Well, it’s time for me to write about my red kiwi for Wine Blogging Wednesday #17. I’ve been putting this off, I’m really quite nervous about the whole thing. Please understand, I love wine, I’ve worked in the wine industry for years and I’ve attended probably hundreds of wine tastings, but I’ve never had to actually, formally, review a wine in writing, I’ve always just had to give word of mouth, one customer at a time. Oh, I write reviews on this blog but those opinions are mine and they are very casual, and people can take them or leave them, it’s not like doing it for Wine Blogging Wednesday! Well…I guess I’m just going to have to “get over it” huh? Okay, I’m ready.
I guess since I was nervous about this WBW thing I decided to do an informal wine tasting of my own using my guests on Christmas day. Needless to say, we all had a lot of fun with it. I printed out a Simple Tasting Form at the Wine Lover’s Page website and read aloud the Essay Type Tasting Form to help my guests with what they had to do. The form graded the wine in four areas: appearance (0-4 points), aroma (0-6 points), flavor (0-6 points), and overall impression (0-4 points), total points would be 0-20 when complete.
I chose a pinot, Zenith Vineyards Pinot Noir 2003. Zenith Vineyards is located in Marlborough, New Zealand. Marlborough is New Zealand’s largest wine growing region. 40% of the nation’s grapes are grown in the region with it’s cool climate. Here’s what the Southern Starz website says about Zenith Vineyards and the Marlborough region:
The silty, fertile alluvial soils and long, cool ripening conditions in the South Island regions of Marlborough and Nelson produce vibrant, fruit-focused Pinot Noir with strong cherry and plum flavors. These soil types, abundant sunshine, long autumns and crisp, cool winters prove to be the ingredients needed to produce world class wines. The soils which make Marlborough wines so special were deposited by the Wairau and Awatere Rivers which continue to provide much needed irrigation.
Although it is the Sauvignon Blanc that is the crown of Marlborough, acclaimed as among the best in the world, the quality of New Zealand’s Pinot Noir has come an astonishingly long way in the past twenty years. This continuous improvement shows no sign of abating. Only Pinot Noir can boast an annual conference in New Zealand, dedicated to coaxing the best results from this challenging grape variety. The rewards are clearly evident from the mounting acclaim for New Zealand Pinot Noir throughout the world.
Now, getting on with my wine tasting, I must preface this review with facts that I knew before the tasting about the seven that participated. Of the seven, two of us love wine, prefer reds, and drink wine regularly. Two others drink wine regularly but prefer sweeter white wines and rarely drink reds. Two never drink wine but wanted to participate and the last person, well, I know he likes to drink and put together one of the better reviews but I mostly see him drinking beer and whiskey, I’ve never seen him drink wine. Maybe he drinks it when I’m not around, I don’t really know.
Okay, so first I’ll give you my impression of this New Zealand, Zenith Vineyards Pinot. I like it. The aroma was fruity, mostly cherries, maybe plum, and I noted just a bit of butter. It had a dry light-bodied taste with a long pleasant finish, really not too different than a chardonnay even though one’s red and the other’s white. However, the fruity taste was a bit heavier than chardonnay with the heavier cherry flavor. I scored it as follows: Sight: 3; Aroma: 4; Flavor: 4.5; Overall: 3; Total: 14.5 / 20. The form said to equate that on a 100 point scale, multiply my score by 2.5 and add 50, that would be 86.25 / 100.
My wife, the other wine lover in the crowd, scored it similarly, giving it an 84 /100. She thought I was crazy to compare it to a chardonnay and told me to not put that in my review. Well…I disagree, that’s what I think and this is MY review, right? So I left it in and we agreed that some time soon we’re going to do a blind tasting with a pinot and a chardonnay. Fun stuff. I’ll report back about it.
If you want to know what everyone else said, here goes. The sweet white wine drinkers disliked it the most. They both said it was astringent with no aroma. Notes on their tasting forms said things like, aftertaste not pleasant, leaves a bad taste, smells like alcohol, sour, gives me goosebumps :0! ~ wow! That’s nothing like what I tasted at all!
The two tasters that never drink wine, they didn’t really do much, just numbers rating the wine, no notes. I think they just looked at everyone else’s papers and copied. Now, the guy that I’ve never seen drink anything but beer and whiskey, well, his notes were pretty good. He seemed to really have a strong comprehension for tasting wine which really surprised me. On his form he decided to turn it over so he’d have room to write and here’s what he had to say: The color was consistant and clear, somewhat light around the edges. 2 points. The aroma had a deep fruity, cherry smell, not unappealing. 3 points. The flavor was dry and light with a fair finish. 3 points. A good simple tablewine if not too expensive. 3 points. Total 11 points. Then I told him it cost $14 and he said, well, maybe it was better than what I wrote about it!!
So, there’s my WBW #17 review. I don’t know if I did it correctly or not, I guess I’ll soon find out after I read the compilation of reviews on the Cork Dork’s blog (our host for WBW#17). If I totally goofed up, well, so be it, I’ll correct myself next time (if I’m allowed back in!). Click over to the Cork Dork’s blog in a couple of days and he’ll have the recap of the other reviews posted, don’t forget, this is great stuff.
I’ll be talkin’ to ya later!
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