Everyone has a favorite wine, or at least a wine we say is our favorite. But how often do we put that to the test? Recently Michael and I decided to do a blind tasting of 4 different Chambourcin wines. One was our favorite and the other 3 were excellent wines that we thought might steal the crown. To help us in our experiment, we decided to bring in a dry red wine "expert", our friend Amanda.
So now let's introduce the competitors. Our favorite wine between us is Casanova from Belvoir Winery in Liberty, MO. The Casanova is a red medium-bodied wine with fruity characteristics and is a blend of Missouri Chambourcin, California Syrah, and Missouri St. Vincent Grapes. We almost always have a bottle of this in the wine cabinet.
The first challenger is the Chambourcin from Augusta Winery in Augusta, MO. We stumbled upon this wine while having lunch at Willow Spring Mercantile in Excelsior Springs, MO. Augusta’s Chambourcin is a full bodied wine that is rich and spicy with an earthy finish that leaves a velvety feel in the mouth. It surprised us with how good it was and immediately caused us to compare it to Casanova. This was the wine that inspired us to do a blind tasting. We needed to know which one was actually better.
The third wine and second challenger was a more distant competitor. Recently, Michael and I went to a few wineries in the Finger Lakes region of New York. One of the wineries we visited was Goose Watch Winery at their Lake Placid tasting room. While trying their large variety of wines, we noticed they had a Chambourcin. Their Chambourcin is a dry varietal with aromas of raspberry is aged in oak. While tasting this wine we thought it might give Belvoir a run for its money.
At this point, we had 3 wines, but felt it left our participants on uneven footing. Michael and I had tried all the competitors, but Amanda had only tried 2 of the 3. This led us to add a fourth wine. The last addition was the Chambourcin from Noboleis Vineyard (Augusta, MO). Noboleis’ Chambourcin, is a dry red with notes of plum, blackberry, spice and medium to light bodied. Noboleis being one of Amanda's favorite wineries, we knew she would have had this wine before.
After much shuffling to make sure this was truly a blind tasting, we had labeled the hidden bottles A, B, C, and D. I had also labeled each wine glass with A, B, C, and D to make sure we wouldn't confuse our glasses. We started the experiment by silently trying each of the wines and analyzing the various wines to figure out which one we preferred and if there was one that was superior. We each rated the wines separately to avoid coloring each other's perspective. Keeping silent was really hard.
Once we had finished our notes, we started to share our thoughts. Michael said that these were all very similar with only slight variations. He thought that B had the most fruit. Amanda and I noted that we were able to differentiate the wines more than Michael. I stated that A had the smoother finish. I also noted that B was a darker in color and left the wine glass with a purple/red tint, something I recognized that the Casanova tends to do. Amanda stated she knew instantly which was Belvoir’s Casanova because it instantly brought her to memories of hanging out with friends at the winery.
We revealed our ranks for the wines.
Michael – B, C, A, D
Amanda – D, B, A, C
Vicky – A, C, B, D
After more discussion on how to reveal the wines, we decided to reveal the one that Amanda was absolutely convinced was Belvoir, which was bottle B. She was so relieved that she had gotten it correct! Michael was excited that Casanova really proved to be his favorite.
All these wines were of top quality, and it was interesting how we rated them. Once we put all our scores together, our overall rating was B, A, C, D. We want to emphasize, while there was one that came out on top and one that came out on bottom, it wasn’t a large divide. We then revealed the remaining wines to know where each stood. So in order of overall rating, they are:
Belvoir Winery – B
Augusta Winery – A
Noboleis Vineyard – C
Goose Watch Winery – D
This experience was interesting, and it was good to see how we liked the wine without knowing the label. We decided that this experiment would need to happen again, but next with Missouri’s state grape, Norton.
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