Wine Enthusiast Magazine
SubscribeCould you tell a Merlot from a Cabernet from a Syrah in a blind tasting? Faced with three unmarked glasses from three brown-bagged bottles with no clues other than a Napa Valley origin, I couldn’t. Neither could food and wine authority David Rosengarten, Chicago Tribune wine writer Bill Daley and editorial director of Curtco Media, Brett Anderson.
These three experienced wine writers were leading a seminar during last week’s Symposium for Professional Wine Writers, based at Meadowood Resort in St. Helena, California. While the rainstorms came and went, and the flowering mustard waved in the wind between the rows of dormant grapevines, 60 wine writers and editors from around the country studied how to improve their craft.
The blind-tasting exercise was supposed to help wine reviewers compose better tasting notes, but to me it made one or both of the following two points:
Point A: Even extremely experienced tasters cannot consistently identify in double blind tastings a basic wine trait such as the grape variety.
Point B: The Napa Valley Syrahs we tried tasted more like super-ripe, new-oak aged Cabernet Sauvignon than they did Syrah.
To the first point, the wines were poured double blind. We knew only that they were red table wines made from Napa Valley grapes. We didn’t know the vintage, the varietal, or anything else.
To me all three wines showed lots of new oak flavor — vanilla, toasted bread, a bit of charred oak, baking spices, etc. They also gave youthful, exuberant fruit flavors, thick and creamy textures and long finishes.
Wine No. 1: The first wine was a deep red in color. It might have been a Zinfandel on first whiff, then I decided that it tasted more like a Bordeaux red variety. Not quite the intensity or high tannin level that I expect in Cabernet Sauvignon, so I guessed Merlot.
Wine No. 2: A dark, more purple-red color with overt cherry syrup and black currant aromas and flavors. Very ripe and exotic and extreme, but that’s the way a lot of Cabernets are in Napa. The fruit profile reminded me of Rutherford Cabernet so that’s what I guessed.
Wine No. 3: The third wine was my favorite, and by now I was in a Cabernet state of mind. Looking at my notes now, I don’t see anything that is normally a Cabernet descriptor, except aromatic oak. This had a different sort of overall aroma, though, like bread-dough and fig, with toasty accents, then a nice, rich flavor spectrum with ripe plum. It was not too ripe or hot, but smooth and layered. I thought maybe a Cabernet from a cool part of the valley.
All the writers called out their guesses for each wine, before the identities were revealed. I don’t recall the panel’s exact votes, but they did vote Syrah occasionally, and in the end were right on some wines. Nobody in the room of 25 or so got all the varietals correct.
David Rosengarten admitted with a laugh that he had looked over at the bagged bottles and saw that at least some of them were slope-shouldered Burgundy shapes under the brown bags (same as Rhone shape, which is traditional for Syrah). He said this influenced his guesses. It would have mine, too, if I had noticed.
All the wines turned out to be Napa Valley Syrah from 2005.
Wine No. 1: Not Merlot, but Hill Family Syrah, about $25.
Wine No. 2: Not Rutherford Cabernet, but Signorello Syrah Unfiltered, about $38.
Wine No. 3: Not cool district Cabernet, but Rocca Family Syrah, about $45.
Several writers in the group did guess Syrah on some of these wines. A few others guessed Pinot Noir and Zinfandel for some of them. I heard Petite Sirah and Petite Verdot mentioned, too.
As to point A: Obviously the tasting showed that decades of experience tasting a wide range of wines does not make you a perfect blind taster. That would cover at least Rosengarten, Daley and me, and several others in the room.
Rosengarten used the example to show that blind tasting is not the best way for reviewers to taste, because of how far off almost all of us were.
I argued that reviewers should regularly taste blind and drink “sighted.” Tasting blind leaves you open to discoveries, as well as mistakes. In normal review situations, I think it’s best to taste single blind, knowing at least the general wine type, and the general region, like California Cabernet or Northern Rhone red.
Tasting with the unbagged bottle right in front of you is much more likely to suppress surprises. Seeing a brand, an appellation or even sometimes a vintage you already know something about can sway your opinion and your description. That’s bad. The main point of a tasting note is to describe what that bottle tastes like. Adding bits about a winery’s history is OK after you see the label, as long as any score and descriptors remain the same.
Back to point B: Even after I knew the wines were Syrah, it was difficult for me to relate them to my concept of Syrah. I couldn’t draw a mental line from these three to Syrahs I love from Santa Barbara, Carneros, Russian River Valley, even McLaren Vale. Let alone Cote-Rotie or Hermitage. To my taste they showed little varietal character, but instead the effect of the warm Napa climate and the expensive winemaking they must have received.
