1.  No Colognes or Perfumes A vital aspect to any successful tasting is the ability to use your nose.  Smelling the wine’s aromas before you take that first sip enhances the entire experience.  So tell your guests not to put on any strong colognes, after shaves or perfumes which can disguise their sense of smell.

2.  No Smoking In this day and age, it should be a given.  However, for many smokers, wine and cigarettes are like peanut butter and jelly – they just go together.  But for the sake of other guests, make sure your tasting is done in a non-smoking environment.  Like perfumes and colognes, the smell of smoke will hinder the whole tasting experience.

3. The color white is your best friend Another key element for any successful tasting is the ability to judge the color of your wine.  So if the backdrop or tablecloth in the room contains multiple or dark colors, this task is now much more difficult.  Therefore, if possible, choose a room with light colored walls for your tasting and make sure the tablecloths are white.

4. Make it a blind tasting For your party, you don’t want anyone’s bias towards a particular wine to affect the outcome.  And since many bottles have both good and bad reputations, a blind tasting eliminates any subjective influencing while enhancing the suspense of the entire night when finally, the wines everyone has been judging are  revealed.  To do this, disguise the bottles by placing them in brown paper bags or by wrapping shelf paper around each bottle.  Then use a maker or pencil to identify each wine as either “A, B, C…” or “1, 2, 3 …”

5. Have scorecards and pencils for each guest In order to see which wines end up on top, provide each guest with a score card or sheet and a pencil so they can assign their ratings.  If you want the scorecard to be geared towards beginners, download and print off one like this.  For more challenging cards, where the people at your tasting are judging a wine’s clarity, color, etc.., try using this or a similar card.

6. Provide a glass of water to each guest and spittoons Tasting so many wines in such a short period of time without rinsing can play games with your palate.  So give your guests a chance to cleanse their mouths with either a glass of water or a spittoon (or something they can spit the wine out into if they choose).

7. Compare “like with like” To provide your palate with the best training, find a common link by trying what’s called a thematic tasting.  For example, choose one grape variety from different regions or the same type of wine but from different producers or the same wine across an array of vintages.

8. If you want to taste many wines, follow this order: White before Red Dry before sweet Light Body before Full Body Young before Old

9. Choosing the right glassware In addition to being clear and colorless, a tasting glass should have a generous rounded bowl, a sufficient stem with which to hold the glass and be spotlessly clean.

10. Be responsible As the host, its your job that everyone who attends your wine tasting arrives home safely.  So make sure that nobody who plans on getting behind the wheel has too much to drink.

Did we miss anything?  Comment below if you have any other suggestions or share your wine tasting experiences.

By Desi (Flickr: Bottles of tawny Port wine in Lisbon) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

We are very fortunate indeed to have the IWFS Vancouver Branch under the capable joint leadership of Milena and Jim Robertson. They were also instrumental (along with Dave Felton and others) in organizing our successful IWFS Festival held in Vancouver from September 11-16, 2012. For their stellar efforts they deservedly were recently awarded respectively the BGA Silver & Gold Medals.

They are also port aficionados. On December 9, 2011 they organized a memorable Taylor lunch showing off 15 ports – 10 vintage ports ranging from 1985 back to 1955 including the outstanding 1963 and 5 tawny of 10, 20, 30, 40 years and the incomparable Scion (over 150 years in wood). February 14, 2014 was another of their interesting port profile lunches showing this time 9 tawny ports from Graham’s.

We enjoyed “The Tawny” (7-9 years in seasoned oak”) recommended use as an aperitif or served with almond tart or crème brulee, 10 Year (for apple pie & cinnamon), 20 Year classic style showing the best fruit (for nuts, dried fruits, fruitcake, vanilla ice cream), 30 Year (for dark chocolate), 40 Year (dark chocolate or dessert in its own right), and four Single Harvest (“Colheita”) all showing more green olive tones:

1982:   Bottled 2013  # 3898 Lovely flowery herbal notes

1969:   Bottled 2012 #072 Special bottling of 6 exceptional casks (each cask produces 712 bottles) of the 21 in the cellars shows more caramel/toffee

1961:    No bottling date shown on bottle #607 from Cask 3 but outstanding Bordeaux vintage & special birth year of Barack Obama shows complex coffee notes

1952:   Bottled 2012 # 0847 to honour the Queen on her 60th anniversary Diamond Jubilee Year surprisingly deeper brown colour with drier elegance showing molasses, cloves & dried fruits

The lunch appropriately had some brilliant food pairings Portugal style from sardines in olive oil, dried salted cod (bacalhau), pork & clams (perfect magnum of 1999 Quinta da Leda Casa Ferreirinha from the Douro) and dessert of Portuguese creamy egg custard tarts. That last item was divine with any of the 9 Graham’s tawny ports!

More background detail on “The Tenets of Tawny Port” can be found at www.fortheloveofport.com/2010/03/01/the-tenets-of-tawny-port/

Do you enjoy tawny port? Are you able to share a successful food pairing with them?

