Interested in our Basque Country & Rioja Spain Food & Wine Tour, but have questions?
Join us for a Q & A Session with Jenny Siddall, our local Rioja guide, and tour organizer, Kris Keys. They will be providing an overview of the tour and discussing Spanish food, wine, culture, and anything else you’re interesting in hearing more about.
Upon registering, we will send you the dial-in information to use on August 3rd. Hope you can join us!
Blind wine tastings can be a fun way to test and hone your ability to determine the varietal, region, vintage and producer by using only your senses. Our expert wine guide, Jenny Siddall, has been studying for her WSET Level 4 diploma and has conducted many a blind wine tasting to help her prepare for her exams. We asked Jenny to share her thought on how to set up a proper blind wine tasting.
To set up a proper blind tasting for 6 wines, you´ll need to either number your wine glasses from 1 to 6 or alternatively make yourself a numbered place mat using a piece of white paper, draw 6 circles and number them 1 to 6 and place the glasses over the circles. Cover all 6 bottles with a paper bag or aluminium foil to disguise them and number them 1 to 6. Pour a small tasting sample into each glass, pouring the wine number 1 into glass 1 and so on.
It´s fun to pick wines that have some common theme, whether it be grape variety (choose Sauvignon Blancs from different countries), Sparkling wines from different countries (Champagne, Prosecco, Cava, New World Sparkling), or wines with different levels of ageing in oak barrels. Rioja is a perfect candidate for trying this one out! If you’re having a wine tasting party, you can easily ask each of your guests to bring a bottle that follows your selected theme.
There are a few key things to focus on to give you clues about the identity of the wine. Firstly, what color is the wine? And the how intense is that color? Secondly, what type of aromas does it have? There are three types of aromas – primary aromas (from the grape), secondary aromas (from the winemaking), and tertiary aromas (the time the wine spent in a barrel or bottle ageing). The primary aromas are the ones that can help you guess the grape variety. Other clues that can be helpful are to decide if the wine is dry, off-dry, medium dry, medium sweet or sweet. Does it have high / low acidity or high / low alcohol?
It´s a bit like playing detective and piecing the jigsaw pieces together to make up the bigger picture. Many grape varieties have a distinctive hallmark but don´t be disheartened if you don´t guess the correct wine. It really is very difficult. The fun is comparing how wines differ and more importantly finding out which ones you like. The most expensive and oldest wine is not necessarily the best!
Carmenere, one of Chile’s most popular wine varietals, was once very close to extinction. Originally, Carmenere was grown in Bordeaux, France and used in some of the great Bordeaux red blends. In the late 1800’s, phylloxera, a microscopic aphid, destroyed a majority of the wine grapes in France. This period was known as the Great French Wine Blight, though it eventually made it’s way across Europe and even Australia and New Zealand. It was thought that all Carmenere vines had completely died during this time.
Before the phylloxera destruction, the Chilean wine industry began to take off. Back then, if you were starting a vineyard, the natural source for vines was France. Chilean wineries began planting a mix of Bordeaux vines, including Merlot and Carmenere. Merlot and Carmenere look very similar so over the centuries the identity of the Carmenere vines was lost and forgotten and lumped in with the Merlot. Even though every other major wine region at the time was affected by phylloxera in some way, Chile remained the only major wine producing country that completely evaded the bug, most likely due to it being surrounded by the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
It wasn’t until the early 1990’s that someone noticed that the “Chilean Merlot” had a stronger and spicier taste than other Merlots that were grown in other regions. Using DNA mapping, a professor at University of Montpellier’s School of Oenology (a world-renown wine school) identified it as the long-lost Carmenere.
After the discovery, Chileans embraced their “new found” varietal so much that it is now considered the national grape.
Ready to take your love of wine to the next level? Well, you’re not alone. Wine certification programs aren’t just for those seeking a professional position within the wine industry anymore and have become increasingly popular with wine enthusiasts across the country.
There are a number of options when it comes to wine certification, so how do you choose which one is right for you? It depends on your ultimate goal as well as your skill set. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you narrow it down:
Now to look at a two of the main wine certification options for the wine enthusiast (or someone not looking to fully work in the wine industry):
There are, of course, many more wine certification programs but most are focused on educating wine professionals rather than the everyday wine enthusiast. If you are seeking a professional position in the wine industry, the programs listed above are excellent resources as well as the Court of Master Sommeliers (MS), the Institute of Masters of Wine (IMW), and the Wine Scholar Guild (formerly French Wine Society).
Traveling through Chile & Argentina over the past few years, I’m always struck by the beauty, cuisine, and, of course, wines of these charming countries. But what has had the biggest impact on me is the South American attitude towards life. From my perspective, South Americans enjoy focusing on living in the moment rather than have their lives be dictated by a clock.
As a North American that used to be in the heart of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis, working a fast-paced, high-stress job, and being one of those people who never used all of my given vacation days, I can wholeheartedly appreciate this kind of life philosophy. Us northerners can take a page from our southern friends and take a step back to enjoy each experience to the fullest. Now that I have my dream job where I get to split my time between the marketing of Taste Vacations and Zephyr Adventures, and guiding tours all over the globe, I find myself trying to help our guests to do just that.
There have been many times, especially at the beginning of a trip, where I’ve needed to gently remind a guest that vacation isn’t necessarily about getting from point A to point B so that you can check it off your list. But it is rather about the journey and experiences that bring you from one destination to the next, even if some of those experiences were unplanned. In fact, it’s the unplanned ones that usually end up creating the best memories!
But there are two sides to every coin. As a travel guide leading a tour through South America, it can be tricky to stay on schedule and make sure that you are delivering on the promises that the tour itinerary has laid out. Things happen at a slower pace in Chile & Argentina, which means we have to sometimes pad our itineraries to account for delays in crossing borders, the time it takes to get a lunch bill paid at a small restaurant, hotel check-in processes, etc. Though we try to predict where these delays can happen and plan accordingly, we can’t always foresee the hiccups that arise.
In my mind, a perfect solution would be to meld the two approaches together. At Taste Vacations, we actively try to blend the efficient and detail-oriented processes of North America with the South American ability to slow things down and truly savor what life has to offer. I encourage you to try to do the same, wherever your next vacation may be.
