They’ve hit on the right format for a blind tasting event: Each person buys a bottle of wine according to a theme. Neutral staff bag them at random and pour them in sequence, one or perhaps two at a time. Everyone tastes and everyone shares their impressions. Nobody knows which wine is which, probably they won’t even recognize the wine they chose themselves.
Last night we tasted Burgundies from vintages 2017-2021, mostly chosen on the day from the shelves of Domaine. What made this event unique was the presence of Claire Wang, a Taiwanese wine lover who has lived and studied wine in Burgundy for the last 8 years or so. As soon as each wine was unsocked, Claire held forth on the subregion the producer. Claire’s boyfriend Jehan Mercier, was also present and occasionally shared the insight of a true Burgundian.
- Johhine, Claire and Vincent
- Ryan and Naseem
Claire is amazing, so knowledgeable and at the same time so utterly unpretentious, and the spirit of sharing extended to blind tasting because no one held any advantage over anyone else. We all made mistakes, and we all guessed right sometimes. In the end we all came away happy that we had learned a sheaf of lessons on Burgundy, for Claire is a fountain of Burgundian lore.
Ryan too has a gregarious and inclusiveness about him that makes any event relaxed and fun, even as we focus very seriously on knowledge, and that’s how wine events should be.
Claire told me before we started that she was terribly nervous, but once she got going, facts and anecdotes streamed from her like a firehose, and she engaged with the audience so freely and generously that it felt more like a party than a class…
We need to do more events like this one, but people like Claire are exceedingly rare.