Tasting - I went to the wine lab again

 Okay... I went to the wine lab with my girlfriend and didn't take notes at all because we were chatting and playing chess.

gimme some credit for dropping $80 at your gastrobar @boyer

Did the wine & cheese flight. Liked the first pairing a lot - the gouda was awesome, much saltier than expected, which worked well with the sugar in the prosecco.

The 2nd and 3rd wines, reds, were pretty meh after that first set. Same for the cheeses. Maybe I'm just a hater but manchego has no defining characteristics. It was just mid as hell. Not extreme in any way - not super salty, creamy, stinky, stiff, nutty, nothing outstanding at all. The cheddar wasn't bad but certainly not stellar compared to the yummy gouda.

After that had a glass of the Boplaas Muscat again because I love that syrupy caramely quincy brown wine.

Also a charcuterie board because chess was continuing into a third game and I couldn't drink more.

Tasting - Kung Fu Girl Reisling

 Wine: Kung Fu Girl Riesling

$11.20 at food lion

Year: 2021

Location: Washington State

Color: pale yellow, silvery glints

Smell: pineapple, lemon

Taste: juicy, slightly bitter like underripe fruit. Not dry, medium sweet, lemon/lime rind aftertaste, maybe some grapefruit as well.

General notes: This had the most significant difference in taste and smell that I have had while taking detailed tasting notes - expected sweeter, more tropical flavors, and instead got this kind of unpleasantly bitter flavor. Interesting that the two senses could be so different. Probably wouldn't buy again; it was cheap and some interesting stuff going on but there are far better Rieslings out there in my price range.

Wine Folly lists lime, apple, beeswax, jasmine, and petroleum as common notes. Personally only picked up the fruits, and wasn't looking hard enough to pull jasmine or beeswax out of my ass. 

Tasting - Liberty Creek Chardonnay

 Did a back-to-back tasting of two bottom shelf chardonnays because the wallet is getting thin at this point in the semester. This is Blog 2 of 2 on cheap chardonnay.

Wine: Liberty Creek Chardonnay

Year: not listed

Location: California

Cost: $5.99 (3-glass box)

Color: very pale yellow. almost colorless

Smell: lighter odor than the Sutter Home, much like the color. Green apple was the only specific odor I could pull out

Taste: apricot faintly, overall even lighter flavor than Sutter Home. It's a more polite wine, insofar that it probably knows it doesn't have much to show off, and opts to be light and refreshing instead.

General Notes: If Sutter Home was the Coors Light of Chardonnay, this is certainly the Miller Light - more refreshing, lighter, less boldly sub-par.

Wine folly says the typical primary flavors are apple, star fruit (who the heck knows what star fruit tastes like), pineapple, vanilla, and butter. 

Tasting - Sutter Home Chardonnay

Did a back-to-back tasting of two bottom shelf chardonnays because the wallet is getting thin at this point in the semester. This is Blog 1 of 2 on cheap chardonnay.

Wine: Sutter Home Chardonnay

Year: not listed

Location: California

Cost: $5.99 (3-glass box)

Color: goldenrod, slight brown tint. just the faintest orange too

Smell: smells sweet, cheap, sour, apple-ey. Homeydew melon, gasoline?

Taste: buttery, not as sweet as expected, very gentle sugars honestly. not very distinctive mouthfeel. smoother than water, but not in a slimy viscous way.

General Notes: definitely a cheap wine. could probably pound this all day at a concert but not something I would pull out for a date or serve to my parents. I served this straight out of the fridge, will let it warm up while I type this then taste again.

Wine folly says the typical primary flavors are apple, star fruit (who the heck knows what star fruit tastes like), pineapple, vanilla, and butter. I didn't get any of those middle three, but the buttery texture and apple were present. I taste apple in every white wine though so who knows what's actually going on.

Tasting - I WENT TO THE WINE LAB

 3/22/2023 - Didn't see Professor Boyer at the Lab, but my buddy Hayden was waitering that night so that makes up for it.

Had the port flight ($10 for three 50mL pours). Have never drank (drunk?) port wine before, my only expectation was that it would be sweeter than normal (which it was). Full Tasting notes below:

Boplaas Hanepoot Muscat di Alexandria (Cape Town, SA) 2021, $32/bottle

Color is golden, amber, dehydrated-urinesque. Like apple juice - very brown and crisp looking, but upon moving the glass the thicker viscosity was noticeable. I smelled quince, cloves, honey, and apricot. Tasting produced a very sweet honey and fig flavor. I could feel the alcohol; certainly the 17% abv was noticeable, but not in a harsh way. It was definitely sweeter and more viscous than the other two ports. I tasted this first, and then the Barnard; part of me worries that my unimpressive tasting of Barnard was due to this being so heavy and sweet. I liked this wine, quince is a fruit I grew up eating fresh, in preserves, in cobbler, and in chutney, so it was very nice to be gifted passage back to those memories through this wine.

