Tuesday, September 16, 2008

How We Taste

Blind tasting makes a huge difference in what you think of a wine. If you know a wine is $80 and well reviewed, it will taste better than one that is an anonymous $20 bottle, no matter what is inside. But I don't have a bunch of assistants preparing 'flights' of wine for me to taste. Sometimes someone brings a wine over without telling me what it is, and occasionally Kelly picks one out of the cellar, but for the most part I don't very often taste a wine blind. That's one more reason that my opinions are worth what you pay for them.

But Kelly almost always tastes the wine blind. I pull a wine out of the cellar without giving her any hints - and we've got enough wines down there that it could be just about anything. She always scores and makes notes before I tell her anything about the wine. So her ratings are way more reliable than mine.

If I'm having a dinner party or a BBQ I also try to get feedback from everyone about whatever wines get opened. Usually there are a few bottle available, and I decant them and serve them quasi-blind - people know what they brought, but they don't know what they're drinking.

The bottom line is that I don't taste blind very often, but I try my best to make sure that everyone else does.

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