The First Tasting :)

I am so excited to actually start tasting wine!  The first tasting could have gone one of two ways.  The first would be to taste the big six grapes (Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah/Shiraz) all in one tasting or the other option was to try just the whites and then just the reds.  I opted for the latter of the two mostly for financial reasons.  Buying six bottles of wine at a time can really break the bank! 

Andrea Immer Robinson gives a list of wines that she suggests be included in the tasting.  The list is broken down by the grape, region and affordability.  For the first tasting I got lucky because my friend Emily was joining me and offered to contribute one of her bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.  (You will probably hear me mention my friend Emily quite often.  She just moved back to San Diego after completing culinary school at the French Culinary Institute in New York City.  She also is incredibly knowledgeable about wine so I value her input and advice.)  Because this bottle would have been in the moderately priced section, I decided to purchase the other two wines from the same category so there were no major quality differences.

I went to my local BevMo to purchase the wine.  Thank goodness Emily was there with me to help navigate.  Although I have purchased wine before, it was usually just a random bottle so I didn't have to search through the isles to find a particular wine.  I'm sure it would have taken me over an hour to locate the two bottles of wine that I was going to get, but Emily showed me the ropes.  The wines were categorized by the grape or by the country that they were made in.  Within those sections, the wineries were alphabetized.  

So we ended up settling on the following white wines:
      Riesling:  Saint M Riesling 2009 - Germany
      Sauvignon Blanc:  Montes Sauvignon Blanc 2010, Leyda Vinyard -
                                 Leyda Valley, Chile
      Chardonnay:  Acacia 2008 Chardonnay

We set up the wines from the lightest body (Riesling) to the fullest body (Chardonnay) and placed a white piece of paper underneath them to view the differences in color.  

As you can see, the Riesling was light yellow, the Sauvignon Blanc had a bit of a green tint to the yellow and the Chardonnay was a dark gold.  For the first tasting, Robinson really wanted us to understand the different body types so we weren't asked to describe the specific taste of each wine.  Usually when I think of Riesling I immediately think about it being sweet.  This Riesling was different from what I have tried before.  It was crisp, light and tasted like sweet fruit, but it wasn't overly sweet.  The Sauvignon Blanc was a lot more fragrant than the Riesling.  Emily said that it smelled like cat urine and upon first whiff she was absolutely right!  After tasting it I could definitely distinguish the difference in body from that of the Riesling.  It was acidic and kind of tasted like grapefruit to me.  The third and final wine was the most fragrant and full bodied of them all.  I love Chardonnay's so I was a bit biased, but this was my favorite wine of the night.  It coated my mouth and the taste lingered a bit longer than the others.  It was buttery and so delicious!  I will be tasting the three big red wine grapes next time so stay tuned:)