October 2, 2019

Review: Tenuta Santomé Raboso Riserva 2011

Grape(s): Raboso Piave

Region: Veneto, Italy

Winery: Tenuta Santomé

Style: Full-bodied, aged, red

Tasting Notes: Bourbon soaked cherry, leather, tobacco, fig, date, toffee, caramel

Pairing Suggestions: This is a wine you want to be at the center of your gathering, not competing for attention against an expensive steak, although they would pair nicely. For me, I’d serve this with a nice big charcuterie and cheese board, something that will provoke thought and conversation around the wine, which should enhance everyone’s enjoyment.

TL/DR: It tastes like Ron Burgundy’s apartment.

I haven’t really updated much in the past couple of months and, yeah, I’ve been busy at work, but the truth is I was kind of burning out on the whole blogging thing. For the most of the past year I’ve really been pushing myself in my free time to try new wines and write about them, but, let’s face it, not every wine is really so remarkable that I can spend a couple hours contemplating it and finding something meaningful to say. I didn’t like the idea that I was posting content just to post content.

It’s important to have a drive to constantly create, but if what you’re creating isn’t good, what’s the point? I wanted to be inspired, to remember what it was about wine that made me love it in the first place.

By chance, one of our reps was touring through the city with an Italian winemaker, showing him around and tasting out his wines. I wasn’t initially in the meeting, but was called in toward the end to try a few things. My interest was low, we weren’t really looking for new wines at that moment, but I was polite and tried what was offered. None of it was bad, but our selection is small and we just didn’t need a new Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio. Finally I was handed a glass made from a local grape, something I’d never heard of before, exactly the kind of thing I’m usually scouring the city to find, my interest was suddenly piqued.

The wine was Tenuta Santomé Raboso Riserva 2011. Raboso, in this case, refers to Raboso Piave, a notoriously astringent grape that has a reputation for being difficult to work with. When consumed young, wines produced from this grape are aggressively tannic, which helps to explain the name, Raboso, which literally means “angry” or “pissed off.” Like many angry youths, Raboso mellows as it matures to become more sophisticated and complex in it’s later years.

In this case the wine is developed in batches, spending the first 3 years in barrel, some maturing in French oak and others in Chestnut, before being blended together and aged in bottle for a further 2 years. The winemaker considers the it ready for consumption after 5 years and releases it for sale.

It’s rare to have the opportunity to drink aged wine in today’s market, unless you’re willing to invest time or spend some money. Every bottle of wine comes with some risk (cork taint, oxidation, etc), but the more money you spend, the greater the risk involved. This is one of the most exciting things about Tenuta Santomé’s wine for me, the producer has taken the lion’s share of the risk in creating this magnificent wine by aging it before release, all we have to do is enjoy it.

As wine ages it loses those bright fruit flavors to develop more rich flavors like toffee, tobacco, mahogany, leather-bound books, bourbon-soaked cherry; basically it tastes like Ron Burgundy’s apartment. If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience an aged wine, this is one worth seeking out.

As I said before, we weren’t looking for a wine when the winemaker came to visit, there really wasn’t even room on our list, but when you stumble across a wine like this, you don’t let it escape. We made room.

I don’t like buying the same bottle twice; once I’ve tried something I like to move on and look for new things, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t consider taking a bottle of this home. For me, it represents everything good about wine; it’s the reason we place importance on it, why we drink it. This is a wine Bacchus would have served at one of those ancient Roman rave/ orgies. It’s also a metaphor for life, showing us that the fire of youth can become something greater with age, and a reminder that we should seize the opportunity to enjoy what we have while we have it.

Review
September 17, 2019

Review: Koehler-Ruprecht Pinot Noir Rosé Kabinett Trocken 2017

Grape(s): Pinor Noir

Region: Pfalz, Germany

Winery: Koehler-Ruprecht

Style: Dry rosé

Tasting Notes: Raspberry, wet leaves, forest floor, earth; funky fresh.

Pairing Suggestions: If you’re outside and eating food, this is a good choice. Chicago Style Hot Dog, salads, spice-rubbed meats, hot wings, charcuterie, grilled fish, sushi.

