by whitney on July 19, 2010
Hello. My name is Whitney.
And I watch The Bachelorette.
[shame. embarassment. guilt.]
Yes, it’s true people. I watch it. It gives me joy! Joy, I tell you. Why should I be ashamed of something that leaves me with such pure exhilaration and excitement each and every week? I know one other person that is just as obsessed with this season of The Bachelorette as I am. And her name is… Joy. We usually text back and forth many, many (too many) times while both watching the episodes. She is actually dedicating a blog post to our Bachelorette viewing. So, we both watched it tonight and Skyped all our commentary from our respective couches like big nerds.
my Bachelorette watching snuggle buddy Willy
OK- so I thought I would dedicate a blog post to it as well. Only I would pair a wine with each of the final 3 dudes left. Because that is totally something I would do.
[click to continue…]
by whitney on February 8, 2010
Fail. A big fat F. That is the grade I would have received on my blind tasting exam. If that exam took place in my friend Rachel’s living room this afternoon. Luckily for me, it does not actually occur until March. In Vegas. Where, if I screw up, I can drown my sorrows in whisky and blackjack.
But, let us remain positive, shall we? OK- down to the nitty. The blind tasting: one of the more daunting tasks in the Court of Master Sommelier certified sommelier exam. 15 minutes will be given to taste a red wine and a white wine and correctly identify the grape varietal, the country of origin and the vintage. Yeah…not hard at all. When will I ever need to be able to do that in “real life” situations? Probably never. But, by training the olfactory senses in this intense way, it better enables us wine folk to inevitably understand value in a wine, regional and varietal identity, styles of winemaking, etc.
The Court is comprised of some nice people who have had to take this very same exam at some point in the early stages of their careers. Therefore, they kindly email us test-takers the exact format of the tasting exam ahead of time. They have also devised a Deductive Tasting method to help us out and break down each element of a wine into a clue to its grape and origin. There are 3 main categories: sight, nose and palate. Thoroughly examine each element of those categories one by one to then deduce what the wine could be (and what it definitely can’t be). Here is a simple breakdown of the deductive method and how what you see, smell and taste translate to a clue about what the wine in the glass could be.
[click to continue…]