This exercise in blind tasting reminded me how much I still don’t know. It also provoked me into thinking much more deeply than a non-blind tasting would have.
Filed under: Critics/Competitions
7 Comments
7 Responses to “Blind-Tasting Napa Cabernet, er Syrah”
Please Wait
February 25th, 2008 at 2:52:23 PM
Jim,
Interesting stuff. I must admit I don’t drink all that much in the way of California Cab or Syrah these days. The first is too expensive and the second still discovering its identity. But I do try to taste these wines (any wine!) as often as possible. This means that I was sifting my way (single-blind) through six mid-range California Cabs and blends on Saturday. Even knowing they were Cabs I was still confused, and thought often about Syrah/Shiraz. And these were wines with alcohols from below 14 to 14.9%, but all were quite ripe. The real horror I face is that in a couple of weeks we will be tasting Aussie wines and I fear I might confuse them for California Cabs!
Mike
February 26th, 2008 at 1:17:11 AM
Jim:
A very interesting post. If I were to file it, it would go under “Mind/body dichotomy” or “head v. heart. ”
A portion of practically every day of my life is devoted to the evaluation of wine. In my case, the evaluation is in service to choosing the best barrels of Cabernet for our Premier Cabernet Collection wines or what percentage of Cabernet Franc adds just the right amount of X to the equation. The exercise is part of the intellectual (“head” ) side of my career. This part is a wonderfully interesting side of what I do…the more hedonistic side, the “body” part couldn’t happen but for this aspect; it is not totally fulfilling however.
I think for a lot of us, wine is a vehicle for the transportation of emotion, memory, family history; a beverage that turbo charges friendship, comradeship, etc. Wines never taste as good as they do when we are with people we love or in that special place.
Tasting wines blind is necessary if you want as objective a view of your wines as you can get or if you want to assign a value to them. If you want to enhance experiences and build memories, DRINKING wine is much more valuable.
Steven Mirassou
Steven Kent Winery
February 26th, 2008 at 5:36:38 PM
Well, it’s just like old Harry Waugh said. Asked if he’d ever confused Bordeaux for Burgundy, he said, “Not since lunch.” And Harry was one of the great wine palates of the 20th century.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:19:27 PM
Wines themselves taste much less of grape variety and region today. We used to enjoy that element of wine tasting. But today, the notion of being able to distinguish between an “fruit forward” (translated as “varietal character backward”) Syrah and a similar Cabernet has lost all importance. Why bother to try? Varietal character begins to decline well before today’s grapes are picked. With Merlot, Cabernet, or Syrah it is all about size as it relates to intensity of color, broader palate of tannins, oak, and alcohol. We have the technology today to make a wine taste the way the critic likes it. Big. Vines are de-leaved to expose grapes to the sun to remove varietal aromas. Grapes hang until they are flaccid and smell of prunes. Cabernet goes into Merlot. Merlot goes into Cabernet. Syrah goes into both Merlot and Cabernet. Add a heavy splash of oak, a little MegaPurple, and spin it down with the cone to get the alcohol below 16. Voila. A 95 point wine.
In contrast, the other night I drank a 74 Mondavi Reserve. It had more varietal aroma at 34 years of age, than most young Napa Valley Cabernets do today. A different mindset of a different time.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:45:51 PM
I’m strictly an amateur wine consumer/collector and I couldn’t agree more with Morton Leslie. His comment on making wines taste the way “the critic likes it,” was spot on. This kind of tasting exercise would not remind me of what I don’t know, but, sadly, of how much has been lost to wine chemists and our jaded, international-style palates.
Thank you, Morton, for naming it.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:58:57 PM
Morton/Patrick:
Remember that variety X has been added to Variety y in Bordeaux for centuries before there was a California wine industry; this practice doesn’t make a wine any less interesting, authentic, or delicious than 100% varietal wines are.
And while I agree there has been a movement toward producing wines from more ripe fruit in the last 5 to 10 years, the vast majority of wineries aren’t out making “Frankenwine,” nor are they out there chasing scores.
In my appellation, the Livermore Valley, there are more than 40 wineries…most of them very, very small, that seem most concerned about providing something delicious for their guests.
While there are certainly to bemoan in the current state of wine, I think there is much more to celebrate.
Steven Mirassou
The Steven Kent Winery
July 15th, 2012 at 11:31:21 AM
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