Numbers

So last night, I went to a wine tasting at C & L's. As one might expect, it was fabulous. It was primarily a Châteauneuf-du-Pape tasting (which is great, not just because it tastes good, but also because it's fun to say - really, try it: Châteauneuf-du-Pape). We also tried a few Cotes du Rhone as well as starting off with a couple of Condrieus (which I had never tried, but quite enjoyed (rare for me with whites) and look forward to drinking more of).

The problem is that I have no valuable information to report back on. I can say that the wines were fabulous (with the exception of '5', which I didn't particularly care for (though L really liked it, so I'm fairly confident it had some redeeming qualities)), but given the fact that the only thing I can remember is that it was '5', doesn't really tell anyone anything. I also quite enjoyed '6', '10' and 'B' (the last was a Cote du Rhone, the numbered ones were Châteauneuf-du-Papes) and that 'C' would have done very well with a nice, juicy, medium-rare Sirloin. The issue is that by the time we got around to unveiling the actual names, I had had enough good wine that trying to remember details of names was not exactly top of mind. As always, the devil is in the details.

I will add that watching people choose wines in an unstructured, blind tasting is interesting. There are a small group of folks who start with '1' and continue in order until they hit the end. A few of their counterparts start at the top (in this case '13') and work down. Then there are those who choose the nearest bottle at any given point, but make notes to ensure they're not doubling up. And finally the smallest group just choose randomly and hope that if they double up, it's on the ones that they most liked. I tried to convince folks that I was using the Fibonacci Sequence to choose, but my friends aren't idiots, so they didn't believe me.