We had a lovely dinner with our friends, Dave and Monique, on Tuesday evening. We headed to Smith Street in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, near their apartment and the restaurant of choice was Chestnut, which we enjoyed very much.

Having dined there previously, Dave and Monique were familiar with the owner. When he came over to our table, Monique introduced me to him, noting my current academic study of wine. We chatted for a few moments, at which point he asked if I would like to play a game of blind tasting. While I don’t usually prefer to engage in such parlour tricks, he stressed that it was all in good fun. His low key attitude, coupled with the opportunity for everyone at our table to taste a gratis glass of wine, prompted me to consent.

A few minutes later, our server brought over four glasses of the mystery wine and we all began to taste. I did not easily recognize the wine, so I began to try and narrow it down. I had the Old World in mind and then my husband suggested it might be Italy due to its high acidity. I concurred and considered it might be Sangiovese or Barbera, both of which I had noticed earlier on the wine list.

When the owner expectantly returned to our table, I proferred the Sangiovese choice, while my husband guessed the Barbera. Both of us were wrong. In fact, the wine turned out to be a Chinon, which is produced from the Cabernet Franc grape. The two of us were a little surprised because we are big fans of the Cabernet Franc grape and hadn’t picked up on any of the classic indications of this grape such as herbal or earthy notes. We certainly didn’t expect to guess correctly, but attributed some of our error to the wine being somewhat atypical in its style. The online wine menu doesn’t seem to completely match what I recall from the restaurant, but the mystery wine might have been: Chinon – Domaine du Raifault 2004 France.

This atypicity in wine is becoming more common with the internationalization of wine trending toward the "international style." So much so, that a Master Sommelier recently revealed that the panel of examiners for the MS exam has to taste through a dozen or more wines to come to consensus in finding a single wine that is deemed to be a typical example and thus, included in the blind tasting exam.

However, whether or not it was a typical Chinon, it is clear that I still need to work on my deductive skills in identifying wines in blind tastings. I did attend two sessions at the SWE Conference on this topic, both of which provided good advice. Of course, in the end, the only way to truly excel at this skill is the same way one gets to Carnegie Hall…practice, practice, practice!