Wine & spirits: Blind tasting

Tasting jargon
 
BLIND TASTING is the practice of hiding 
a wine’s name, producer and price but providing 
some critical information, like grape variety, region 
of origin, vintage or all three. That allows tasters 
to judge typicity as well as quality.

A DOUBLE-BLIND TASTING is one in which absolutely nothing is revealed to the tasters. In extreme cases, even the glasses are black so the taster can’t tell if the wine poured is red, rosé or white. This is occasionally used in wine competitions and international judgings. With no information revealed, it’s the best way to judge wine quality and to find value for the price.

HORIZONTAL TASTING has nothing to do with the position of the tasters after they’ve finished drinking! Its focus is to assess wines produced in the same year or vintage. One might taste a group of white burgundies from 2002.

A  VERTICAL TASTING is one in which all the wines are from the same producer but each wine is 
of a different vintage. An example might be wines from Château Latour from a dozen different years.

A COMPARATIVE TASTING provides a general theme, such as oaked versus unoaked Chardonnays, French Syrah compared with Australian shiraz, or Bordeaux 2001 versus Bordeaux 2003.

A PORTFOLIO TASTING, also called a trade tasting, is one in which all the wines are from a single producer. It’s commonly conducted by a winemaker showing off his or her latest releases to the media for review and to restaurant industry buyers to enable sales.

One other type of tasting is always fun, if not completely humbling. Everyone knows what the wines are but not the order in which they’re poured. The tasting is followed by a guessing game to determine who is the BEST TASTER in the group.

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