Wine tasting January 18, 2003
The first ever
wine tasting event at our place started off with a breath-taking display
of Poi juggling by Soo and Donald. The name comes from the Hawaiian tradition
of slinging mashed tara root to remove excess fluid when making poi. In
this case, the mashed tara root was replaced with continuously changing
multi-colored lights at the end of ropes, slung around in various complex
patterns.
Then the two
went on to quite literally set the night on fire with flaming juggling
pins, even exchanging them in mid-air. My camera is too slow to capture
anything more than the accumulated patterns traced by the flames.
Once our senses
were suitably numbed while tasting nine different mystery bottles of wine,
Donald introduced a bartender's cork trick that kept a number of us busy
for quite a while (Olga, Noriko, and Bryan in these pictures).
There were
many surprises when the votes were eventually tallied and the labels unveiled.
We did an unscientific summary by counting the number of people voting
for each mystery bottle as their favorite, with the following results:
| Brand |
Type |
Vintage |
Votes |
| Guglielmo |
Sangiovese |
2000 |
6 |
| Charles Shaw |
Cabernet |
2000 |
5 |
| Chandon |
Blanc de Noir |
|
2 |
| King Estates |
Pinot Noir |
1998 |
2 |
| Salishan |
Pinot Noir |
1987 |
1 |
| Laurier |
Pinot Noir |
2001 |
1 |
| Chestoria |
Barbaresco |
1997 |
|
| Robert Mondavi Coastal |
Chardonnay |
2000 |
|
| Wild Horse |
Zinfandel |
1999 |
|
Note that if
we had taken into account second and third choices, we probably would have
had a nice distribution across all bottles - a good wine is one that you
like, and everyone's taste is unique. Also note that the Charles Shaw is available at Trader Joe's for $2!