TL/DR: Holy shit, I’m actually impressed with a rosé!

In many ways, I see rosé as the Chris Farley or John Belushi of wine. It is forever in a state of arrested development, always up for a good time, the life of every party, the perfect travel companion for street festivals, concerts, and bad decisions, but it’s not exactly the kind of wine that makes you want to settle down and start a cellar. Oh no! For that, you know you’re going to need a more stable red or white, willing to go the distance, because deep inside we all know that if we keep hanging out with rosé we’re eventually going to find it slumped in the corner with a needle hanging out of it’s arm after one speedball too many.

While I recognize not every rosé is the same, they do all kind of taste the same. After the first couple of sips you realize the color is a lie and it’s not what your brain expected it to be, but it has enough acidity to be refreshing and it tastes vaguely fruity, what’s to hate? So, you go ahead and drink it anyway. Look, I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty; I’ve never met a rosé I wasn’t willing to drink, but I’ve also never really been impressed by one… until now.

Koehler-Ruprecht Pinot Noir Rosé Kabinett Trocken 2017 is the only rosé I’ve ever been impressed with. That may sound hyperbolic, but I promise you I’m not exaggerating. If you’ve heard me talk positively about a rosé in the past, I was just trying to be nice. This is the real deal and, if you know me, it kind of makes sense, because this is about as untraditional as a rosé can be.

Firstly, it’s German, which I didn’t even know was a thing. Doesn’t rosé usually come from Provence or California? Maybe I just don’t spend enough time in the rosé aisle of the store, but Germany is not a country I associate with this style of wine. That’s one of the things attracted my attention.

I first encountered this wine at an industry tasting with a friend, before we had even walked through the door there was buzz around this strange German rosé. We made it a point to seek it out and after tasting it, we just looked at each other in astonishment.

That’s the second thing, the taste. For me, Pinot Noir either tastes very fruity or very earthy, the best Pinot wines usually display a combination of both. I’ve also noticed that the heavier a Pinot is, the more likely it is to showcase earthy flavors. This is a medium bodied rosé that is driven by the earthy flavor profile, with very subtle hints of fruit. So, the winemaker was not only able to achieve a nice balance of flavor from the Pinot Noir grapes, but they were also able to present that as a truly unique expression of rosé.

Absolutely masterful.

Unfortunately, this wine is going to be a rare find. We ordered as much as we could get our hands on at work, and blew through those few cases very quickly before the vintage was sold out. The 2018 vintage is still a very nice rosé, but I was not as impressed with it. Perhaps a little more time in the bottle will allow it to develop, with a limited stock available to us, I doubt it will be on our shelves long enough for me to find out.

I guess the lesson here is not to let your bias steer you away from trying things you think you don’t like or, if you do, simply accept the fact you may miss out on something amazing.

Review
June 20, 2019

Review: Asconi Special Collection Old Tavern Liquor Red Wine

Grape(s): “Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and other varieties of red types of grapes”

Region: Codru, Moldova

Winery: Asconi

Style: At 16% alcohol, I suspect this was fortified in some way (yeast usually dies around 15%). It’s listed in several places as a dessert wine, though the label refers to it as a “liquor red wine.”

Tasting Notes: Weak structure, unbalanced, simple, low tannin, low acid, overly sweet, red fruit flavors.

Pairing Suggestions: Suitable for making Gluhwein or Sangria, but not really a wine that I felt could be improved by food.

TL/DR: “… it’s fucking terrible.”

I’d like to tell you this is the first time I’ve bought a bottle of wine that looks like a tree, but that would be a lie. A wiser man would have learned from the first experience, he would have remembered why it’s better to not drink wine from strange bottles. Hell, at the very least, a wiser man would have encouraged caution. I am not that man. Oh no! When I see that beat up van with missing hubcaps and the words “free wine” hastily painted down the side, I open the door, and climb right in. Regardless of how pretentious I may seem, sometimes I’m little more than a thirsty Philistine.

