Our tasting group had slowly gone away from its origins, which is to be expected after about 6 years, we’d done nearly all the various styles and we’d sort of settled into a holding pattern of annual dinners. So I decided to organise something I’d be wanting to do for ages which I hoped would capture the fun, learning element again – blending wines.
The premise was 4 blending teams each creating a wine that would be judged by others.
I ordered a big box of lab glassware (flasks, beakers, measuring cylinders, funnels) so each table would have their own ‘kit’. Due to space requirements I hired a community hall at Redfern Oval (which was a great venue). We had 4 tables spread out and a couple more for food and preparation. I have to say that Redfern Oval is in great nick considering it is open for the public, lovely ground in a bit of green space right in the heart of the city.
The Blends
I decided to go with a couple of Rhone Blends Hermitage Blanc (Marsanne, Roussanne) and Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre)
I purchased 5 bottles of each type of wine (Australian ones to keep the costs down)
White Blend
2009 Tahbilk Marsanne
2016 Tahbilk Roussanne
Red Blend
Teusner The Dog Strangler Mataro
Teusner The Riebke Shiraz
Yalumba Old Bush Vine Grenache
I also did some Blending worksheets with some blend percentages of commercial wines (Chave Hermitage Blanc, Duval Plexus etc) to help out people. I also snuck in a couple of ring-ins to the final line-up to see how we would fare against a commercial blend. Yeringberg Marsanne Roussanne, and a Duval Plexus GSM. Both pretty highly regarded in their own right.
Torture Test
As an added interest I decided to do my Wine Torture Taste off as well, which consisted of one control wine and 4 others which I’d done various things to. These wines were bought all together direct from McWilliams and cellared since. Being Mt Pleasant Rosehill Shiraz they are decent wines to start off with.
One bottle has been on a Western facing window sill for 14 months (including 2 Aussie Summers)
One bottle frozen overnight and defrosted prior.
One bottle hyper-decanted in my 20,000rpm blender onsite.
One bottle subjected to travel bottle shock in the Travelshock-alator™ for 16 hours.
One bottle is the control.
Food
Due to the hired space not having any kitchen facilities we had to bring in all our own food and nibbles. The ‘Krusty Food Truck’ (Matt) stepped up with a cantankerous Jolene (his offset smoker) to supply us with pulled pork, lamb shoulder, home-made brioche buns, coleslaw and a couple of sauces (which I might add were all superb).
I got a bunch of cheeses from Formaggi Ocello (like a kid in the candy store there) and a heap of stuff from Costco (like who buys this stuff, I was buying for 14 and still didn’t want 6 boxes of BBQ Shapes which is the min size you can get) the jar of Preztels was hardly dented and took my work area of about 15 people about a week to get through.
Greg kindly supplied about 3 trays of Riedels for people who didn’t have glasses or wanted extras.
The Blending
For our table we first tried each base wine on its own to gauge how they tasted, then we each chose a rough blend to try (4 of) and tasted each of these and picked our favourite and further tweaked it. I think the thing that struck most people here was how much difference there is in a final wine with seemingly small changes. Changes of say around 5-10% created a vastly different wine. How the commercial guys must stress over this given they are dealing with thousands of bottles is mind boggling. Everyone got into a good rhythm, pouring, measuring.
People were also encouraged to bring their own wines to drink while we were doing all of this as well. So we had plenty of wines to choose from. Tahbilk Sparkling Marsanne, Kumeau River, Grant Burge Meshach, Charles Melton Nine Popes, Sallys Paddock, Clonakilla Hilltops Shiraz, Hentley Farm Shiraz and a heap more that I can’t remember. (someone may chime in with the full list, there were enough of them!!)
It was interesting seeing people’s preferences coming out when deciding their favourite ones, with some preferring more acid and structure and others wanting it bit more softness and fruit drive. At the end each table produced a wine which I reckon anyone would be happy to drink. I think it’s one of those things that Experienced Wine Drinker Joe Public could probably get about 80% as good, but that remaining 20% is where the years of experience, training would come in for a commercial product.
The Torture Test
For me this was very eye opening, I thought without a doubt that the Heat Affected one would be nothing but port or a stewed mess. The fact of the matter was, no-one could say with any real confidence which one it was. They knew the control one so they could compare to it. Even knowing which one it was, I could see it was a bit flatter on the palate but that was all. (and I reckon had I not known the order I would not have picked it). It just doesn’t seem conceivable that a wine could be subjected to 45C+ days for 3-4 days/weeks at a time (probably hotter being in between the venetian blinds and window) and not suffer any real ill-effects after 14 months. It sort of made me re-think that when the courier guy leaves it on the doorstep for a few hours in the sun, or it being delivered during a hot spell may not stress me out as much now. (admittedly whites would probably be a whole different story). Obviously if done over 10 years you’d expect more difference, although that is quite extreme storage conditions. These bottles were under screwcap for what it is worth. They are age-worthy wines with 10-20 years well within their drinking window. (I think they retail for about $50 a bottle nowadays)
Funnily enough most people preferred the one that had been frozen. (I’d frozen it solid the night before, I did unscrew the cap to-loose as I didn’t want it exploding). The one in the blender was seen as the worse (most thought that it was the heat affected one) all I did was pour it in the plastic cup and blended for about 15 secs at 20,000rpm and then back in the bottle. The Travelator (Travel Shock) one no-one could see any real discernible difference in it, and makes me think the whole idea is a bit meh. (thanks to Tez my dad for knocking it up for me, out of some old wood and bbq rotisserie motor, intentional clunking motion and all)
Great bit of fun, many thanks to all in helping set up and pull down, many hands make light work. We even managed to have a bit of a pass around on the field with the old Steeden Krusty had in his bag (as you do).
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