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Silver Medalist Chef Duncan Ly, Canadian Culinary Champion Chef Lorenzo Loseto,
Olympic Silver Medalist Rowing Jeremiah Brown, Bronze Medalist Chef Danny St Pierre
Photo credit: goldmedalplates.com

Just back from a busy last week judging the Canadian Culinary Championships (CCC) of 11 competing chefs from across this country. I wrote up a blog on February 11 last year of the 2013 event which you can reference. These events are part of Gold Medal Plates (www.goldmedalplates.com/site/) to raise funds for our Canadian Olympic athletes and were especially topical this year being held while the Winter Olympics are presently being held in Sochi Russia. The CCC has developed into an important barometer of judging the art of culinary excellence in Canada.

All week there were many interesting articles preceding it (www.vancouversun.com/life/Whisks+ready+Canadian+Culinary+Championships+cooking+Kelowna/9483098/story.html) and (www.scoutmagazine.ca/tag/canadian-culinary-championships/) for a good build up of anticipation for the 3 parts of the competition involving a pairing with a mystery wine, cooking the 6 ingredients in the blind black box, and a grand finale dinner plate. It is a very long, gruelling and stressful few days for the chefs – like training for and competing in an Olympic event. Head judge James Chatto sets out a good prelude on his blog www.jameschatto.com together with his ultimate well written summary on the results. Other good results discussion some with photos of the dishes are set out in the blog of The Ottawa Citizen (http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2014/02/09/Toronto), Canadian Culinary Championship comes down to white-knuckle finish (www.vancouversun.com/life/Canadian+Culinary+Championships+white+knuckle+finish/9487143/story.html) and (www.flickr.com/photos/31296974@NO4/). Check it all out on Twitter as well with the hashtag #CCC2014.

Do you have a culminating culinary competition where you live? Let us know.

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Thanks to Robert Henderson of the Toronto Branch for sending me this audio file of André Simon discussing the importance of wine.  Recorded during the late 1960s or early 1970s, his message proves to be relevant to this day.

Enjoy!!

Photo credit: www.alumni.ubc.ca

The University of British Columbia Alumni has started an interesting new event called The Grape Debate. It is becoming an important spotlight on issues involving the wine industry and is partnered by Wines of British Columbia (www.winebc.com) and Vancouver Tourism Dine Out Festival (www.tourismvancouver.com/dine/dine-out-vancouver-festival).

The inaugural one held last year had the topic “Should British Columbia have a Signature Wine Varietal?” (www.alumni.ubc.ca/2012/events/the-grape-debate). A panel of 3 for each side argued pro and con with yours truly arguing for limiting the present 60+ grape varieties to the ones that have so far shown the most distinct potential like: cabernet franc, chenin blanc, pinot noir, riesling, syrah, and white blends. Presently the most planted varieties are pinot gris & merlot as well as a fair amount of cabernet sauvignon which most years has difficulty in reaching phenolic ripeness. A hand vote by those attending the Debate showed a preference for allowing the 200+ wineries to continue to experiment and not be tied to any one signature variety.

The 2nd Grape Debate (www.alumni.ubc.ca/2013/events/the-grape-debate-2014) was just held this last weekend and the question posed was “Is wine made in the Vineyard or in the Winery?”. The issue was stated as follows: “Every wine is unique in some way. Some would attribute these distinctive qualities to “terroir”, while others would consider them to be a reflection of a winemaker’s style. Vineyard location and weather during the growing season certainly impact the grapes in many ways, but the winemaker’s attention to detail and signature techniques may also have significant effects on the final product. Is the importance of “terroir” overstated? Are talented winemaker’s undervalued? And where do vineyard managers fit into all of this?”

Same format as last year and your friendly blogger naturally chose the terroir/vineyard side. After all I really appreciate the unique terroir shown by vineyards in Burgundy (including Chablis), Bordeaux, Piedmont and so many other top unique vineyards around the world. For me wine always starts out as being made in the vineyard and the greater the wine the more true it is – wherever grown! However the average consumer seems to be driven more and more by price and a consistency of style and flavours that they enjoy. Wine is being made better everywhere in the world thanks to so many skilled winemakers and consultants. However a growing emphasis on branding, packaging and higher residual sugar is worrisome. Super ripe grapes, warmer climates, and too much new oak tend to mask the terroir while aged vines and older larger size oak help show it. I like a couple of quotes from experienced winemaker’s as follows: “One must have the courage to do nothing” (Dominque Lafon’s father) & “A winemaker is like a doctor. Must know when there is a problem and how to cure it. Skills are prevention to protect the natural wine from colds, the flu and other maladies. Sometimes doing nothing or as little as possible is the most important thing” (Andre Machetti of Mastrojanni Brunello).

The straw vote taken was very close indeed but the crowd slightly preferred the winemaker/winery influence over the terroir/vineyard. What are your thoughts on this topic? Also please suggest a hot new grape/wine topic we can explore in debate for 2015.

A video of our debate will be posted soon on the UBC Alumni site. Check it out.

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