This free-spirited attitude usually works out in my favor, most of the strange wines I’ve encountered were positive experiences. I mean, it’s one of the reasons I started this blog. However, I recognize not everyone will agree with my opinions and I never want to make someone feel wrong for hating a wine I liked or liking a wine I didn’t. After all, society is a grand tapestry of clashing ideas, a beautiful mosaic of diverse perspectives that should be nurtured and cherished. That being said, this wine… it’s fucking terrible.

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh and to be fair, I’m not the biggest fan of dessert reds. It’s the one style of wine popular in Eastern Europe that I’ve never been able to appreciate.

Made from “Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and other varieties of red types of grapes” this “liquor red wine” comes to us from Asconi winery in the Codru region of Moldova. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the strangest wine bottles I’ve ever seen has some of the oddest descriptions.

There are two ways I assess quality. The first way is keeping in line with how I was trained, taste the wine, break down the structural components, look for complexity and diversity in flavor. Sweet wines require high levels of acidity to balance out the excess sugar, in this case the acidity was lacking, unbalancing the wine. It was sweet, but not refreshing. Think of it as the difference between drinking soda vs. soda syrup, one is light and refreshing the other not so much.

The second method is more straight-forward: did I enjoy it? I think I’ve made it pretty clear I didn’t, but to drive the point home I’ll tell you I have about 20 bottles sitting beside my couch, these are wines I’ve tasted and photographed that are waiting for me to write reviews on. Only one of those bottles has any wine left in it. In fact, there’s about 3/4 of a bottle left.

This less than stellar review might lead some to the conclusion that it’s best to avoid wines from Moldova, or Eastern Europe in general. Others might suggest that my experience is no different from any encounter with a sweet wine. I strongly disagree with both sentiments.

When someone tells me they don’t like sweet wine, I usually just assume they’re saying they don’t like cheap Moscato, which is a valid opinion. It’s usually awful for the same reasons I disliked this wine. If, however, you’re telling me you don’t like Sauternes, we probably can’t be friends. I mean, at that point what do you like? Well-done steak? Taylor Swift? The films of Uwe Boll? It’s probably better we just part ways amicably.

As far as Moldova, they make some amazing wines, this just happens to be one that didn’t impress me, and one bad experience will in no way dissuade me from trying more in the future. At least this was fun to photograph.

Review
June 11, 2019

Wine Diary: Writer’s Block and the Paradox of Inspiration

I’ve been staring at a blank screen for nearly three weeks, trying to figure out how I want to talk about this wine. Writer’s block may be a tired cliché in television or movies, but that doesn’t make it any less real. I know from past experience there’s not an epiphany around the corner that’s going to make all my jumbled ideas fall in place. No, I have to work through this the hard way. It isn’t about some lack of inspiration, but crippling self-doubt, the unshakable belief that whatever I say is irrelevant and it’s only a matter of time before everyone sees me as the useless hack I really am. That’s not the kind of thing that gets fixed by some casual acquaintance unwittingly offering sage advice in the form of a new perspective, but rather self-reflection and the confrontation of uncomfortable truths. Sometimes you just have to step away, clear your head, sit back down at the keyboard, and try again. The grand irony here is we’re not talking about some would-be best seller, I’m just reviewing a wine.

One of the things I’ve learned in my short time blogging is that the act of generating content can be inconvenient. For example, if I buy a bottle of wine to bring home, I can’t just open it and start drinking. Oh, no! It must be documented for further musings on my website in the future. Sometimes the thought of setting up the lights and crawling around on the floor for half an hour to take photos is unappealing at best. Maybe you really aren’t into it that night, so you phone in the photos and take quick, vague, notes. Hell, maybe it was 11:30pm, and you just wanted to enjoy a glass of wine after work. Fast forward to four months later, when you’re trying to articulate your thoughts, and you suddenly discover that perpetually lazy past version of yourself has screwed you over yet again.

C’est la vie.

In the end, I suppose I could just skip this bottle. Take a pass and move on, hoping for better results in the future, but the truth is, I really enjoyed this one. I want to talk about it. I’ve been looking forward to it. So, let’s cut the shit; all the pissing and moaning, anxiety, self-doubt, the time I got embarrassed because someone saw me do something stupid, the time I said something that hurt someone’s feelings, the daily dissatisfaction I have with whatever aspect of my life, basically, all the mental clutter that is for some reason in the way, and brush it aside so we can focus on what’s important: the wine.

