A few weeks back we celebrated National Wine Day and it was glorious because our friends at Breakthru Beverage came through with a super timely wine delivery. To commemorate the occasion, we invited our wine snob friends to blind test the two red wines they gave us. We put the bottles in brown paper bags, uncorked them, and let them breathe for a few minutes.
We poured a glass of each, not knowing which wine was which, and took a slow sip from both glasses. Halfway through the process we switched the wines by accident and had to sip out of the bottles to ensure the integrity of the blind testing process. Once we cleared up the switcheroo, we carefully savored each wine's unique characteristics before engaging in an in-depth discussion about what we liked, what we did not like, and what type of wines we thought they were. Both wines turned out to be distinctively different.
The first wine came across initially as a Tempranillo—at least our supreme wine snob friend Roy thought so. He complimented the "round tannins, layered flavor, and the subtle oakiness and smokiness," the latter of which he surmised came from being aged in French oak. This wine turned out to be the Bogle merlot, which is sustainably farmed and produced in the Clarksburg region of California. It is aged in American oak, not French oak, but its flavor profile includes pipe tobacco to which the smokiness could be attributed.
We unanimously agreed that, while the Bogle merlot was not quite as bold as the cabernet sauvignon to which we're accustomed, it was good and arbitrarily gave it a 90 point rating based on WTSO standards. Even when we switched to try the second wine, Roy refused to let this one go exclaiming, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Why are you taking it away from me? I gotta have this!" Everyone else agreed and continued to sip on it for the remainder of the evening.
The second wine was heavy on the acidity and slightly bitter. Roy guessed this one could be a Chilean or Australian red, but it turned out to be the Freakshow red blend, which is sustainably farmed and produced in the Lodi region of California by Michael David Winery. Overall this wine was closest to a cab. Nevertheless, we unanimously agreed it was "whatevs". While we didn't love it, it makes for a respectable table wine for a person who enjoys a nice red wine.
We're happy the experience yielded a new wine to mix up our current roster of reds and we're excited to repeat the process—it was a lot of fun!—with the selection of rosés we have anxiously awaiting us in our fridge. Have you ever done a blind wine testing? Do you have any suggestions for improving our methodology before the next go-around?
Wines were provided courtesy of Breakthru Beverage. However, all opinions expressed regarding the products are our own.
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