At the Guild tasting last night, we drank the wines blind. We had a Merlot and a Cab with each course and we had to identify which was which and which we liked the best. The idea for this tasting came from one of our members who donated all the wines we drank. He thinks Merlot has gotten a bad rap ever since Sideways. From the results of the tasting we agree.
First off, I batted .500 by identifying which was which in 2 out of the 4 flights. Elisson batted .250. My friend Michael got all four flights correct, but he's supposed to. He's a wine professional and is the wine buyer for Green's. (Shameless plug for a friend. You want good wine? Go see Michael Bishop at the Green's Buford Highway store and he will take good care of you.) Out of 22 people, only 3 got all four flights correct. The Guild is composed of some serious wine drinkers and the Merlots we drank were every bit as good as the Cabs.
The biggest surprise? The best wine of the night was a Merlot. It was the 1999 Joseph Phelps Napa Valley Merlot.
So don't believe the bullshit of Miles in Sideways. Merlots are every bit as good as Cabs and Pinots. A blind tasting with some very knowledgable wine folks proved it.
Posted by denny at June 19, 2007 02:19 PMI am not the least bit surprised. Three questions:
Which grape varietal predominates in Pomerol? What grape contributes over 90% of Ch. Petrus?
When have you ever gotten good information out of Hollywood about anything?
Here's an interesting statistic: They sell more 1982 Château Pétrus in Las Vegas every year than the total actual production of Château Pétrus for the entire decade. Heh.
Posted by: Elisson on June 19, 2007 10:01 PMElisson,
A blessed miracle! I admire those who have learned the miracle of turning water into wine.
I content myself with a much more mundane and petty miracle - I reverse the procedure and turn the wine back into water.
Sorry, but I'm just not much of a Merlot man--and I've never seen Sideways. I shore do loves me a nice Oregon Pinot, though!
Posted by: Squidley on June 20, 2007 02:17 AMThey had a little wine tasting at our Sams the other day. a bit suprising. They were allowing tastings of 3 wines. One was a magnum of a chilean cab/merlot for about $7.........forgot the name, not bad. another was a cab I am very familiar with "Veo" ... it is $6.68 per bottle. worth every penny.
Posted by: patrick on June 20, 2007 03:07 PMSideways was pretty lame in my opinion. I thought both of the "heroes" were schmucks--one pathetic loser and wine snob who steals from his mother, and the other an egotistical ass who cheats on his fiancee.
The only thing I liked about that movie was Virgina Madsen. Yum!
Posted by: Dar on June 21, 2007 03:48 PMDar - I thought the movie sucked as well. Many of my wino buddies in the Guild liked it because it was about wine and they had been to many of the places in the movie. Who cares? The plot sucked and the two protagonists were assholes! After the movie came out, Pinot Noir sales went up and Merlot sales dropped. This according to my friend Michael who is in the wine retail business. At this tasting, we proved that Merlot got a bad rap from the movie.
Posted by: Denny on June 21, 2007 03:57 PMCompletely off topic. I love Greens. I ran a restaurant right down the road on Buford and Druid Hills back in the eighties and Greens was a stop several times a week on the way home.