Back in February we were hosting multiple tastings, bored with our existing wine, list we wanted to bring it to life with an infusion of new ideas. This is one of the wines we were considering around that time. In the end, it didn’t make the cut, but it did provide me with the opportunity to sample my first Vermentino, a grape I was completely unfamiliar with. If you’ve anything I’ve ever written, you know I love Alsatian wines, and this new wine shares a lot of those same characteristics, crisp and mineral, with a high, palate-cleansing, acidity. It was like falling in love with someone who looks a lot like an ex, without all the messy emotional trauma that follows.

Sardegna is the second largest island in the Mediterranean, sitting just across the Tyrrhenian Sea from Italy. In reading about grapes it’s not uncommon to find references to Sardegna, or the neighboring French island of Corse, as both names frequently come up, especially around disputed claims of origin for particular grape varieties. This, however, is the first time I’ve had a wine from either place.

Olianas is a young winery, tracing their origins back to the beginning of the century. Their Vermintino di Sardegna 2017 had a lovely array of flavors, like lychee, bell pepper, wet stone, and honeysuckle. It was crisp and refreshing, the kind of bottle that mysteriously disappears before you’re ready to be finished with it. More than any of the other wines we sampled, this stuck in my memory. After one encounter, I swore I was going to explore this grape, and region, further. There will be a second bottle, and probably a third. In other words, if you’re planning to pick up one, you might as well buy two.

If there were any truth to the portrayal of writer’s block on film and television, this wine would be the cure, not the cause. We’re half way through the year, I’ve tried a lot of wine, and very few of those have managed to lodge themselves so firmly in my poor hack brain as this one. It is without a doubt, an inspiring wine, but inspiration doesn’t finish projects, it begins them.

Wine Diary
May 21, 2019

Review: Joseph Cattin Cremant d’Alsace Brut NV

Last month I wrote a review on Muré Cremant d’Alsace, it was the final selection in our quest to find an Alsatian sparkling for the wine list at work, but it wasn’t the only one we tried. There were at least two others, Camille Braun Cremant d’Alsace, a wine we’ve carried in the past, and Joseph Cattin Cremant d’Alsace. Okay, there’s no way this won’t sound like bragging, and if I’m being honest it kind of is, but any day you have to come into work and try multiple samples of one of your favorite styles of wine, well that, my friend, is a good day.

Domaine Joseph Cattin was founded in 1720 by François Cattin, a Swiss builder who relocated to the Alsatian village of Voegtlinshoffen. The winery has been passed down through the family for 11 generations to today, where it is operated by Jacques Cattin and his wife, Anaïs. They have more than 65 ha (160ish acres) of vineyard spread across 3 sites, near the villages of Voegtlinshoffen, Steinbach, and Colmar. Also, since I’m always judging producer’s online presence, it seems worth noting that Joseph Cattin has a well-designed, user friendly, website.

The wine is a blend of hand-harvested Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois grapes. More than some of the other cremant d’Alsace I’ve had in the past, this wine had a distinct tropical flavor for me. There was also a clear evolution of flavors as the wine crossed the palate, moving from crisp and fruity to a more biscuity/ yeasty flavor that is generally associated with autolysis. These bready flavors are often cited in sparkling wines produced in the traditional method, though to be honest I rarely taste them with the same intensity they are described in tasting notes. In the case of this wine, it is just the opposite; the producer’s tasting notes make no comment on flavors associated with autolysis, though I found them more prominent here than in most Champagne I’ve encountered.

While we ultimately went with the Muré Cremant d’Alsace for our wine list, I would have happily chosen the Joseph Cattin. The goal for us was to find something reminiscent of Champagne, and we did that. Texture was an important component in our decision and the Muré Cremant d’Alsace was able to deliver a creamier mousse, which gave it the advantage. However, if our goal had been to teach to the nuances of sparkling wine, I believe Joseph Cattin would have had the advantage (at least for me) based on the structure of its flavor. If you’ve never experienced these biscuity, bready, yeasty, flavors in a wine, I’d recommend picking up a bottle.

