The tasting was hosted by Diego, [1] Wing Lei’s sommelier. Wing Lei is located inside the [2] Wynn Resort & Casino and its décor is simply stunning.

Willie, the tasting’s MC, had selected the tasting’s topic: any French reds, excluding, [3] Bordeaux, [4] Burgundy and [5] Cotes du Rhone.
Now what kind of tasting is that? A great one if you ask me as it puts your knowledge to the test. [6] Alsace, [7] Loire Valley, [8] Languedoc-Roussillon, South West of France, [9] Corsica and [10] Provence are about all of the possible selections. The most interesting thing, for me, about this tasting is how rarely we actually drink these wines.

This is where your knowledge comes into play. One needs to recognize particular characteristics or aromas to overcome such a challenge. I will give you an example of what I mean. If you smell aromas of strawberry, raspberry and rose in a particular wine, you know that strawberry is a typical aroma characteristic of [11] Loire Valley and of [12] Languedoc-Roussillon wines. Raspberry is present in all wines of the above mentioned regions so we can say that the wine is either from [7] Loire Valley or [8] Languedoc-Roussillon. Now we go to the next aroma, rose. Flowers scents such as rose and violet are characteristic of Loire Valley but not of [8] Languedoc-Roussillon, hence the wine must be from the Loire Valley. It sounds simple but it takes lots of practice, hence the importance of taking time to train your nose. This is a part of the methodology which I use to uncover where a wine is from when blind tasting.
The color, viscosity, alcohol also play a great role, especially when you are at a tie break with the aromas.

Now a practical breakdown of a new wine:
Red Wine, ruby color, pink rims, medium viscosity, clear, bright with aromas of blackberry, raspberry, clove, dark chocolate and smoke, meaty in mouth with medium plus to plus acidity, not quite balanced.

Let’s analyze:
Red wine, ruby in color with pinkish rims, clear and bright puts this wine in a 2004-2005 bracket.
Clove, dark chocolate and smoke put it in the [8] Languedoc-Roussillon Region and the blackberry hints us that it is probably a blended wine, possible Carigan and/or Syrah as varietal(s) and quite possibly some Grenache too.
Meaty in mouth with medium to medium plus acidity, maybe a wine from Corbieres AOC.

Result: 2004 Sainte Eugenie
AOC: [17] Corbieres (Languedoc-Roussillon).

In a nutshell, that is how it’s done.

The next tasting will be classic wines from the world over. I will unfortunately not be attending that tasting as I will be tasting some wines in Switzerland and Italy! I will update you on my trip soon.

Cheers!