Proper Wine Tasting

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What a wonderful morning! We followed our host, Celene, to near her workplace in historic Bordeaux, first settled by the Romans in the 1st century. She helped us make reservations for the 2 hour wine tasting class...which we thoroughly enjoyed!

No wonder Bordeaux wines are so complex...all are blended, each by the local chateau or winery. So are the American wines. A couple from Southern California explained that if an American wine is labeled "merlot," then at least 85% will be from the merlot grape. Most of the wines in Bordeaux will include the percentage of each of the three wines that are used in the blend. Although we did enjoy the dry wine wines from the "right bank" of the Garonne River, we both very much enjoyed the red Cabernet. In fact, after we lunched with Celene, we returned to the very pleasant wine bar in the Institute to enjoy more wine and to catch up on our emails, etc.

One exercise: the instructor had about 15 small vials, tightly capped, and we each had an opportunity to "smell" each bottle and we were to try to identify the smell. Most of us could identify fewer than five odors...he explained that we can further develop our sense of smell. We can start with a banana and with our eyes closed, smell the banana, and then start to peel it, all the time smelling and remembering. We think that we want to do that.

Experts will hold the glass only by the base, some experience will hold by the stem and the least experienced will hold the globe. So at the very least, we will hold by the stem. Also, we will do the two "smell" tests only when we open the bottle, and after that, we will simply enjoy drinking the wine.

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