I hope to see a good crowd on May 20 at 7-ish; it’s going to be fun. And don’t forget, it’s also $10 Thursday, so plan to stay for dinner.

At our April 15 wine tasting, we achieved a perfect score! At this tasting, we were exploring oakiness, by comparing a 2008 Clos du Bois North Coast Chardonnay with a 2008 Pouilly-Fuissé Petite Chapelle, and tannins, comparing a 2007 Benziger Cabernet Sauvignon with a 2007 Ramsay North Coast Pinot Noir. Every one of us picked the oaky white and the tannic red. This only goes to prove Andrea Immer Robinson’s adage that practice makes perfect – this is the fourth time we have done the oaky and tannic tasting at the wine class. Find out how our tasting went after the jump.

We started by putting the two whites in front of us to taste for oakiness. While their color was very close, the first was perhaps a bit darker and a bit more golden. The second, however, seemed to have more viscous legs. We noticed a difference right away when we brought the wines to our noses. The first had a bolder, woody (that would be clue # 1, Sherlock) aroma, while the second was much fruitier. Our suspicions were borne out as we tasted the wines. Wine #1 had a bolder, thicker mouth feel, and we detected something beyond pure fruit (what could that be?). Indeed, this wine was made of sterner stuff like solid, old furniture. Wine #2 was quite refreshing, with the pure fruit flavor of a crisp green apple. It almost tasted like a fruit punch meant for drinking on a summer afternoon on the patio. So it was practically a no-brainer to guess that wine #1 was the California chardonnay aged in oak barrels and that wine #2 was the French Pouilly-Fuissé made with a more subtle touch.

Then we went on to the reds to look for tannins. Here the colors were more distinguishable, wine #3 being deeper, darker and inkier. In the nose department, wine #4 had a smoothness to it that paled in comparison to wine #3 with its rich, jammy aroma with strong coffee overtones. When we put wine to tongue, the difference was quite noticeable. Wine #3 seemed to leave a thick coating on the tongue that felt like velvet, and the finish was quite dry. One was really tempted to counteract that dryness with a nice juicy steak. Wine #4, on the other hand, felt like satin on the tongue, and though dry, it was much subtler. This was a wine that you could pair with almost anything. Again, it was pretty easy for us to conclude that wine #3 was the cabernet sauvignon and that wine #4 was the pinot noir. The overwhelming, but not unanimous, favorite of the evening was the cab, although one person liked the pinot noir quite a lot.

Our next class, on May 20 might be a bit more challenging. We’ll start out with a grüner veltliner, a white varietal from Austria, which I’ve seen billed as “the best little wine you’ve never heard of” and which I happen to know is fantastic with oysters. We thought we’d compare that with an Alsatian dry Riesling and perhaps another dry Riesling from the Finger Lakes. Then we’re going to get really serious about roaming the Rhone. We’ll taste a chateauneuf-du-pape from the northern Rhone and a gigondas from the southern Rhone. We might throw in a Cotes du Rhone just to round things out.