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I have witnessed with my own two eyes an experienced wine aficionado call the grape type, terroir (micro-region) and year of a brown-bagged wine, based on a sin
by ericbarrett 6y ago
I have witnessed with my own two eyes an experienced wine aficionado call the grape type, terroir (micro-region) and year of a brown-bagged wine, based on a single tasting. They were off by one year, but otherwise correct. There’s a ton of BS in the wine world, but it’s not all fake.
- alexose 6y agoI have a few somm friends that can do this reliably. The process of elimination is really fascinating to watch. The reason it's possible, though, is because the majority of commercial wine conforms to distinct, repeatable styles. A grassy note in an amber-colored wine might narrow it down to a single grape variety, a hint of smoke might indicate the region. Then take the relative level of oxidation, and you've got a decent guess at the year. Index that against your mental database of all the possible wines that it could be (price point, availability, etc.), and you've got a good shot the exact bottle. The level of knowledge required to do this without a book in front of you is impressive, but it's not magic. More like 20 questions with a relatively narrow target area. The usual tricks will fail when you try it with small producers, non-traditional production techniques, or AVAs that don't distribute widely.
- ta988 6y agoI have a friend that does that exclusively with small producers wines (he is the owner of a store for specialty wines now somewhere in France), same approach. He has a traditional training in oenology, but spends his time tasting and traveling around Europe to find new unique things. Much more interesting oenological work than people working only with the normalized big-ones.