Three Blind Bottles
If you had 3 unidentified bottles coming at your door and you needed to guess the appellation of each of these three wines, would you be able to do so? This is essentially what Secret Wine asked us to do. Organized by the French communication firm Clair de Lune, this contest gathered 85 bloggers from around the world (around half from France and a couple from Canada) and offered a 3 day wine-tasting trip as a reward for anyone who would guess all three correct appellations… While the reward seems nice, most of the fun comes from the blind tasting, so I invited some friends over for supper and decided to challenge ourselves.
Without any clue, I decided to serve the wines in the numerical order, so it would be wine #79 first, then #390 and finally #714. They could also have picked 1,2 and 3 as numbers, but I figured it would have been too simple… In hindsight, it might not have been the best decision, as it turns out that #79 was the most powerful and #714 was the lightweight of the bunch. Oh well, such is the pleasure of tasting blind!
Secrets hidden in 3 bottles
Right from the start, #79 came out strong with black olives, tapenade and quite a hefty dose of alcohol. We can also see it in the glass, thanks to is deep color and the say it clings to the glass. This is definitely a hot wine, with a long lasting finish which makes us think of the coasts of the Mediterranean. Mourvèdre, Grenache? We finally settled for a Faugères, but it could have been as easily a Bandol.
We then followed with #390, which seemed similar in color than #79, but was a bit more quite on the nose. It eventually opened up with a rather meaty character, garrigue and some dark fruits. However, what interested us mostly in this wine was the smooth tannins which made us go for a mostly grenache blend (with a fair bit of mourvèdre mixed in), from Côtes-du-Ventoux. We got none of the spice that seemed to be detected by some other contestants so we ruled out some appellations which are mostly syrah-based.
With #714, we were taken to a different location. Not only was it lighter in color and alcohol (not gamay-like, though…), it was also the more fruit driven wine of the three. So it must come from a cooler region and it was also the weaker wines of the three, with a much lesser finish than the other two, where it my have suffered from the comparison. Is it a generic Côtes-du-Rhône? An AOC Languedoc? In the end, it was a Pic St-Loup for us, but I was not convinced with the answer I put in.
In the end, it was a fun challenge and, as with everyone who participated, I eagerly wait for the unveiling of the results. Will I win the grand prize? Probably not. But I had loads of fun. And if someone has three other nice bottles to taste blind, I’ll gladly take the challenge again!
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Tags: bandol, clair de lune, faugères, Grenache, mourvèdre, pic st-loup, secret wine, Syrah, ventoux