Kickoff was nine in a shed on Parsons Green. Very smart shed. Some arty folk have taken a cruddy old British factory, painted the whole thing white and put in attractive plants, pictures and girls.
You rent it for tastings when you think the experts and writers won't be able to find their way to Reading. (Interjection; it gets me that certain Purple-tinged wine writers now call me The Invisible Man because I don't show up much at London tastings. But would they take a day out to come down to taste in lovely Theale? Not yet, they haven't. Distance is the problem).
Anyway, today it’s our tasting, so I guess I do have to make the effort. The pre-tasting FREE bacon sarnies seem to have got everyone here on time. Stomachs well-lined; we enter the great white room, and attack.
There are teams of four or five at about ten tables, each doing four 'flights' which is what we call a row of bottles ... because it sounds quite cool dontchaknow.
I'm on Abi's team with Jen and Beat Koelliker (Germany's best known wine writer, who is Swiss) has flown in from Zurich just for this.
Lucky us, we get to start with just five sparkling wines, and when we start the first wine is possibly THE nicest wine you could ever be served at 9 a.m. On a bacon sarnie.
Of course we don't know what it is because all bottles are sellotaped tightly into plastic bags that mask everything. But this one we all like. We give it, if I remember right - 18. Top score! We don't discuss wines or scores at the beginning. We each score and write comments on our clip-boards. When we 'land' after our 'flight' we then compare scores, notes, we discuss and argue. Abi arbitrates if there is much disagreement. But, in truth, there isn't.
Mostly we are all within a point or so. Out of twenty (British, not US system). If there's more disparity, we go back and re-taste and then, usually - always - agree on a score.
We had just one wine on which we got heated. I loved and Beat hated. But we each saw the other’s point of view. In the end. It was a very perfume-y Italian. I liked, he didn't. I thought it was fun to have an Italian red do something different. He thought Italian reds should just not taste so perfumey. The girls helped us out of the awkwardness. Anglo-Swiss war averted.
We do just three more flights - which is actually a doddle for pro-tasters - but we did take time to be very thorough and considered. The winning wines will all be featured and there will be a couple of fabulous mixed cases coming out in a couple of months which no-one should miss.
Watch out for the 'Experts' Choice' feature coming soon to your letterbox.
Some of us older tasters find age takes its toll.
Visit laithwaites.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment