Bagging The Bottles

I was thinking it might be fun to put the '86 Cali Cabs & Bordeaux and the '82 Montelena that I will be serving at my little dinner party on Saturday in bags. I would tell my guests what wines we were having and then we'd see if we could ID them. Just wondering if folks who have done this sort of thing found it fun or not?

[David M. Bueker]

It's fun.

Definitely fun.
If you want to "play" yourself, put the bottles in bags. Have someone else rotate the order. Have someone else number the bottles nonsequentially (you could get by with 2 steps, but I like to add a layer just in case).

It all depends on the people. Clearly folks around here like spending mental energy on wine. How about your guests?

I'd say it's fun as long as you're confident no-one might feel pressured or worried of humiliation by getting it wrong. This sounds like a pretty safe example (i.e. it's more about whether a classy aged Cali wine could be mistaken for Bordeaux - i.e. it's about the wine more than the taster). Other situations run more of a risk of embarassment, which is never fun.

regards

Ian

Well, lets see, it's fun, it's gonna be a great day to sit in the yard and expend mental energy on wine, no chance of anyone feeling pressured with this group; Yeah I think I'm gonna go with it! Bag 'em up, like you suggested Dale, and let the games begin!

Tom
I had another thought on this - this idea mostly where there are a good proportion of tasters who are in the early stages of wine enthusiasm.

It's logistically not difficult for
- The host to bag up the wines in a side room (including removing foil and corks)
- The host then ropes in another guest to hang numbered tags (e.g. 1-6) around the the bagged wines. Either they or someone else then pours the glasses for wine 1, wine 2 etc.

Thus although you all know the wines, no-one knows which is which. Nothing especially new to this point, but rather than individually guessing, you work as a group to guess which wine is which. Thus novices can see and get involved in the thought process for this parlour game, without ever feeling they themselves were being put on the spot to risk making a fool of themselves.

regards

Ian

We had a blind wine dinner on Friday where all the wines were bagged. It made for a lot of fun and is humbling to be sure. For example, I was certain the white flight was CA Chard.. turned out to be CA Rhones... how wrong could I be... ???

With the moderators' indulgence, I post a link to the dinner on another board (not Parker's)... http://wineberserkers.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19682... quite a number of folks here also post `over there'

I was thinking it might be fun to put the '86 Cali Cabs & Bordeaux and the '82 Montelena that I will be serving at my little dinner party on Saturday in bags. I would tell my guests what wines we were having and then we'd see if we could ID them. Just wondering if folks who have done this sort of thing found it fun or not?

Tom, It is fun, and I sure wish I were going to attend!

James, how did the charred Brussel Sprouts work? Bit dicey eh, taste clash?