October's Blind Ambition Tour

I am making a bold commitment.

For the entire month of October, whenever possible, I’m tasting blind.

What does "tasting blind" mean? Tasting a glass of wine and having no idea what the varietal, price, region, or all of the above. Its a skill one needs to pass the Court of Masters Sommilier Exam, and in fact, part of the test is to taste things blind- see the actual tasting grid. I don't plan on taking that exam, but its certainly a skill worth developing or at least trying trying to develop. Plus, who doesn't love wine related quests?

My inspiration comes from two sources:

1) A few weeks ago Mr. Lush and I attended a blind tasting with Mr. & Mrs. Luce. I did horrible. Absolutely horrible. Not that I thought I would get all of them correct, but I was hoping for a better record than what I got. This must, simply must be rectified.

2) In October my wine club has a blind tasting, so in the spirit of the month, why not taste everything I can blindly?

Now, to clarify the burning question of “how on earth are you going to do this?” here’s my plan:

• When I’m out, I’ll give the server an instruction of white or red and a price range of $6-10 and tell me not to tell me what it is. Since my server or bartender doesn’t know my taste, I wouldn’t want to order a bottle and hate it, so I’ll only order by the glass.
• I'll visit stores on tasting days and try to not see what I'm having.
• However, if I’m with someone, I’ll let them order and I will be none the wiser.
• If I’m at a friend’s house, I’ll request that they keep what it is from me for a glass until I have a guess.
• If I’m at home, I’ll ask Mr. Lush to keep it a secret for a bit as well.
• I’ll also attend every tasting I can blindly. (Luckily, there’s one scheduled in October as well at Gambino’s in O’Fallon MO.)
  

How successful do I expect to be? Not so much, to be honest and I expect I’ll feel very stupid at times. But, I would hope by the end of the month, I’ll be better off giving my palate such exercise.

Wish me luck!

Potential wine disaster avoided

Recently, the Lou was hit with a storm, aftermath of Ike. We live in an older neighborhood, which means big old trees and above ground power lines. I’m sure you get where this is going….we’re often without power. In fact, if you live in St. Louis and know someone is without power due to a storm, there’s a really good chance the Lush’s are powerless.

As you know, we’ve also purchased a 100 bottle wine fridge in the past year. It is glorious- dual digital temps, very nice. Well, last Sunday morning, the Lush’s went powerless with a full wine fridge. About 2 hours later, I called my good friend Lucy to ask if she could look up our outage status. The very first thing she said is “do you need to bring the wine over?”. Aww. What a good friend, right? I said no, I hope it comes back on soon and its not that warm outside, so I should be fine. (at the time the temp was about 55 and the expected high was around 70, I think. ) I stuck a regular non-digital fridge thermometer in the wine fridges to monitor the temperature, opened all the windows, and we left to go grab something to eat and watch some football. When we returned, still powerless, the temperature in the fridge was just under 65, about the temperature of the house.

Although the Lush Red Wine Storage Temperature is 57-58 degrees, in general, I feel anything under 65 degrees, even below 70, is fine. Since, as noted in earlier posts, wine stores and restaurants store and serve things at room temperature, which is usually 72-77, but I prefer to keep it under 65.

Well, the power returned a bit before 6. Luckily the temperature was on our side, so the wine held at 63/64 degrees. Potential disaster avoided. Whew. But for next time, I'm glad I have friends with extra room in their cellar. :)

A Lucid Trip to Randalls

Last weekend the Luce’s called me and asked if I wanted to go to Randalls in IL and I jumped at the chance. I had heard the selection in IL varies from that of MO and had discussed going in the past, but with gas prices, it was a difficult justification. Evidently, Mr. Luce had reason to celebrate and sought out a certain bourbon that’s fantastic deal for the price but not distributed here, (see Lucy's blog) so off we went.

It was a good size store. Not as large as Lukas Liquors, which is practically a warehouse of wine, however, there were a few things that really impressed me…..

First and foremost, the room where the wine was displayed/sold was actually a different temperature than the rest of the place; about 10 degrees cooler. Very nice and how rare!!

The selection was a bit different, about 30% stuff we can’t find here, and the prices were mostly competitive, if not better, although they didn't carry a large amount of expensive wines-most things were $40 and under.

The tasting area….was a-w-e-s-o-m-e. The wines available for taste, eh, just 4 and they were ok. However, the selection of liquor available to taste was amazing. Since the Luces and myself are equal opportunity drinkers, we were in heaven. At minimum, I would say there were 80 bottles available to taste, one of which was on my list: Absinthe. Recently re-legalized in the US and 124 proof, I had wanted to try it, primarily for novelty purposes, but was not excited about the $65+ price tag. However, there on the shelf, was Lucid Absinthe, calling to me. If you are a black licorice fan, this is your drink-the website even includes a traditional french way to drink it, which I did not try-I just sipped at room temperature. Honestly, I am not a fan, but it certainly worth trying and thanks to Randalls for having it open. We tried other liquors from respado tequila to bourbon, and it was fantastic.

I certainly recommend a visit. For those who read this in time, there is a tasting tomorrow from 12-4 .

Thanks to the Luce’s, for making the trek and taking me along!!