In my quest to gain wine knowledge I stumbled across an e-book on the Barnes and Noble App on my iPhone, called Educating Peter by Lettie Teague. It's a fantastic read that covers almost every major wine region in the world and gives beautiful descriptions of each place and the kind of wines that come out of the different regions. It is written as a true memoir of how Lettie Teague (Wine Editor for Food and Wine) educated Peter (who happens to be a very critical and highly entertaining film critic) on everything wine. They taste many wines together, talk to many different wine people together and even take a trip to Napa to tackle Peter's aversion to Cabernet Sauvignon. I found it very difficult to put down and finished the 650-page book in a bit over a day.
Anyway... once I finished the book I googled Lettie Teague and found a fantastic article she recently wrote about Grüner Veltliner, a varietal I had never heard about much less tasted.
With the subject of the essay fresh in my mind, my wife and I found ourselves at Block 7 Wine Company in Houston, TX where there was the 2007 Schloss Gobelsberg “Gobelsburger” Grüner Veltliner, Kamptal, Austria by the glass. This was very exciting and the wine did not disappoint. It was one of the most unique white wines I have ever tasted. Now I really don't know much about wine but I have read that Grüner Veltliner has a characteristic peppery nose, unfortunately I didn't get very much on the nose. I did taste some citrus and it was a delicious wine. The aftertaste had a slight metallic flavor and I wondered what might have caused that? It was an interesting aftertaste and I actually enjoyed it.
While I was enjoying the newly discovered wine I also became disheartened as I began to wonder if I would be able to tell one white wine apart from another in a blind taste test.
Maybe that is something I could test in awhile. I could order a bunch of different wines by the glass at a restaurant and ask the waiter to bring them out but not tell me which is which. Writing this down makes me realize how awesome and expensive this experiment would be. Can't wait to do it but I'll probably wait until I have tasted a few more wines and maybe gotten a raise.
Monday, September 21
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I wonder if the metalllic taste is due to the bottle already being opened for a previous customer?
ReplyDeleteTasting and developing the palate is road to knowing wines. You might want to start with the more common wines (i.e. less expensive) to test your taste buds. As you become more in tune with the nuanced flavor profiles, you can move up to more expensive wines. Just a suggestion!
Which of Houston's wine bars do you recommend for a novice taster? Michael
The metallic taste was very subtle and actually quite enjoyable. I just read about how if the soil that white wine grapes are grown in have a high mineral content, that a metallic flavor and aroma can come through the grape. Interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteGreat call out on developing my palate. I know I should definitely master the noble grapes before getting into less common varietals but I was really excited about seeing Gruner Veltliner by the glass on the menu right after reading the article that I linked too.
I really don't know much about many wine bars in Houston but I do know that Cova (on Kirby) has a huge selection of wines by the glass and they also have a special tasting size which is a half glass and also costs about half the price. So you can get more tastings in for a better price. Poscol (on Westheimer) has the same tasting sizes but they only carry Italian wines.
If you haven't checked it out yet, I think we should go to 13 Celsius.
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