My wife got me a wine blending kit from Crushpad for Xmas a couple of years ago (6 375’s of Bdx varietals) and we’re going to try it with some friends tonight. Anyone else done this? Any hints or lessons learned?
I fooled around with the kit a couple of years ago at an event in NYC. Pretty user friendly and interesting. You learn that some stuff that seems intuitively correct doesn’t work and some other stuff that doesn’t does.
I did a similar blending session at Copia a couple of years ago. Instead of using the full 100mL of the graduated cylinder for each blending test, I scaled it back to 50mL for each blend test instead. That way I saved wine to do more tests, and it isn’t that hard to calculate percentages based on a total 50mL volume… but on the other hand, you want to use enough volume to make sure you get the full extent of the experiment (enough to assess the profile).
I also found that I really liked adding Petit Verdot and Malbec to my blends, but even a small % of those grapes made a significant difference to the overall blend.
I’ve never heard of a blending kit gift, but it sounds pretty geeky cool. I can agree with some experience that blending isn’t linear. Take a soft wine and add tannic wine and you don’t necessarily achieve balance, even of tannin. Take a soft wine and add an acidic wine, same thing. The results can vary greatly. This kind of kit sounds like a really interesting way for laypeople to get a sense of what blending is all about.
I got this for my folks for christmas last year and they had a great time with it and some friends.