Review
May 11, 2019

Review: Domaine Boyar Traminer 2014

A couple years ago a friend asked if I would do a wine tasting in her apartment while her father was visiting. He was both a history buff and a lover of wine, so we agreed to make the theme of the tasting Ancient Wines. She gave me a budget and I did some reading to figure out what to serve. Finding ancient grapes still in use today was harder than I thought it was going to be, so instead I focused on old winemaking techniques and regions that have a long history of wine production.

In retrospect, it wasn’t a bad lineup, especially for someone as new to wine as I was, but I couldn’t help being surprised at how young so many of the wine grapes we use are. I mean, wine is prehistoric and is prominent feature in many of our earliest writings, we’ve been drinking the stuff for thousands of years and yet most of the grapes we use are from the past 200 years or so. We have no truly ancient grapes I’m aware of, the oldest varieties I’ve encountered usually date back to the middle ages. The oldest wine grape I was able to produce for the tasting was Riesling, which dates back to 1435. Still old, but hardly ancient.

This was probably the catalyst for my obsession with obscure grapes, the desire to find something truly ancient; I wanted to know what the Greeks and Romans from antiquity were drinking. Ever since I did this tasting, I’ve gone further and further down the rabbit hole of wine and every time I see a grape or region that has historical significance, I take notice. That’s how I stumbled across Traminer.

The earliest reference of this grape dates is back to 1242, making it among the oldest grapes we still have today. It’s directly related to Pinot, another very old grape, though we don’t know which is the parent and which is the child in this relationship. Traminer is also a parent to Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, and a host of other grapes. Over the years it has fallen out of favor, though most wine drinkers have encountered a more fashionable mutation of Traminer, Gewürztraminer.

I was genuinely surprised when I found this bottle sitting on the shelf at Binny’s, in that weird section of the store next to the kosher wines and sweet reds from Eastern Europe. After visiting the producer’s website, it made more sense.

Domaine Boyar was established after the fall of the communist regime in Bulgaria. I love history, it’s that crucial component that gives wine a sense of romance. A winery rising from the ashes, the turbulence and strife, of a failed bureaucracy, like a phoenix? We were off to a good start, but the next lines ruined it all, they began talking about “key markets,” their “portfolios,” and other corporate bullshit. That’s when I sensed something, a presence I’ve not felt since…

Domaine Boyar is in bed with Constellation Brands. For those unfamiliar them, Constellation is a beverage giant responsible for a significant percentage of shit I don’t want to drink, Kim Crawford, Meiomi, Mondavi, Woodbridge, to name a few. It’s sort of like finding out that nice girl you just met moonlights for Emperor Palpatine. “Yeah, I started working on the Death Star while I was in college, and after I began my career I really missed the excitement of millions of voices suddenly crying out in terror and then being silenced, so now I pick up a couple shifts on the weekends. They’re like family.”

Look, I don’t want to sound pretentious. If you enjoy one of these brands, please continue, I would never want to take that away from someone. Wine is a very confusing, and often frustrating, topic. Companies like Constellation make it much easier for the average consumer to navigate.

I’m generally not a fan of how they do business. They are the charging corporate bull of Wall Street set loose in a China shop. Like any large company, their actions have far reaching consequences I often find distasteful, but at the end of the day it’s their lack of romance I really have a problem with.

Beautiful pictures of rolling vineyard hills set against corporate doublespeak about global markets and a long list of awards I’ve never heard of is about as sexy as pillow talk via a PowerPoint presentation. Sometimes you can wander so far into the echo chamber of business that you forget why people are buying what you sell, why you wanted to sell it in the first place.

All that being said, let’s be real, what were the chances of me finding a wine made from this grape in Chicago without Constellation? I can’t complain too much in this instance.