Barnard Griffin Syrah Port (Columbia Valley, WA) [no vintage given], $28/bottle

Color is red/black/brown for sure - more purpleish along the edges and a dark black at the center. Odor of plums, black pepper, could smell the booze in it. Less sweet, less viscous than the Boplaas. I noticed sediment in the bottom of the glass after tasting this one - unsure what that's about. Not off-putting to me (I had a beer this weekend that I brewed myself - enough yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottle to make several loaves of break). I picked up a mushroome-y flavor on the last sip when it had warmed up more. Not a huge fan, probably wouldn't ever spend the $28 for a bottle of this.

Graham's Six Grapes Port NV (Porto DOC, Portugal) [no vintage given], $32/bottle

Less opaque than the Barnard, but still a dark red with no light transmittance through the Smelled kalamata olives immediately, which was nice! Probably one of the only wines I can say made me feel "spicy", which was kinda fun and I might start chasing that more. Walnutty character, more tannin than the Barnard. Gave off the vibes of an oversweet tart cherry juice like Cheribundi with honey added. This is a distant second to the Boplaas.

Reading up on Port on Wine Folly, I am unsure if the Boplaas is a tawny port or a white port - it had both the caramel flavor of tawny and the apricot flavor associated with whit ports. Over all, I'm not a big fan of sweet drinks (soda is not in my diet most of the time), but I really enjoyed this flight!

The wines are lined up in the order they are written on the menu and on this blog!

Tasting - Spring Break 6-wine tasting

 This isn't the typical format for a wine tasting for Dr. Boyer - just trying to get credit for doing a tasting. And tbh I feel like the current tasting vs chees/wine pair vs wine dinner options are a little rigid for all the ways you can taste wine.

I went to The Georgia Tasting Room in Savannah, GA. Bartender was really chill, talked about his photography side hustle and growing up in Atlanta while he was pouring the tasting.

Tried 6 wines, took brief notes on each and ended up purchasing the Riesling as a birthday present for my sister.

I am realizing now that the photo I took of the menu did not in fact list what winery and what year each wine was from haha. I took some notes on my phone which helped me piece together some of the missing bits.

The wines I tried (in order):

Pinot Grigio (Asheville NC): 

Riesling (Asheville NC): 

Biltmore 2020 Pinot Noir (Asheville NC): more tannic than the Forsyth

Forsyth Pinot Noir (Savannah GA): Lighter color than the Biltmoresulfury on the nose, which has been a persistent problem over spring break with the water. Tap water out on Tybee island was so sulfury that I couldn't drink it. Wonder if that same character tranferred to the wine from the local water? Definitely dry mouthfeel, strawberry and raspberry flavors. 

Chateau Elan 2022 Velvet Reserve (Braselton GA): Very sweet and VERY tannic. Feel like it is rare to get those two extremes in one wine. I picked up on the oak! first time I think I can say that I noticed the oak flavor.

Chateau Elan Sparkling Moscato (Braselton GA):

Notes:

Forsyth sulfury, definitely dry

Other Pinot very much more tannin

Velvet sweet and VERY tannic

Image of the menu, blue circles are the ones I tasted

Chateau Elan Velvet Reserve (left), Chateau Elan Sparkling Moscato (right)

Biltmore Pinot Noir (left), Forsyth Pinot Noir (right)

Tasting - Crafters Union Rose (CAN)

 Wine: Crafters Union Rose

Year: no year visible on the can, assuming 2022 or 2021

Location: California (no more details)

Price: ~$6 at food lion

Color: very light pink/orange color, like the skin of grapefruit flesh

Scent: floral aroma, also a celery leaf sort of smell. Lemongrass, some sulphur notes as well.

Flavor: sweeter than the pinot grigio, almost a little salty. An oceanlike saltiness, not like soy sauce. Reminds me of when you get water in your mouth swimming at the beach (but in a good way). Peaches! Like peach rings.

General: I liked it. Not typically a sweet wine kinda guy but this was very tolerable and enjoyable.

Wine folly talks about a bunch of flavors I don't taste, but can see the melon and rhubarb potentially.

Drank this with a Crafters Union Pinot Grigio and a meal of fish/shrimp tacos (image of food below, CU Rose review in the previous blog post).