We joined him and his son Patrick and Patrick's fiancee Ellen last Friday night.
Christoper had chosen six red wines from his cellar and covered them. His son poured them into tasting glasses, which were arranged on his father's West Australian jarrah table in the renovated barn.
The barn adjoins the house and is wonderfully decorated with African artifacts. Patrick and Ellen both live and work in Malawi and Christopher's wife Lorna lives in South Africa.
The wines were labelled A-F. They'd worked out a system whereby no-one knew which wines were which but could be checked after the event.
After participants had commented on and scored each wine, Christopher revealed its identity, where it was from and the price paid.
After we had tasted all six and compared our scores, we found that each of us had a favourite.
However an overall trend had emerged. The two non-French wines had been the most impressive.
The French ones were ...
The fourth French wine was from Graves and didn't rate at all, quite insipid.
The overall winners, on aggregate scores, were wines from South Africa and Morocco!
Just for comparison ... these are the prices Christopher paid for the wines.
2008 Chateau Haut Coteau 20 euros
2011 Chateau Arnaud 30 euros
2015 Chateau Haut-Goujon 20 euros
2009 Meerlust Rubicon 30 euros
2013 Kahina 13 euros
I scored the Meerlust and Kahina equally, at nine out of ten (exceptional), but gave Kahina my No.1 pick.
When it was unmasked, I was thrilled to discover it was Moroccan. I remember 40 years ago drinking a plonk called Doumi Rouge in bars in Casablanca.
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| The tasters ... photo by Christopher |
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| Christopher's renovated barn |
Best way to taste wine without knowing what it is so you’re not swayed by a famous chateau or other. Interesting that one of your prefered wine was from Motocco (acquired taste?) and also the cheapest.
ReplyDeleteHow do these wines compare with Australian wines? Monsieur Google tells me Adelaide is smack in the center of wine country!
On the news on France 2 today there was a piece about private pools and what it involves as far as the law is concerned, and you might want to inquire into that. Here is the link in French.
thanks Charles Henry ...
ReplyDeleteMy taste in wine 40 years ago was rough and ready. A bit more sophisticated now. Yes, the SA and Moroccan wines reminded me of South Australia's big reds ... I guess that's why I went for them.