Blind Wine Tasting: What Is It and How Do You Do It?
Blind Wine Tasting: What Is It and How Do You Do It?
Blind wine tasting can be defined as tasting wine without seeing its bottle or label and can be a fun way to encourage observation and discussion.
Blind wine tastings are often used by professionals to limit bias when evaluating wines, as you may have seen in the fast-paced deductive wine tasting method sommeliers use in the Netflix documentary Somm.
They can also be used by consumer wine tasters as a way to hone observation skills and test one’s own knowledge.
The reason this is important is that our senses are biased toward the visual when wine tasting. In a 2001 University of Bordeaux study, students were asked to describe two glasses of wine: one white and one red.
The contents of both glasses were exactly the same- the red one simply had red dye added to it.
The enology students participating in the study described the red wine with red and blackberry and tannin characteristics that are associated with red wines and none of the participants thought it was a glass of white wine.
The power of suggestion is strong in wine, so tasting blind can remove some of our biases and allow us to focus on that which we sense.
Blind Wine Tasting: Here's what to expect if you’re participating in a blind wine tasting
First, when creating a blind wine tasting, a certain number of wines are selected. This is the most important step, as it frames whether the tasting will have a theme.
Beginning blind wine tasters may want to start with a general and wide net, such as all wines from a certain region or varietal, while more advanced tasters may want to focus on wines of a certain varietal and region, but focus on differences between producers or vintages.
Visit Et Fille Wines in Newberg, Oregon
We look forward to hosting you soon in our Tasting Room located in Downtown Newberg, right in the heart of Willamette Valley WIne Country.
Blind Wine Tasting: Curated by a Professional
We offer a Cellar Sleuth Tasting at Et Fille Wines, so we’ve done the selection work for you. We select three different Pinot Noir representing three different single vineyard sources and vintages then we lay them out for you as a suggested and curated blind wine tasting without the hassle.
In our blind wine tasting, the objective is to learn about the profiles of our different sites and vintages within our Willamette Valley region.
Second, any telling visuals of each wine are hidden. The bottle is generally wrapped in either tin foil or a brown bag so that one can see neither the bottle shape nor the label.
Capsules and corks are often removed so that they do not reveal the producer.
Third, a framework is provided to evaluate the wines so that participants are using common definitions.
Blind Wine Tasting: What am I Tasting?
See the Et Fille Tasting Framework for a simple tool to assess a wine along with four simple criteria. It is advised that participants first taste and score the wines silently, so their scores are not biased by others.
Fourth, once each participant has evaluated the wines independently, the conversation should facilitate participants learning from one another.
The framework can be used to share observations and hypotheses about what wine it may be can be shared.
Blind wine tasting can be a fun way to further your observational skills and sensory experience of wine. So, we suggest inviting over a few friends and having your own blind wine tasting party!
Et Fille Wines is the perfect source for your next wine gathering.
Contact our team today to currate a list of wines perfect for your next event!
Blind Wine Tasting Party: How to Plan Your Perfect Blind Wine Tasting with Friends
Check out this recent article featured in Wine Enthusiast that details the best way to build your own Blind Wine Tasting party with friends and family.
They give some great information on the topic and include a wide range of essentials when planning your big event that includes:
Bottle Bags
Glasses
Spittoons
Paper and Pens (or Pencils)
A Fact Sheet
Water Pitcher and Glasses
Food
If you plan on hosting quite a few blind wine tastings with your wine-loving friends, then you should certainly invest in a nice supply of the mentioned items so that you have them on hand even for the most spontaneous of events - you never know when a blind wine tasting will break out and you want to be prepared!
Good luck and we hope that you will join us for a wine tasting soon at Et Fille Wines in Newberg!
Want to attend your very own blind tasting?
Just use the button below to sign up for our Cellar Sleuth series and you and your friends can see who is the best blind taster!