Wine Tasting at Home
For blind tastings, put a bottle of red and a bottle of white in paper bags, taped or tied closed at the neck so the wines cannot be identified. Ask friends to bring a bottle of their favorite wine, similarly bagged. Now, with several bottles of red and several of white, taste each of them. Make notes about aroma, taste, and finish (aftertaste). It is a good idea to refresh your palate before each taste with a cube of bread or a bite of cracker, and perhaps a sip of water. Vote on which wines were best. Guess the price. Guess the variety. Then open the bags to identify the wines. There will be some surprises.
As a general rule, limit the number of wines at a single tasting to six, and keep a bucket handy in which participants can dump the rest of the glass from a tasting of wine they do not particularly like.
Wine and Food
It is true that wine marries food. Sometimes both the wine and the food taste better together than alone. Or the two do not taste well together at all. To experience this, invite friends over for a wine and food pairing. Prepare some small plate dishes with unique flavors: a selection of cheeses and cold meats, a vegetable dip, a selection of fruit, shrimp, fried chicken, a sausage, and perhaps a small beef fondue, or mushroom casserole if you are feeling extravagant. Taste one bottle at a time of 3 reds and 3 whites, take a sip with each of the different foods. How does the food change the taste of the wine? What wines go best with what foods?
Wine and Music
It may be a surprise to learn that the ear affects how wine tastes. That's because taste, through aroma in the nose, is connected to the frontal cortex where emotion is experienced, and because music arouses emotion. The phenomenon has been demonstrated by researchers from Napa to London. Poor Mozart. Researchers found that his music spoils the taste of wine for almost everyone. (For more about the physiology of taste, including the role of the ears, go to The Complexities of Wine Tasting.
To experience this, invite friends over to participate in a wine tasting with music, the more people participating the more interesting it will be. Set up a tasting with two each of varieties of red and white, two different reds, say one cab and one pinot noir; and two different whites, say one chardonnay and one sauvignon blanc. Now select music to play with each of the wines. (A bottle will pour about 12 tastes, so if there are more than 12 people participating, there should be more than one bottle of each wine.) For each of the four wines, make three selections of different genres and moods of music on CDs. Select from classical to rock, from lively to sedate, and from light to heavy to play in the background while tasting the wine. If your CD collection is not that broad, ask friends to bring CDs to fill in. There should be a total of 12 music selections. Now, pour a taste of the first wine for each participant, and play one of the three selections chosen for that wine while tasting the wine. Ask participants to compare tastes – do they like the wine or not, a lot or a little. Then put on a second music selection, and taste the same wine. Did the aroma change? Did the character change? Was the wine more or less flavorful? Was the finish the same in taste and duration? Now put on the third selection of music and taste the same wine again. What conclusion does the group come to about what music helps that wine taste best? Take a vote. Was there a consensus? Continue this experiment with the other three wines and nine music selections. Discuss the conclusions. What music enhanced the wine, and what music detracted from it?
(Wine and Food)
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