The other day we had a very nice wine for dinner. I had to taste it blind, of course. It was immediately obvious that it had quite a few years in the cellar. The colour was brick-red-brown. The fruit was very ripe with hints of raisins. Tobacco and cedar wood was definitely there. The finish was quite tannic and my guesses leaned towards a Médoc of 10 to 15 years of age. I was quite sure that that was it, and that is something that is best avoided in blind tastings. It was hard to swallow that I was totally wrong but I was, of course. It was a Languedoc wine. A Château Pech-Redon, La Centaurée 1999. We had bought it at the vineyard in 2001 for a modest 80 Fr (now some 12 euro). A steal. A brilliant price for a brilliant wine. And for a change we had bought a full 6-pack case. Sometimes when we have finished a good bottle of wine we say “we didn’t we buy a case?” This time we didn’t need to. (On the other hand, if we had bought a case of each wine we have we would need a bigger cellar!)
Tasting blind is difficult. Anyone who has tried can tell you. When it is wines that have a bit of bottle age it is all the more difficult. With young wines at least you have a fair chance. The varietal character is more present; the different components are more separate. The more the components melt together and the wine ages the more difficult it becomes. But that’s okay. I’d rather have a delicious and balanced wine and guess totally wrong than the other way around!
We have just come back home from our long wine tour to Argentina and Chile. Two weeks of fantastic experiences, lots of delicious wines and good food. Chile and Argentina are neighbouring countries that from here, at a long distance, may look quite similar. But when you are there they are decidedly different! Both in terms of culture and people as well as for wine. But one thing they have in common is a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit among the winemakers and that you can find some delicious wines there today. There are already a few photographs from the trip on BKWine Tours’ Facebook page (taken by a traveller). In time we will have more texts, photos and videos on our wine travel blog.
Only just back from South America we went to the food and wine books’ version of the Academy Awards, the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. We were glad we were back in time, so that we could be there to hear that we had won second prize in the category “educational books on wine”! Read more on that further down.
Britt & Per
PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief!
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