So this week, in continuing his wine tasting lessons, I gave my husband a couple of choices to taste.  I didn’t realize that I hadn’t taught him about grapes, so I simplified a bit.  This week, while the weather was still a bit cool, we went with Merlot.  Since the only thing Sean ever knew about Merlot was the quote from the movie Sideways, I was out to prove him wrong!

I decided to put Perimeter Merlot from Washington State up against Jackie Merlot from Napa Valley.  I poured a bit and had him do the white paper test to see the difference in color, and yes, he could tell that Perimeter was lighter.  For those of you wanting to try that at home, place your glass of wine in front of a sheet of pure white paper with the glass angled forward, towards the paper, and try to look through the wine.  You are looking for color and clarity of the wine; when you do this and when you have wines from different regions, sometimes the color will be different. When I asked what he tasted in this first wine he let me know it was more red fruit, maybe a light oak, and that it finished pretty clean. Then came the Jackie, much darker in color, which meant more body, dark fruit, and definitely more tannin.  So as he drank he enjoyed the Perimeter, as it was easy to drink.

This time I made dinner to go with the wines.  I love to make Alfredo sauce in this kind of weather, so tonight was steak, bowtie pasta, and broccoli—all with my Alfredo from scratch.

Once this was done I had him try both wines again with food.  It was funny how the taste changed.  He liked the Jackie better with food.  So I guess I got to make a great point that not all wines are made equally.  I love to teach and there are so many wines to choose from.  By the end of this, he will have a favorite go to wine!

Kathleen Anderson, North/West FL Wine Supervisor. Follow me on Twitter @abcwinekat.