Tonight we had a very ‘educational’ R dub-dub. The purpose of the evening was to taste a Pinot, a Merlot and a Shiraz along side each other. We had a glass of each poured in front of each of us and were able to compare colour, texture, smell and taste consecutively. Wealso had small containers with pieces of chocolate pieces of licorice, vanilla, plums and black pepper. When smelling and tasting we’d refer to the food samples to see which ones we could pick up.
All very interesting stuff!. The highlight was looking at each one – a very obvious progression of deepness of red colour and texture. On smelling the Pinot I could hardly get anything – it did smell light and sweet but it was very very subtle. After smelling the Merlot and then the Shiraz and then going back to the Pinot the smell from the Pinot actually became the strongest smell of the three!, weird!!!
The differences became more and more obvious – we were picking up licorice, chocolate and pepper in the shiraz, chocolate i the Merlot and more berry fruity smells in the Pinot.
We are officially becoming wine snobbies! Great!!
As far as the actual wines go we had the Alex Gold 2006 Pinot Noir, the Beach-House Reserve Merlot 2006 and the Serafino Shiraz 2005. Overall – nothing to write home about – Didn’t enjoy the Pinot – still yet to find a great Pinot Noir. The Merlot was good not great as was the Shiraz – no one makes the best of the best list tonight.
