Oxford Blind Tasting, 11 November 2007

Blind tasting explodes a lot of myths about wine that should well and truly have been exploded by now – usually bald claims about the impossibility of identifying a certain wine, or about other wines being unmistakable, or about how the New World is not a patch on the Old, and so on. I am always especially fascinated by the result of group blind wine tastings, where the conclusions of several people in relation to a wine presented blind say more about it than 100 back-labels ever could. Sunday was no exception, when I presented a bracket of 6 to this year’s batch of blind tasters at Oxford. Here are my notes on the wines, together with what the group said.

2006 Grove Mill Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough, New Zealand)
Very pale, with a green tinge and appealing clarity. The nose is pungent, showing intense grassy aromas and a certain celery-salt herbaceousness. The palate is very clean and high in acid. Although it shows some tropicality, it is definitely at the herbaceous end of the spectrum, finishing with a clean mineral streak. All but one of the 10 or so of us there identified it as Sauvignon Blanc, but interestingly only two put it in New Zealand, and only one in Marlborough. Of the others, Sancerre was the common consensus, but personally I thought it was classic Marlborough (although of course I knew what it was beforehand). I do, however, see the point of the one candidate who placed the wine in Pouilly Fumé, which to me is the vigorous, slightly aggressive appellation that most closely approaches New Zealand in style, although personally I didn’t pick up any of Pouilly Fumé’s characteristic smokiness on this wine.

2004 Domaine Roches Pouilly Fuissé
Mid gold. On the nose, a heavy influence of New French Oak, manifesting itself in heady aromas of butterscotch and caramel, with some faint stone fruit and candied orange underneath. In the mouth the wine is as round and voluptuous as any number of fatties that Gok Wan can try to make look good naked (except with the curves in the right place for a change). I suspected that everyone would put it in the New World, but happily all but one had this squarely in Burgundy. An oxidative hint together with the heavy oak influence led one person to speculate that it was white Rioja. Close, but no cigar. I’ve made that mistake myself on a couple of occasions, but the oak was clearly French and there was none of the spicy, sherryish character that one associates with white Rioja.

2005 Hugel Gewurtztraminer (Alsace)
Light and clear, with a tinge of green, and hanging quite heavily in the glass, as one would expect. Highly aromatic – pear, lychee and orange zest on the nose, with rosewater and Turkish delight joining in on a fairly unctuous, oily palate, finishing slightly bitter. No prizes for identifying this one – and a good thing too, because everyone got it right.

2006 Wild Rock ‘Cupid’s Arrow’ Pinot Noir (Central Otago, New Zealand)
Mid- to dark-red, but still translucent. The nose has some dusty new oak on it, together with some sweet red fruit and a bit of alcoholic heat. The palate shows forward non-descript red fruit, together with pinot’s sappy greenness. Of the majority who correctly identified it as Pinot, only one had it in New Zealand, the others placing it in Burgundy, probably on account of the lack of purity on the nose rather than because it was stellar in any way. One had it in Beaujolais, although to me it wasn’t at all confected, as would be usual there. Interestingly, two very good tasters had it as Cotes du Rhone. Personally I would probably never have thought this, although it’s an interesting guess. I always think of Grenache as being heavy and “purple fruits” dominant, although I admit this is usually the case where it is heavily blended with other heavyweight Rhone grapes. One quickly forgets that in the more generic Rhone appellations, the wines can become thin in both colour and flavour, bringing Grenache closer to Pinot than one would usually expect to occur.

2006 Chapoutier ‘Les Meysonniers’ Crozes Hermitage
Dark red-purple. Jammy, confected nose, with the palate showing crunchy purple fruit, blackberry, boiled lollies and a tiny hint of white pepper. Guesses were all over the shop with this (only one person correctly identifying it as Crozes), but this is pretty unsurprising given how young the wine is. Its voice is nowhere near broken yet – the 2004 was still on the shelves only a matter of weeks ago. Interestingly, a critical mass of people mistook it for Loire Cabernet Franc. This surprised me, but I can sort of see the case for it now, with the tight, crunchy fruit, high acid and a certain leafiness to it as well.

2002 Petaluma Coonawarra
Ah, the welcoming scent of home. Opaque. Loads of mint on the nose, over layers of dusty oak and rich cassis. Cedarwood comes through on the palate with rich brambly fruit, dense fruit layers and ripe tannins. A unanimous verdict for Australian Cabernet Sauvignon (which of course it was), although interestingly the merlot content is virtually absent on the palate despite forming 49% of the blend. Happily for me, everyone said they liked it (most thinking it was the best wine of the tasting), even though they knew all along that it was Australian. No prejudices in this year’s group. That’s what I like to see!

Afterwards we went to the Anchor for dinner. Thumbs up for the steak and kidney pudding; thumbs firmly down for the thin, acidic Barbera d’Asti on the wine list.