Today we went off to the Boston Wine Expo, had a hugely great time. The wife and I bought the mother-in-law and got her to explore a lot of new grape varietals from regions all over the world. We started the event with a great keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibrary.com. This was a double-blind tasting with eight wines from regions around the world, we each had eight glasses in front of us to taste with Gary, pick out flavors and profiles and then try to guess the region and the grape.
I was proud to be the only one to guess the second wine correctly. It was a tasty little gewürztraminer and, after preferring gewürztraminer for the last few months I had it spot on. I also managed to find many of the subtle flavors that Gary and others also found in common. One wine had a huge whiskey style nose with a high alcohol aftertaste, like an aged scotch. It wasn’t exactly the most desirable wine but I expanded the palate, learned about new wine styles and had a great time doing it.
This was a great launch into the Boston Wine Expo, it gave you a sense of what to look for and to pay little attention to price and a lot of attention on your own likes and dislikes. Many of the best wines were the cheap wines from areas of the world mostly unknown to the common wine drinker. Have you drank a Zinfindel from South Africa before? It’s got a huge spicy finish that lingers for a few minutes as if you just ate a jalapeno. So interesting.
There was a big turn out on the event, the economy might be down but drinkers were out in full force. From restaurant owners, tasters to the casual wine drinker we all represented well. Italy brought it on strong with tons of wines and huge exposure as they were the first at the enterance of the event. Spain had a few rockstar wines but it seemed most of their areas were wiped out or less maintained.
We hit up some huge eiswein’s from Germany including a sparkling cranberry wine which was something I’ve never tried before and has a great chance of becoming a big seller. If you’re in the Boston area and are considering wine as a hobby (to taste and drink), this is the show for you. Just remember to utilize the spitting buckets; way too many people were simply sucking this stuff down like water!
Huge shout out to WineLibrary.tv for the great freebies and Hellovino.com for their wine charm (great design!) and exploration of their upcoming wine pairing software.
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