Last Friday evening I went to the Cork and Bottle in London's West End, with my wife Bernadette, to meet a French friend. I have been going to this wine bar off and on since the 1970's and it was here that I first drank one of Australia's best wines Chateau Tahbilk red which is outstanding. The Cork and Bottle has always had a wide range of wines from all over the world.
http://www.laytons.co.uk/content/chateau-tahbilk
Guess the wine
We got talking about wine with Christelle, who runs the bar, and asked her to find us a wine which was a little bit different but not French. She brought us an unidentified wine in a decanter and asked us to guess where it was from.
Blind tasting and identifying the wine is one of the most difficult things I have done. And other people who I have met find it very difficult too, especially if you are doing a wine exam. One of my wine course colleagues once mistook Campbells Rutherglen Muscat for Port. Worse still he described his Port based on the assumption that it was the Rutherglen and got marked down as a result. Good job it was a mock exam!
How did this happen? He worked in the wine trade and was an experienced taster. It was nerves and the pressure of the exam situation. I was surprised that this happened to him. There are so many factors that influence our tasting abilities and decision making. Some of these include: our mood, the pressure of the situation and even if someone is wearing strong aftershave or perfume next to you: but more of this later.
We tasted our wine blind but there were some clues as to what the wine could or could not be. We had asked Christelle not to give us a French wine and we trusted her. I know the wine card pretty well and I have not noticed Slovenian wine on the menu so that could be eliminated etc.
My first thoughts were to try and eliminate the styles of wine and I concluded that the wine was not from the New World. The wine tasted as if it was European and I guessed Spanish and the Tempranillo grape. My wife and friend agreed that it was Spanish. My wife thought it was Rioja and I thought it was from Navarra. Our friend just thought it was Spanish.
Imagine our surprise when Christelle showed us the bottle: 2009 Celeste Ribera del Duero red from Torres and 100% Tempranillo! Not a bad guess, Ribera del Duero is not far from the Rioja and Navarra regions and for me it was the vanilla spicy flavour which was the giveaway. We had done well and we should all feel proud of our tasting abilities. We did not cheat,either, by asking the wine waiter or looking at the wine card for clues.
Why were we not able to narrow it down further? We have never been to the region but we have made visits to Rioja and Navarre and this influenced our guessing. We have drunk many many bottles of Rioja and Navarra red but few bottles of Ribera del Duero. The last time we tasted this appellation, as far as I can remember, was in Madrid when we drank a mature bottle of Valbuena, the second wine of Vega Sicilia, with a meal and it was great.
http://www.majestic.co.uk/find/product-is-14346 -this is much cheaper in Spain.
The 2009 Celeste is from Torres who is one of Spain's top producers. His Mas la Plana Cabernet Sauvignon Penedès easily competes with the top growths from Bordeaux. The Celeste went down very well with the Cork and Bottle Hamburgers and tastes just as described in the following tasting note. This wine will keep.
http://www.dreyfusashby.com/docs/232/2009/Celeste-TECH-09.pdf
You can buy Mas La Plana at Waitrose and it is well worth the money. Why pay hundreds of pounds for Bordeaux premier cru or Vega Sicilia Unico for that matter?
http://www.waitrosedirect.com/product/torres-mas-la-plana-cabernet/088676
http://ribera-del-duero.uvinum.co.uk/vega-sicilia-unico-1999?utm_source=Google%2BMerchant&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=marketplaces
Tasting and Objectivity
Wine tasting is a very controversial subject. The object of a wine tasting is to assess the quality of the wine rather than its provenance. To assess the quality of a wine you need to be able to see, smell and taste the wine under good light and in a tasting room which is free of any type of odour which could mask the smell or flavour of the wine.
The wine must also be tasted at a suitable temperature for the style of wine and you really need to use an uncontaminated standard tasting glass. Even if conditions are perfect the body reacts better on some days than others. If you have got a cold it affects your ability to taste and smell properly. There is also the power of suggestion that one wine is better than another. Therefore, you really need to taste in double blind conditions where the adjudicator and the taster do not know which wine is being sampled.
Even under the most perfect conditions it is all a very subjective process; everyone has their own personal preferences for a style or taste of wine. Who can argue against someone who says that their Champagne tastes of coconuts?