So, how was it? The wine had tropical flavors of lychee and pineapple, with hints of grapefruit. It was the kind of wine best enjoyed with shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, preferably with your feet propped up on something while sitting in the shade. If there was ever a wine that needed a tiny umbrella, this would be it. Was it complex? Not really. Sometimes that’s important for me when I’m having a wine, it wasn’t this time. Instead, it was refreshing, likable, and easy to drink. The evening was better after I opened the bottle than it was before. In the end, that’s what matters.

Review
April 24, 2019

Review: Vina Belje Graševina 2016

I walked into Augusta Food and Wine with the intention of buying a bottle of wine, instead I walked out with two. It seems like that’s what always happens to me when I shop there, not that I’m complaining. In this case I couldn’t pass on this bottle of Graševina from Croatia.

What do I know about Graševina? Nothing, I’d never even heard of it, but I’ve had some solid success with Croatian wines, mostly from the Dalmatian Coast. This bottles comes to us from Podunavlje, a river basin of the Danube on the border of Serbia and Croatia. It’s as far from the Dalmatian Coast as you can be in Croatia.

The producer, Vina Belje, trace their history back to 1697, when Prince Eugene of Savoy was awarded the land and developed it into an agricultural estate, though records indicate wine has been produced here since the 3rd century CE.

In Jancis Robinson’s book on grapes, a significant portion of the entry on Graševina deals with how it is frequently confused with Riesling. Although DNA testing reveals there is no relationship between the two grapes, Graševina is frequently named as some variation of Riesling in wine producing regions throughout Europe. Having tried it, I can kind of understand why.

Straw-green in color, with a cantaloupe rind nose, the wine was light-bodied, with high acid, flavors of green bell pepper, melon, cantaloupe, and dill. To me, it seemed an exceptionally food friendly wine that is unfairly overlooked and underappreciated, just like Riesling.

In the future I’ll have to pay more attention when I’m shopping white wines from Eastern Europe, that bottle of “Rizling” I’m passing by may in fact be Graševina, not that I’d mind in either case, but while I’ve had Riesling from Transylvania, I didn’t even know what Graševina was.

Review
April 17, 2019

Review: Muré Cremant d’Alsace Brut NV

It’s no secret that I love wines from Alsace, so I was thrilled when we started carrying this cremant at work. With the exception of Champagne, I don’t think there is another sparkling wine that holds up to what is being produced in this region. Personally, I prefer the range of flavors I find here to those of any other sparkling wine.

The Muré family has been producing wines for 12 generations, going back to 1650 in Alsace. They are certified biodynamic by Demeter and organic by Ecocert. Grapes are picked by hand and their juice is pressed from whole bunches, on the stems. Their website has a wealth of information, including an annual report on harvest conditions. It’s a great place to geek out while sipping on a glass.

This wine is a blend of Pinot Blanc, Auxerrois, Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Noir, a pretty standard line-up of Alsatian grapes. It is the least expensive of their sparkling wines, but has a fascinating texture, almost like I was biting into an apple. I found flavors of nectarine, apricot, pear, apple, wet stone, honey, and a touch of citrus. Structurally, it was dry, with high acid, playful, creamy, effervescence and a long finish.

We wanted a wine that would sit comfortably between Prosecco and Champagne, in terms of price point. I’ve not been as impressed with cremant from other regions in France, and have had terrible luck with Cava. When it was suggested that we might, once again, carry a Cremant d’Alsace, I was thrilled. Of the 2-3 we tasted, this was the only one that displayed a texture creamy enough to set it apart from our Prosecco and rival our reserve list Champagne. This is an incredibly food friendly wine that would pair with a wide variety of dishes or to just enjoy after a rough day of work, because you deserve something nice in your life, damn it.

Review
April 15, 2019

WSET Level 3 – Conclusions

I skipped writing a blog about day 5 to focus on studying and getting a full night a sleep before the test, if you’re following me on Facebook I made a couple of posts there. Day 6 was about food pairing and sparkling wine production, followed by an extended lunch, and then the test.

The test consisted of a blind tasting in which we made notes for two wines, 50 multiple choice questions, and “4 short answer questions,” which was really more like 16-20 short answer questions under 4 categories.

