Blind Tasting

Blind tasting refers to trying a wine when you don’t know what is in the glass. This practice is often done to prevent bias that knowing something about the wine could introduce. Sometimes “blind tasting” comes about when you don’t know enough about a wine to have any bias! Such is the case with the wine I drank last night.

Two things contributed to my blindness. The back label had come off the wine. When I looked the wine up on the Internet, I could not find out much. My notes in Cellar Tracker had mistakenly labeled this wine as a Pinot Noir, but this wine comes from the Languedoc region of France. I know almost nothing about, so I couldn’t know that the wine was from the Grenache grape. My blindness led me to a pleasant discovery.

The wine in question was a 2002 Château de Beauregard Coteaux du Languedoc. The wine was pleasant to smell and drink, but nothing outstanding. The aromas reminded me of the Beaujolais Nouveau I had last month. The initial taste of the wine was very interesting. It’s as if the flavor bloomed on my tongue. At first I had the generic sense of red wine. Then I began to taste sweetness, but just as soon as the sweetness registered, it changed into a lightly tannic wine flavor. After swallowing, there was a flavor similar to the taste left from Concord grape juice, only not as sweet.

I don’t know if this is a common attribute of Grenache, but it was an enjoyable wine. It was light enough to drink on it’s own, but it went well with the Teriyaki chicken I tried it with (it probably would have gone better with a milder chicken dish.) Without knowing what grape the wine was made from, I was guessing Grenache. What really surprised me when I looked at my Cellar Tracker notes is that this wine only cost me $6 at BevMo. This was a very nice wine, which I’d like to try again!

TASTING NOTES:

Color:
An attractive cranberry red

Aroma:
Cherries, smells similar to a Beaujolais Nouveau

Taste:
Dry, but almost sweet. Lightly tannic with a pleasant finish