Some wine experts claim that they can identify any wine and the year it was produced or even the part of the vineyard where the grapes were grown. Well let them prove it under true double blind conditions. Let them prove that they can do this consistently. There are many thousands of wines and this is not possible.
It is possible, however, to identify a wine if you have drunk enough of it as you simply remember what it tastes like.
I was always able to recognise my mother's apple tarts and her beef broth and dumplings: her sister had a similar style of cooking but I could always distinguish between the two. I have made this claim and you can choose to believe it or not. I have no way of providing scientific proof. Tasting is a very subjective skill.
You can read more about all this here http://winejaw.com/Page1.html.
Wine tasting and the Moon phases
At the Lille wine fair in November we met some bio-dynamic wine producers who grow and treat their crops according to the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and Maria Thun. This is discussed in my previous blog. Maria Thun proposes that you plant, and grow agricultural and gardening products according to the phases of the moon and certain days on a bio-dynamic growing calendar.
According to Thun there is an astrological cycle which needs to be followed. There are root, leaf, flower and fruit days. What about branches are they not important too? It seems not. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that it makes any difference. It is just a claim with no scientific foundation. You can believe it if you want to.
Consider this, however, 2012 was almost a disastrous year for farmers and vine growers in the north of Europe. Some people lost all their produce because of the bad weather. Working their farm according to strict adherence to an astrological cycle could not save them. The sensible farmer tends his crops according to the weather no matter how superstitious he may be.
http://www.the-gardeners-calendar.co.uk/moonplanting.asp
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/wine/7676520/Does-the-moon-affect-how-a-wine-tastes.html
Some people believe that wine tastes better according to the Thun cycle, so it is better to taste wine on a fruit day than a root day as it simply tastes better. This is a claim which can not be proven. Where is the mechanism which drives this? Some people claim it is the gravitational effect of the moon.
Tidal influences are only noticeable on large bodies of water such as very large lakes, the seas and the oceans.The gravitational effect of the moon on the human body is miniscule and on a bottle of wine it would be even smaller. Such an effect could easily be overcome by local variations to the earth's gravity.
Some supermarkets are organising tastings according to the astrological calendar. I suggest that the power of suggestion is at work here: "today is a fruit day and everybody knows it so the wine must taste better". Maria Thun says so and she is the messiah. It is quite easy for this power of suggestion to be passed on to the unsuspecting public.
Today (28th), I guessed that we were getting very close to the full moon. I was not surprised when I looked up the phases of the moon on my computer that it was full. Why was that? My morning tea tasted the same as the days before. My Tiger beer and Chinese lunch tasted the same. I do not feel any different because it is a full moon. If, I was superstitious I could have thought otherwise and refused a beer with my lunch and chosen wine instead.
How did I know a full moon was close? I knew because I like to go out and look at the stars. I have a mild interest in Astronomy but not Astrology. I had been unconsciously counting the days so I knew a full moon was close even though we have had overcast weather for a week. Tonight I might be able to go out to see it.
At a blind wine tasting a superstitious taster could easily count the number of days and work out it was a fruit day and decide that the wine tastes better. Would you trust their judgement? Is there a power of auto-suggestion?
On Tuesday, I went to lunch with a colleague and good friend. Our bottle of Argentinian Malbec tasted great not because it was a "fruit day" but because it was a very good wine in itself and it was also bucketing down with rain outside. Maybe it's the weather again.
We should all keep our feet on solid ground when it comes to wine and forget all the pretention.
http://www.food24.com/Wine/Features/Yes-the-moon-affects-the-way-you-taste-wine-20120703
http://www.winemakermag.com/stories/article/indices/42-winemaking-tips/527-myth-busting -I really like this one rational and down to earth.
The Cork and Bottle
The Cork and Bottle is a great wine bar right in the centre of the West End. It is a good place to meet and every bottle on the menu is a good one. The staff are friendly and helpful and there is a nice comfortable cosmopolitan atmosphere. The food is standard fare so do not expect fine dining, but you really can't leave without eating. You can enjoy your wine here, however, blind tasted or not and no matter what day it is.
http://thecorkandbottle.co.uk/?page_id=6
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=cork+and+bottle+london&hl=en&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=cork+and+bottle&hnear=0x47d8a00baf21de75:0x52963a5addd52a99,London&cid=0,0,13426048862805738983&t=m&z=16&iwloc=A
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