The wine experience - Part II

By guest bloggers Mary (my sister) and Matt (my nephew)

The second part of our wine experience was to learn all about blending.  First we blended white wines, then red, then fruit juices.

Matt figuring the pipetting

It was a very scientific process.  Firstly we smelled and tasted different grape varieties of wine. Then using a pipette, we blended different quantities until we like the end result.  Then we did a blind taste test of all 6 wines and voted on our favorite.

Peter found the red wine blending particularly challenging as he didn't like the taste of any of the reds before blending!

Peter and Johnnie

Matt was the white wine blending expert, John the red wine expert (obviously!) and Ruth and Peter found the best juice from a mixture of pomegranate, blood orange, strawberry and watermelon.  The 2 best juices were named Strawberry Bliss and Harold's delight.

Fun Day!

We had a fun day today with my family at Birdland. This morning we labeled our very own 2009 Birdland Merlot wine, in poppy red labels.

There were  a few challenges half way through when the labels started creasing, but we solved and got them all done and back in the cellar!

Then this afternoon we all tried blending wine.  We started with white wines, then some reds and finally different juices!

The whites we blended together were: Fume Blanc, Moscato Blanc, Chardonnay, and Albarino
The reds we blended together were: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Zinfandel
The juices we blended together were: Blood orange, Strawberry, Pomegranate, and Watermelon

We found out that those who were good at blending white wine, weren't so good at blending reds and vice versa! 

It was fun and I'll post photos soon when I get them from Finny (my brother in law) who took the most!