Mood Wine - Tasting The New Wines...

One of our major priorities is to find wines that are diverse and appeal to a broad spectrum of wine lovers. Asking groups of tasters to help us with our wine selections seems like the best way to guarantee the wines we pick are good choices. So we asked a few wine lovers to come over on Sunday and taste through the nine new wines we are considering.

Tasting notes - wine glass - cheese...

Tasting Notes-glass-cheese

Meet the gang...

L-R, Patrick, Fred, Ryan, Emmanuel, Hayden (Jake behind the lens)

For tasting results... JUMP!

I thought it would be fun to examine a few of the taster favorites... all in all, none of the wines we selected were bad, but a few were stand-outs...

Emmanuel and Hayden discussing wine (or was it the pizza party from the night before?)

Emmanuel is currently studying culinary arts in college. He is thick in the middle of all things food and wine. He was excited about several of the wines, but we all agreed he should take the off-dry German Riesling to play with because he envisions a fabulous Pan-Asian-Fusion dish for this wine...

The Off-Dry Riesling we tasted

This Riesling is very expressive in classic German Riesling style, nice aromatics, that touch of petroleum on the nose, a combination of citrus and tropical fruit, and lots of spicy floral accents. It's going to be a fantastic addition in the Mood Store.

Fred started the tasting by saying "I'm not really good at this, I just came along for the ride." HE ended up with some of the most interesting descriptors of the day...

Fred finding all kinds of interesting things in the wines

Fred officially dubbed himself Baron Frederic Rothschild in honor of the two Rothschild Bordeaux wines we tasted. He found things in the wines like Watercress, Pomegranate, Sage, Ale, and we all saw what he was talking about... it was SO COOL.

Fred especially enjoyed...

Sinergia Monastrell - SPAIN

Monastrell is the same grape as the French Mourvedre. Monastrell/Mourvedre is a hot weather grape. This bottle comes from Valencia, Spain. This is what Fred had to say:

"This wine has a royal purple color, with blackberries on the nose. It has a smokey bold palate with currants."

Emmanuel said about this wine:

"I will try this wine with veal or aged meat"

Ryan loved it as well and thought it also had black cherries and agreed that it would be great with grilled meats. Hayden also found black cherries along with plums, tobacco and leather.

Does this sound like a big red wine or what?

This next wine...

Arpatin 2006 Barbaresco from Piedmont, Italy

Barbaresco! This was the all around top score earner of the day. It was interesting how light it was in color. What many people don't realize is Barbaresco (made with the Nebbiolo grape) is often referred to as the Italian Pinot Noir. Based on the reactions to this wine, we all had to agree. This same grape is also used for the much bigger Barolos of Italy (yes we also tasted a barolo).

Hayden...

Hayden having a moment

This guy is becoming one of my go-to Moodies when it comes to describing wines... especially reds (his admitted favorites). In addition to his interior design business HJB Interiors, Hayden also has culinary training and knows how to work with food and wine. So he's going to take this Barbaresco and do some recipe development for our Mood Wine Club to enjoy. This is how he described this wine...

"Wow, I'm surprised how light this wine is... I expected it to be much darker. I get tiger lilies on the nose along with black cherries and berries, pomegranates (again thanks to Fred for cluing us in on this), and some roses."

And this wine was also a favorite of Ryan...

Ummm, Jake please explain this picture.

Ryan came as a guest of Emmanuel, and we are so glad he did... he also has a great palate and gave us lots of good notes on all the wines. This is some of what he said about the Barbaresco:

"The color is blood red. It has dark flowers and black licorice along with the cherries and berries. It feels like it would be perfect with food including bacon." 

Of course the bacon suggestion made Jake very happy!

This concludes today's post on three of the nine new wines we are excited about! Next step, set them up in Mood Wine, along with tasting notes, videocasts on each one, and of course RECIPES on the blog.

Stay tuned for the notes on the rest of the wines... COMING SOON!