Wine Tasting Week 4

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

First day of red wines. Today we looked at the classics, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir. We also did an experiment with adding toasted oak chips to boxed Burgundy wine. We smelled the difference between light, medium, and dark oaks (yes, they do smell different!) and then we added a little bit of the dark oak to the wine. The wine smelled (and tasted) much better after we stirred in the oak. It’s amazing what adding one thing can do to change the wine! I can see how adding oak chips, or fermenting or aging wine in oak barrels could produce some very tasty wines.