Options Game

WINE TALK
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Had our annual Monday Table options game last night at Melbourne’s Gaea restaurant. Brilliant food and service. A lot of tricky options questions.

Cheese Curd

Pea Wagyu Sopressa Tart

Sweet Potato Pancake

2008 Billecart-Salmon Champagne Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon : A fresh nose of strawberry, lemon bread and chalk. Fine and focussed. Cut by a sharp line of minerally acidity. Complex and detailed and very long. Classy.

2019 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Blanc : Has a wheaten biscuit note, along with sappy orchard fruits. The palate is rich and unctuous. It is powerful and layered and has good depth and chew with length to burn.

2017 Y de Yquem: Has such an over-the-top nose and one that I’d be glad if I never smelled again. Durian fruit, mango, gooseberry and petrol. Rich, unctuous and round. Very little acidity.

Razor Prawn / Young Almond

2002 Maison Leroy Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières : Has an ‘old school’ Meursault feel to it. Rich and heady, plenty of almond butter and ripe peach and a touch of white mushroom development. There is a touch of volatility, that didn’t bother me. The palate is layered and it has underlying coolness. There’s some custard apple and it is persistent.

Jason’s Mushroom / Fermented Black Truffle / Burnt Rosemary

1959 Cuvée du Vatican Châteauneuf-du-Pape : Some mushroom development along with aromas of menthol and raisins. With air there’s raspberry fruit at its core. It breathes up really well and is silky and quite complete in the mouth. The finish is carried by sweet tannins.

White Asparagus / Arrow Squid / Kombu

2010 Domaine du Clos de Tart Clos de Tart, Grand Cru : An inviting nose of red fruits and spice. It has flesh and there’s something cool and stony lurking. It is quite creamy through the mid, deep of flavour and long and expansive. Tannins are ripe and acidity fresh. Really good wine.

2010 Maison Albert Bichot Romanée St. Vivant, Grand Cru : Complex aromatics of raspberry, cherry, floral spice and root vegetables. The palate is fine and lacy and possesses good detail. The finish has cherry stone coolness and structural elements are supportive.

Baby Abalone / Chicken Liver / Choko

2013 Domaine Ramonet Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet, Grand Cru : Drinking beautifully. Notes of white peach, aniseed, spearmint cream, honeysuckle and smoky mineral. The palate is buttery rich, layered and detailed. It has power with precision, excellent build and a fresh and very long tail.

2011 Vincent Dancer Chevalier-Montrachet, Grand Cru : The nose is gently tropical and the fruits have a candied quality. There’s a light nuttiness and some spice. It is silky and voluminous, with nice underlying minerality and good balance and poise. Took a while to open up in the glass.

Rockling / Young Pine Needle

1996 Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste. Hune: Smoky mineral, fresh lime and gin botanicals. Has a custardy feel in the mouth. Just starting to dry out a tad but very tasty. Lively of acid.

Gaea Bao / Cultured Butter

2002 Domaine Fourrier Griotte-Chambertin Vieille Vigne, Grand Cru : Drinking beautifully. Plenty of forest floor to the aroma along with smoked meats, Hoisin and Asian spice. Rich and powerful, layered and plush. Builds through the palate and fans out. Excellent presence.

2002 Domaine Bruno Clair Chambertin-Clos de Bèze, Grand Cru : Tight at first, showing a little meaty reduction. Breathes up to show plenty of spice and delicious cherry fruit. It has a hint of underbrush development and is very minerally and detailed. The finish is fine and expansive.

Short Rib / Preserved Quince / Radish

2016 Penfolds Special Bin 111A: Deep purple and seriously inky. Blueberry, blackberry, plum and graphite. Quite massive but also light on its feet. Waves of fruit lapping over ample structure. Needs two decades in the cellar.

1982 Massolino Barolo Riserva Vigna Rionda: A really good bottle. Plenty of Indian spice to the aroma along with some coal smoke, blood and meat. It is rich and chewy, with good depth and lovely florals as it takes on air. The finish is sinewy and very long and savoury.

Green Apple / Sourdough / Lemon Thyme

1989 Hugel Gewurztraminer Sélection de Grains Nobles : Some truffle development and quite honeyed. Luscious and layered. A suggestion of lavender and apricot. Plenty of brown spice and a hint of talk. Still loads of sweetness but also fresh and energetic.

Koji / Walnut

1960 Quinta do Noval Porto Vintage: The fruit here is of the red persuasion and so perfumed, with a sweet jube-like quality. There’s beautiful floral spirit and a suggestion of licorice. It is rich and heady, immaculately proportioned and the finish drives on and on. Hard to believe its not Nacional, in fact one Port aficionado at the table noted that it could have been, as the label was a bit different and there was a section missing from it.

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As long as the public wasn’t invited at $4,500@, then this dinner was awesome.

What is an “options game?”

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Not Jeremy, but it’s an often played game in Oz by wine nerds. It is thus ideal for WBers.

All wines are served masked. As each wine is presented the option master poses options for the participants to guess the wine in the glass. Generally the questions move from more general to more specific and if you get one wrong you are out of that option.
So a series of questions may look like.
1 . Is this wine from a. Northern Hemesphere or 2. Southern Hemeshphere.
2. Is this wine from 1. France 2. Italy 3. Spain
3. Is this wine made from 1. cabernet 2. Merlot. 3 A blend?
etc etc
until the Producer, vintage, variety, region, vineyard etc is identified

There are some quite serious Options tournaments and a lot of dinners and tastings are conducted this way.

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Sounds like fun. Will have to adopt that game. Jeremy, you always drink well! Nice going.

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Holy smokes - what amazing bottles!

And the Options Game actually sounds like a great little game instead of just blind tasting and guessing. Will definitely adopt that!

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Options was created by Len Evans, right? He’s a legend. I’ve conducted games a couple of times, even though it’s virtually unheard of here in the US. It makes blind tasting interactive, and allows people with varying levels of experience to all take part. I’m kind of surprised it isn’t more popular here.

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I should add that generally the person throwing up the options is the one who brought the wine in question. Options can be as specific or as general or as bizarre or indeed as humorous as is felt necessary.
It can of course be very humbling.

Organised options games can feature many teams with a number of people on each team. I participated in one organised by Winestate magazine which saw around 40 teams of 4 competing. There were some tough options wines such as a 30yr Vouvray on that day.

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I love the idea but it seems like almost everyone would get knocked out too early to get near the end.

I guess you could decide how hard to make the questions and the wines, and I could see it being more fun giving everyone a first miss before being knocked out the second incorrect guess or something. So it goes deeper into the more interesting questions before everyone is just out.

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Yes Chris, this can be a problem. Often the knockout is better suited to larger groups. For smaller dinner groups then each participant can guess each question and it’s really just a matter of personal pride and elicits debate moreso than pure point scoring.
This article might offer more context.

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Do you have people write the answers down or say them out loud (thus possibly influencing the next guessers)?

Do you allow conversation and speculation about the wine around the table before the guesses are made?

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Each option answer is revealed after the vote for each question so that the identity of the wine is slowly revealed.

There is always lots of speculation. I have heard people proclaim a wine soon after it’s poured.
Of course if they are correct then it’s not really an option game and their chest puffs out markedly!!
Depends how competitive the ‘game’ is though. Being a poker player can be good.

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