I have a 22 wine blind tasting exam soon. Is there any advice or resources to help narrow down varietals blind. I already know taste, taste, taste, as well as I know everyone has their own anchors for recognizing wines. Any help is appreciated. these will all be classic wines from classic regions (old and new world). Any books, websites..... anything?? Thanks

Dylan

You are going to taste 22 wines blind and not know anything about the areas, the varietals, or the wines?

And you are expected to identify . . . what?

I've done a lot of these but if you're just going in entirely blind, it's next to impossible.

It is a passing score of 70% with half of the score just being a complete and proper tasting note. The test is 6 white, 6 red, 3 sparkling, 7 fortified with 2 faults included. They are supposed to be only classic varieties and from classic regions being a good example of them. we just need to identify old/new world, quality assessment, grape variety, region, sub region. There is a fairly limited amount of wines in those parameters, but I have trouble with anchors for certain varietals. Just need to hit a few regions and/or varieties to pass. Thanks for the reply.

That's much more do-able.

I'd just assume that they're going to do the most popular varietals in their most popular styles - cab, merlot, pinot noir, syrah, and maybe something Italian - sangiovese maybe, but maybe not. If it's mostly new world in focus, then maybe zin. Otherwise it's a crapshoot. But you'll already have four down so make some educated guesses for the other two, unless there can be more than one wine with the same make up. But assuming there won't be, if the outlier doesn't seem like zin or lean like a nebbiolo, it could be a Spanish varietal - tempranillo or any of those found in the south Rhone. Anything green, herbal, or olive-like gives you cab and/or merlot, if you get the additional cab flavors, you're good. The coloring will give you a hint re: pinot or nebbiolo unless you get something from CA but I can't see them doing that in a test like you're taking. So if you get your PN and cab, syrah can be lean and leathery if from N Rhone or thick and full bodied if from elsewhere, but in either case still lacking the cab notes, so you ID that and then you can guess at the outliers.

Same w whites - they'll probably have chardonnay and riesling and sauvignon blanc for sure (can confuse SB with the lesser-known verdejo). Those are easy - riesling with the pineapple and petrol, even when dry, sb with the grapefruit, grass, and cat pee, and chardonnay without much real flavor at all, esp if it's unoaked. If it smells nutty and buttery, then it's likely to be an oaked version. They'll probably put in something floral like muscat or viognier, or gwertz which smells like lychees, and then you have two more outliers. If it's like water, it's likely pinot grigio since that's popular. If it has flavor, it could be any number of things. Something like chenin blanc is too hard to call by flavor but it may be a good guesst. If I couldn't guess it and it had lots of lean acidity, I'd probably call it a chenin blanc because that would be the most popular choice - S Africa does a lot of it and you aren't likely to get anything else from there.

I'd base my guesses on whether the point is to get some kind of certification for working in a restaurant, in which case you want the basics, or if it's something more academic, in which case they may put in some more difficult stuff.

The fortified ones should be pretty easy. They're generally much easier to distinguish from each other than varietals are. The basics are Ports, sherries, and Madieras and they're pretty easy to distinguish blind.

Let me know how I did after you take the test. Good luck.

Thanks, I will let you know. This is an academic thing. One of the most programs in the country. It's much more difficult than the court of masters sommelier exam. I am doing it to hopefully further my career. But my problem is that I am relatively new to wine. I don't know tons of producers, and can't really afford to buy lots of wine and taste. Here in las vegas, some places now have vending machines for tasting with hundreds of wines you can pay for by the ounce. I will be hitting those frequently until the test. thanks again