When I walked in that morning I didn’t think I had a chance of passing. By the time it was over, I thought I might have passed. If I did, it won’t be with high marks. It’ll be 4 months before I know for sure. The tests have to be graded in England, to get them there they have to put them in a brief case and handcuff it to a secret agent’s hand, the only way for him to get a key is to deliver the case to a secluded English monastery, where it will be graded by holy virgins, and then mailed back to me. I’m assured all of these steps are necessary.

The tasting portion of the test has always been the part that gives me the most anxiety. I’m not confident in any system that pretends it can objectively measure subjective experiences. I was overthinking each tasting in class that morning and had concerns I would carry trend into the test.

The first wine was sweet, at first I thought it might be a Sauternes, but based on comments made by the instructor, I didn’t think that was possible they would select a dessert wine for the test. Under those circumstances, it had to be a late harvest Riesling, but I didn’t get some of the notes I always think I find in Riesling. The second was clearly a Cabernet Sauvignon with oak influence. I made my notes and was confident with what I had, it wasn’t necessary for me to identify each wine, but simply to make tasting notes about them and determine quality. I called both “very good,” noting they could benefit from aging.

The written test was straight-forward, I didn’t know everything, but I knew what I didn’t know. I had to guess on about 20/50 questions on the multiple choice, so I should pass that. The short answer section had one section on the Rhone, a region I am not terribly familiar with (their wines are often out of my budget). I answered to the best of my ability. If 55% is a passing grade, I think there’s a decent chance I passed. If I didn’t, there’s another test at the beginning of next year and I can reseat the test if I would like.

After class went to the bar and ordered a PBR. I was the second person to finish. As my classmates came out, some left immediately and some joined me at the bar. I learned the two wines were in fact a Sauternes and a Barefoot Cabernet Sauvignon. My determinations will miss points on both glasses, not a guarantee of failure, but whether I pass or not will depend strongly on how I rated structure and flavor compared to the instructor. It seems everyone had been fooled by the Cab, and the Sauternes was a 50/50 split. One girl was so stressed she was dry heaving in the lobby. Some students were distraught that they had awarded a Barefoot Cabernet Sauvignon high marks. I assured them all there’s no shame in enjoying Barefoot from time to time, as I sipped my from my can of PBR.

Regardless of whether I passed or failed the class, I think I’m done with WSET. I’m glad I took the class, it confronted me with a lot of things I had been curious about, but had not made the time to learn. If I were to take another class, that would be the reason, to take me out of my comfort zone. Moving forward, I’m very curious now about what research has been done on the neuroscience of tasting, what do we know objectively? I want to do some reading there, along with my regular reading on regions, grapes, etc.

As far as wines go, I have a greater familiarity with some of the regions that have been outside my budget for a while. I think I’m going to try to tackle some of those for the blog in the upcoming months. Also, from this post forward I’m going to change format a bit. I’ve been using the header “wine diary” for nearly every post, but moving forward I’m going to reserve that for bottles and experiences that have greater personal impact. I’ll continue making weekly wine posts, hopefully more than once a week, under a new heading. That’ll probably start this Wednesday… I’m sitting on a backlog of about 20 bottles I have photos and tastings notes on that need to be posted.

Also, I’m hoping to get into a vineyard for photos at some point this summer, maybe around Traverse City, Southern Illinois, or in Missouri.

I had a long debate about what wine I wanted to drink after the test, I thought about having Champagne and Popeye’s, or maybe just a bottle of retsina, but by the time I got home I really just wanted to get back to what I had been doing before the class started, so tonight I had a this Nomad Merlot from Aurelia Visinescu in Romania. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may remember this producer from my last blog on their Fetească Neagră.

I think this wine was maybe just past it’s prime, curiously this is older than the bottle I bought at the same store a year ago. The cork had stains running about half way up, based on that and the color, I’m thinking this has seen some oxidation, probably a bit more than it really needed. Even so, still quite drinkable.

This is their 2014, with flavors of red plum, raspberry, game, leather, and forest floor. It had mild tannin, with medium marks across the board for acid, body, intensity, and finish. I imagine this was a wine intended to be consumed young, so if you find a bottle, look for something more recent than I found or, better yet, just pick up that Fetească Neagră instead.

