Musings #6 - Cruel to be Kind

The Prentiss Street Wine Club held an open house this past weekend - and it was very nice. All our visitors brought great everyday wine (a hand crafted fruit-infused gin showed up as well!) which ended up being indicative to each's taste and personality. Thanks to The Kipper for great eats.

And I wrapped a Merlot in a bag and made everyone taste it and give feedback. It was a 2007 Yellow Tail Merlot. And it was kinda cruel.

But yet not. The most fascinating thing about it was the sheer cavernous space created by the comments surrounding my little cover-up. People talked and shouted about Old World and New World styles, regions, varietals. I slowly gave up that it was a Merlot: "Not California!" "Left Bank!" Then the vintage year peeped out: "Can't be!" "I don't care - I like it!" "Two-Buck Chuck!" Knowing what it was all along - this last utterance nearly made me crack: They're on to me. When it was revealed, most were generally shocked. Everyone felt it was serviceable and much better than they would have anticipated. I was surprised that it had a hint of structure to it as well. But we all concluded that it was neither a core-rattler nor a conversation-halter.

Before I was a wine geek I was a stereo geek. An audiophile. I'm still one at heart and I look at some of my older gear with pity and shame. Except for one piece: my Realistic STA-2380 receiver, which I purchased over 6 months on lay-a-way from Radio Shack when I was 14. It was what I could afford and had the specifications I wanted. But at the time, and up until a few years ago, I wanted to cover it up. Scratch the name from the faceplate. How could a budding audiophile center a hi-fi system around Radio Shack?! What I know now is that this solid state beauty is a tank. It's never wavered, and it's mostly outlasted all my other gear from that time, much of which had a better name. It was always there, had big solid-state characteristics, modest music reproduction, and it fostered me through a greater exploration of sound. Now it serves as my FM tuner and it still doesn't complain.

Which brings me back to the Yellow Tail, and what I've said in a previous post. When you cover up the faceplate - people aren't judging - but would I still serve it? Probably not, since we're all, unfortunately, influenced by brand, reputation, and caliber to some degree. But yes, there are a lot of fair to middling wines with fancy origins which we probably would feel taste better if we had both labels in front of us. Like the Realistic, Yellow Tail is available everywhere, is fairly adequate, doesn't complain and could foster new people into the wine world. This is a very good thing - especially for those of us who may not drink commercial-based wines regularly, but want to introduce others to the potential mind-bending traits of wine.

On second thought, I may serve it again. Blind, of course.