediately eliminate these ones.

So my list would be as follows:

Pinotage – South Africa
Pinot noir
~~Cahors~~
Zweigelt – Austria
Zinfandel

Then the nose, a not so intense nose dominated by fruit, mainly cherries which were even a bit like candy. Next to this there was some nice spiciness whirling.

What decisions did I base on the aromas? Well, this in combination with the color, now I was certain that pinotage could be excluded. In my opinion pinotage has a certain element which can be best described as vegetal, although burnt rubber would be also a nice denominator. Also some big doubts aroused about zinfandel, these types of wines are normally more expressive. Also zweigelt is in general more expressive but could have this type of fruit. So, again I was risk averse and only excluded pinotage.

This was my list up till then:

~~Pinotage – South Africa~~
Pinot noir
~~Cahors~~
Zweigelt – Austria
Zinfandel

Then I sipped a bit of the wine and instantly I noticed loads of acidity and rather low alcohol degree. Furthermore, also tannins were very low. And there was this slight sweetness, just a bit of dry.

These impressions confirmed my earlier decisions (pffft) and lead me again a bit further on the path of elimination. High acidity and low alcohol, better forget zinfandel.

So now it was a grape-to-grape fight: zweigelt versus pinot noir. It lacked that typical Beaujolais fruitiness for a zweigelt, zweigelts are often also a bit darker in color and, finally, it had that off dry sensation. Austria is a so-called old world country and there wines are mainly made in a dry style. So reasons enough to exclude zweigelt.

So I ended up by elimination with pinot noir. Easy, no?

This brings me right to the second secret when blind tasting.

2. Head for the easiest grape so you can eliminate this one.

Again elimination, but now on a macro-level. Once I had eliminated one grape only eight more were left and each time the elimination would be easier. In this case, indeed the pinot noir was the easiest grape to start with and it made my blind tasting live already a lot easier later on.

Third and last secret and for the people who have intensely read the example above no longer a secret:

3. Take all the different elements into account.

I often see people decide on the basis of the nose, the aromas. No, do not do this, a blind tasting is not a quickie, you will need some foreplay and after play. So crawl your way through all these different elements, eye, nose and mouth, just as I did above in the example. Combine this with your elimination technique and you’ll get your home run…or at least you’ll reach the first base.

Have a nice blind tasting today!
Bart

PS If you have other secrets for a blind tasting, just share them in the comments section.

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June 25, 2007 | Filed Under Tasting wines

Comments

4 Responses to “3 secrets for a 100% score at blind tastings”

kaat on June 25th, 2007 10:31 am

how about:
get all the same glasses so you can compare the different wines out of the same ‘basis’
and
get the right tasting glasses!

and hey, CONGRATULATIONS for the nine to nine - again and again and …
looking forward to the next - 8/8 ?
bart on June 25th, 2007 2:14 pm

Thanks Kaat.

Indeed, the use of the same glasses is a premise. Actually, I use Riedel O tasting glasses, great glasses and funny to look at (since they have no stem).

And right tasting glasses, this is certainly something I will be dealing with in the near future.
A. on June 25th, 2007 10:20 pm

Bart,

I read you ’shiver’ from people making decisions exclusively based on the aroma… But I do not want to restrain you from a site which I discovered a while ago (www.chateauloisel.com), where they give the aroma per grape (www.chateauloisel.com/etude/aromes-vin.htm) which can be a starting point…
bart on June 25th, 2007 11:20 pm

Hi A.,

Thanks for pointing me out this site. Valuable reading material and great starting point as you suggest.

And indeed a lot of grapes have very specific scents, but it is very dangerous in a blind tasting to make decisions based only on the aromas you discovered.

How do you approach a blind tasting? What are for you crucial elements to base your decision upon?