Wine Diary
April 11, 2019

Wine Diary: WSET Level 3 – Day 4

I’ve sat on this post for a couple of days. I needed some time to decompress, to just step away from it all. If I’m being honest, I didn’t I want to express the thoughts that were going through my mind.

For the past three years I’ve thrown myself into learning about wine. WSET was part of that, a little feather I could tuck into my cap, as if to say, “Hey, I actually know what I’m talking about here.” I wanted to take it all the way, through level 3, through level 4, all the way to Master of Wines, if I could make it. For the past three years, my future, as far as I could envision it, was me following a path set by WSET. Like I said in the last blog, after this weekend I don’t think I care any more.

Don’t get me wrong; I still want to learn about wine, I’m no less inspired by it, but whatever course I take from here moving forward, I don’t want WSET to be a part of it. Regardless of if I pass or fail the test next weekend, I’ll take no pride or have no remorse in the outcome.

What does that change? Not much really. My plans for the future looked a bit like this:

  • Drink Wine
  • Pass Tests
  • ???
  • Profit

Whereas now, it looks more like this:

  • Drink Wine
  • Continue Blogging
  • ???
  • Profit

There’s a mix of emotions, but ultimately I feel untethered. I guess none of this should really come as a surprise, if you look at the wines I drink, the attitudes I’ve adopted, they don’t fall in line with conventional wisdom about wine.

My primary points of contention are: 1) Most people don’t cellar wine, so any system designed to determine quality using ageworthiness as a significant factor is irrelevant to the average consumer.* 2) You cannot accurately quantify what makes a wine pleasing, this is the same issue I have with shelf talkers that proudly display scores for a wine out of some magazine. 3) We each perceive wine differently; our tongues and brains are similar in construction, but not identical and we are therefore unable to objectively map sensory experiences for others. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous, at best.

To be fair, the “theory” component of the curriculum does a great job laying out how wine is made, various winemaking techniques, vineyard management systems, and features of specific wine regions across the globe. This is the stuff I want to learn, unfortunately it’s overshadowed by the tasting portion of the course.

On Sunday we spent 30-45 minutes of class debating color. My classmates were so frustrated by the process, they were asking the instructor to come sit in their seats and look at the wine from their perspective. At one point she announced she wasn’t going to talk about it any more.

After lunch I had a moment with the instructor and asked her, “What is the utility of blind tasting ?” I explained that I could see as helpful in removing the bias of the taster in some circumstances, and that I did see a benefit to tasting, but in a professional setting, as wine buyer for example, what is the benefit?

Her answer was, essentially, that blind tasting was an important skill to develop in order to pass blind tasting exams. She ended by challenging the integrity of myself and my employer. “You work for a cooking school, shouldn’t you want to know as much as you can about wine?”

It was a cheap Straw Man argument, I didn’t bite. One of the things I really love about working at the Chopping Block is that we take the mystery, the snobbery, the pretension out of cooking. I think we should treat wine the same way.

Here’s something definitely won’t be on my blind tasting exam, a Michigan Riesling. Two Rieslings in a week? I guess if this class has given me anything, it’s a rediscovered love of Riesling. This one is from Left Foot Charley, I reviewed a previous vintage before the website overhaul and remember it fondly.

I’ve heard great things about Michigan Rieslings and I’ve wanted to give them some attention for a while now. This wine is medium dry to medium sweet, but has enough acid to keep that extra sugar in balance. It opened up with that gasoline and lime odor that I love so much from Riesling, with palate notes like nectarine, sweet tart, wet stone, honeysuckle, and lime. There isn’t a ton of complexity to it, but was a welcome end to one of the first warm spring days of the year.

*I’ve thought about this quite a bit since the blog posted and my position has changed. I agree that most people are not cellaring wine, but I do not think you can have a conversation about fine wine without considering the age of what you’re drinking. Even for the average consumer who goes through the bottle within 24 hours of purchase, there is a value in making a determination of age. A 10 year old bottle of Bordeaux could be a great find in a wine shop, a 10 year old Beaujolais Nouveau… not so much.


Wine Diary