Can A Sommelier Guess The Red Wine - Without Any Clues?

This has no dead giveaways for me of what it could be. So this is going to be tough. I don't know. Welcome to another session of Vino Blinds. I'm Vince with V is for Vino and these are the sessions where we sit down and blind taste together so we can all learn and hopefully all get a little better at tasting both blinds. And then you can apply that stuff to real life. If you haven't seen our how to blind taste videos, definitely watch those first because I go through the theory of what we're about to do. And this is more like how to do the execution. That being said, this is wine number eight. I'm feeling okay. We've done seven so far. I've gotten five of seven. Yeah, let's say four and a half. I've gotten really close on all the ones I missed, which also, I haven't been way off on anything yet. Knock on wood. I've got a red wine in front of me. We don't know what it is. Let's do it. From a color perspective, kind of a ruby to red. It's not red like Pinot Noir red, but there's like some glimmers of red. I think ruby is probably, probably about right. I don't see any kind of amber or garnet colors that would lead me to believe that we've got like some age on it or tremendous amount of oxygen. I always say the first sniff, most important, it's your gut. Here we go. The first thing I get, some baking spice, some smoke and some baking spice, but not like super intense. Leads me to believe that there's some used oak on this. Maybe some new oak. From a color, from an intensity standpoint, I didn't mention this, but like it's right in the middle. You can see it kind of writing a little bit through the glass and the nose, I get about the same amount of intensity, right? I get about a medium intensity here. Where's the fruit character? It's like dark red, dark red to black. You know, black cherry, black raspberry, and then maybe some things on the lighter side of the black fruit spectrum. Tartar, blackberry and cassis and things like that. Any other giveaways, any other flavors, non-fruit flavors that we should talk about? I mentioned that baking spice and that's kind of smoke already. Get like a woodziness, maybe a bit of leather. Fruit character to me just seems kind of ripe, maybe slightly underripe. I'll know more once I get on the palate. This is gonna be a tough one. Do I get anything new on the palate, any new flavors? Not really. I'm still kind of in dark red fruit land, not bright red fruits, not bing cherry, not sour cherry. Dark red fruit leaning a little in the black, but not a ton. So no, I don't get anything new. And the baking spice still there. Structure, tannin. There is tannin. I'd say medium. Acidity, medium plus. Kind of making my mouth salivate a bit. Body, medium minus, pretty light. Alcohol, medium. This is tough, this isn't like a super light wine. When you get a super light wine or a super heavy wine or ones with like, for instance, we had the Barolo earlier in the season, right? The tannin was so high, it's a giveaway. This has no dead giveaways for me of what it could be. So this is gonna be tough. Finish and complexity, and this will tell us a bit about our quality and how much I'm gonna guess this wine cost. Not very much of either. I mean, medium on medium. It's not bad, but I'm not talking about a whole bunch of different flavors. But I mentioned a few different things. I mentioned the fruit, I mentioned the smoke, I mentioned the leather. And then finish, medium. Nice and little. I did get one important flavor that I think I need to mention for sure, which is a bit of greenness. Bit of vegetal green. Bit of like that bell pepper thing. Not so much that it would be Cab Frong, but there's other grapes that can have that. Cabernet can have that, and so can Carmeniere. Yeah, honestly, now that I'm tasting it, I can't not taste it. Let's talk about Old World or New World. Always the toughest part for me. I mentioned some earth, and I'm getting some smoke. Smoke can be, you know, that's usually an oak thing. I don't know if I'm, I think I'm getting more fruit than earth. Eh, I don't know. There's some minerality too. There's some earthiness too. Maybe like some gravel. But maybe I'm just talking myself into that. Let's put a pin in that. Put a pin in that. Cool climate or Ward climate. I think it's fairly cool because the acidity is medium plus. The body's kind of light. Alcohol's not too high. I said medium. So I think this is a cool climate. All right, let's talk about what grapes it could be. Could it be Cabernet Sauvignon? Yes, we'll come back to that. Could it be Cabernet Fronk? Maybe, we'll come back to that. Could it be Carmeniere? Maybe. Quick note, you'll hear me say Carmeniere a few times in this video, and I apologize, but it's actually pronounced Carmenaire, less of a harsh Y sound. I think it's just my Midwest accent that I need to work on. It's a small correction, but I didn't want you going around making the same mistake as me. Amarone, no. Could it be Gamay? Nah, it doesn't have that strawberry. It doesn't have that bubble gum. The tannin structure's a little too high for Gamay. Could it be a GSM? I don't think the body's big enough. It doesn't have enough complexity from the different grapes blending together. Could it be a Malbec? No, I don't think it's Malbec. I wouldn't, it could be, but I don't get the purple. Purple, Malbec's a purple wine. I don't get any of the purple character, the blue, the blue fruit. Could it be Merlot? Maybe. It's a lean Merlot if it's Merlot, but it could be Merlot. Maybe Olo, no, tannin's not high enough. Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is a chameleon. It could always be Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is so versatile, right? Like, you could have really rich Pinot Noir, you can have earthy Pinot Noir, so yes, it could be Pinot Noir. God, this is gonna be a hard one. Could it be Sangiovese? I'm not getting that rustic character that I would expect from Sangiovese, so no, I don't think it could be Sangiovese. Also, I think the body and the structure would be a bit more there. Could it be Syrah? I don't think so. No, I didn't talk about Pepper, right, which is a hallmark Syrah character. Could it be Tempranillo? No American oak, no coconut, no dill. No, I don't think it's Tempranillo, and also the fruit character's a little too developed for that. Could it be Zin? It's not really big enough to be Zin. So we're down to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Carmonnier, Merlot, and Pinot Noir. I got a greenness. Could you theoretically have greenness in Pinot Noir? Sure, but not typically. So I'm gonna go to the wines that could have some green in them. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, because they're in the same family, Carmonnier, and Merlot. That's what I'm going with. And what's gonna help me determine now, if I determine it's Old World or New World, I can eliminate some options. So let's go back to that. Man, as it opens up, the green's coming through more, and the fruit's coming through more. I think I know what it is. All right, I think I know what my guess is gonna be. I think this is Carmonnier. Because having this much green in a wine, you can have it in Merlot, but it's like in menthol land. And it's not in menthol land, it's in bell pepper land. And the only wines that have that are Carmonnier, South American Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc. But it's not Cabernet Franc, because it's not giving me the earthiness I would expect from Old World Cabernet Franc. The tannin's too high. So we're down to South American Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmonnier, and that's it. That's what we're down to. And I think it's a New World wine. The only thing that makes me think it's not a New World wine is that the body is maybe, you know, I would expect that they were a bit richer. It's just so green. That super greenness, it can come from Cabernet Sauvignon from South America, but it's much more present in Carmonnier. There's also a freshness to this that I think is indicative of mountain, it's like higher elevation. Cause it's got tannin, but it still has freshness. So that to me says South America as well. I don't think it has enough body to be Cabernet Sauvignon. I don't think it has enough tannin to be Cabernet Sauvignon. I think this is Carmonnier from the Maipo Valley. That's what I think. Great, Carmonnier place, Maipo in Chile. Quality or price, a lot of good value wines in Chile. So I'm going to say this is a $17 bottle of wine. This is a young wine. I'm not getting a ton of development. I'm going to say 2020, 2021. I'm going to say a 2021 Carmonnier Maipo Valley in Chile, $17. Final answer. Lock it in, lock and loaded. We're ready? Kind of excited on this one. I'm more excited to see that this is than a lot of the other wines, especially all the other red wines we've had because it could go a couple of different ways, I think. If it's Merlot or Cabernet, I won't be shocked, but I just didn't get the body of that. I'll stop talking. Here we go. Hi, it's Carmonnier, bingo. And it's from Maipo and I'm only one year off. I guess 2020, I switched to 2021. Either way, I just knew it was less than five years. Yeah, man, the signature green character, but accompanied with a freshness that comes from that higher elevation mountain area. And also, so it didn't have the body and the weight and the tannin structure of a Cabernet and it didn't have the plumbiness and the plushness of Merlot. So it really left me with only Carmonnier left to go. I don't know if I gave an alcohol level, but yeah, 14%. I'm happy, man. I'm doing all right. I don't often give myself props, but I'm going to here. Not only did I get the answer right, I got the price right. It was $17.99. And I called it, it was a high elevation mountain wine. You can see on the label, it says DO Maipo Andes, which means the grapes were grown near the east side of the Maipo, along the Andes mountains. Not too shabby. Good, good wine. I love Carmonnier. A lot of people don't drink it. I'm hoping we're going to Chile soon, doing an episode there. We can talk more about it because it's a great wine. It's fresh. It's a good food wine. I like the greenness to it. Not some people are kind of, you know, opposed to that, but I love the greenness of Carmonnier. Overall, really solid. Very happy. One more to go this season. Thanks for watching. We'll do it again next time.