Taste Off

On Thursday night, over beer, conversation turned to wine, as it often does when drinking beer. I won’t mention any names, but someone told someone that he had a “Robert Parker palate.” Bollocks. With all due praise, adulation and the calling down of the heavenly hosts for Mr. Parker, no one wants to be told he has someone else’s palate. Nobody. Them’s fightin’ words.

So, for the sake of the preservation of honor, dignity and reputation, it was agreed that we would go toe to toe. In a taste off. A no-holds-barred grudge match over wine. May the best man win.

Odd as it is that a grudge match requires some preliminary shopping, I went to Seattle Cellars, and browsed around for something neither of us had had before to ensure a level playing field. That’s no easy task–not because we’ve tried everything, but because it’s easy to get distracted by the stuff you’ve tried and loved. I stared at Darby’s “Dark Side” Syrah for quite a while before snapping back to the mission at hand. After asking a few questions from the staff, I ended up with a bottle of 2005 RiverAerie Fête ($19.99), a Columbia Valley red made in association with the Bunnell Family Cellar. I could already taste victory in a grand bordeaux wineglass.

Friday at sundown, sitting at opposite ends of the table, we squared off. The rules were that there would be no discussion and no commentary. We would taste in silence, take notes and reveal the results once both were finished. In ghastly silence, we tasted. Here’s the result.

Doug

Nose: Luscious on the nose. Ripe, dark fruit with a little minerality, and some vegetal notes like lichen. There are hints of black licorice, and oak on the nose adds a round smoothness.

Palate: This wine has a big attack. It comes out swinging like it’s been holding a grudge. Spice and alcohol roll on the tongue behind the fruit like the second car on a roller coaster. The wine is fairly balanced—the tannin, acid and alcohol are like a 1-2-3 body-punch combo—but the alcohol (14.5%) is a little too pronounced, making your lips tingle and stealing all the attention. After the attack, though, the flavor quickly tires on the mid-palate, deciding to settle down in hopes of making it through four rounds. Subtle finish of spice and acid are just enough to keep you from forgetting what you’re drinking.

Josh

Nose: Hot, and likely because of the 14.5% alcohol. Plum and blackberry mashed into a black bean sauce; it sounds gross but you would be oh-so-wrong to think it so. Strong cedar box and leather, a favorite profile of mine. Stone, eucalyptus and bacon.

Palate: This wine does not betray its nose; plenty of minerality in the place of real fruitiness. What fruit there is, mostly at the attack and some on the mid-palate, is heavily reduced black fruit almost to the point of burned. Alcohol is so prominent here that it overpowers any remnants of real structure; the only thing happening after the MP is hot, hot, heat.

There was a heated discussion afterwards:

Josh: This wine has a tiny finish.
Doug: Are you kidding?  It’s like 20 seconds!
Josh: No, it’s not! Like five seconds in, it takes a nosedive.
Doug: Well, yeah, it mellows, but it lasts.
Josh, scribbling a graph on the whiteboard: What the hell are you talking about? It’s like this, it peaks hard [sound effect], and then [sound effect] drops off like this. 
Doug, grabbing marker and amending the graph: No, it drops down to, like, here, and then goes like this [sound effect] for a while.
Josh: Are you high?  You must be high. That’s just the alcohol, and acid.
Doug: You like acid finishes!
Josh: Yeah, I guess so, but this is more of an aftertaste than a finish.
Doug: What the hell’s the difference?
Josh: Well, an aftertaste is just left over, but a finish is the wine, like, hey I’m still going strong.
Doug: And what’s with you tasting eucalyptus in everything nowadays?
Josh: I dunno. You don’t taste it?
Doug: No, but I do get the leather, now that you mention it.
Josh: Yeah, and I forgot to mention the oak… 

So, who won the taste off? I’m going to say I did by virtue of authoring this post, and because I got to take the rest of the bottle home from the office. There’s no right answer, because one man’s lichen is another man’s bacon, as they say. Despite a rather heated discussion, we did not come to fisticuffs. It’s amazing what a bottle of 14.5% alcohol wine will do for your attitude.