Wine with Meg + Mel
The fun + frank podcast which helps you navigate the world of wine. Hosted by Australia's first female Master of Wine Meg Brodtmann, and self-titled Master of Sabrage Mel Gilcrist.
Wine with Meg + Mel
Can you taste rose colour? We put it to the test.
Can the color of a wine glass alter your perception of taste? Join us for a thought-provoking episode where we conduct a fun and fascinating experiment.
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Hi and welcome to Wine with Meg and Mel. We are here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Mel Gilchrist, joined by Master of Wine Meg Brotman. Now, today, we are doing another one of our test experiment episodes Test experiments.
Speaker 2:I have in front of me these black glasses. I walked in and said to Mel oh my God, you've got black glasses. They have very creatively, Tom, I will say, apparently has taken wine glasses and taped them with black tape. But it's not on the inside, people, so it won't impact on the flavour, it's just all on the outside, so I will not be able to see even the stems, so that you can't see it reflecting down. It's very good.
Speaker 1:So what happened and if you want context, go back and listen to our episode on Lightstrike is we had a little bit of a barney about whether or not consumers need to see the colour, because Meg's point is the light is hitting the wine and it's impacting the quality of the wine. So all wine should be in green bottles. So that doesn't happen. And I said but no, meg, people buy on colour because they want to know how it's going to taste, so that they need to see the colour.
Speaker 2:And I said that's bollocks. They pretty much all taste the same.
Speaker 1:So we've got four different rosés here, four different colours. Yeah, meg has them in different orders in black glasses in front of her so she can't see which is which, and she's going to try and guess.
Speaker 2:Which wine relies to which?
Speaker 1:But first what do you mean? Drinking what?
Speaker 2:I mean drinking. The lovely people at Scarborough had heard that I love Semillon and they kindly sent they contacted you, I understand, to get my address, is that right? They kindly sent two Semillons One this is Hunter Valley, so you know from 2023 vintage One that they call the classic Hunter Valley Semillon, which was 10.5% alcohol. We are such geeks, my husband and I. The pH was 2.98. We're just going. Oh, 2.98 pH. The kids are just going. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:Who cares?
Speaker 2:Anyway. So more that classic straight lined, semi-ong, you know very sharp, yeah, beautiful acid that will age beautifully. And then they've made one of a different soil type. So this is off a red clay soil, which may have an impact. They don't actually say, but it's a richer style and it was like oh, imagine if someone blew up a balloon in your mouth. It filled my palate. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, like a mouth feeling like that. Like you're inflating a balloon.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful. I know exactly what you mean as it came into my mouth.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, I know exactly what you're trying to say there and Pete, who loves Simeon as well, took a sip and I hadn't told him what he was drinking and he went oh my God, what's this? And I said it's Hunter Valley Simeon. He said can't be. And I said why?
Speaker 1:because too much palate weight Just Too full.
Speaker 2:The immediacy of the richness. Yeah, wow Was incredible. I was expecting.
Speaker 1:What in a 2023?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was expecting it to sort of do that pipette thing straight line and then fill out at the back of your palate. This was just literally like someone had inflated a balloon in my mouth of richness and flavour.
Speaker 1:Still Hunter Valley, simeon green apple lemon, beautiful acidity only six and a half grams. So then, what do you think? Okay, so then, what is? How is it doing this? Is it oak or like malo they?
Speaker 2:don't really say it's only the free run. So they've extraction rate is 630 litres per tonne, so they've got free run and some pressings, cold settled stainless steel tanks inoculated with cultured yeast and then cool fermentation for eight days. I would love to know what it is that has caused that. What you changed different vineyards, obviously, so maybe it's a vineyard specific thing. I would love to know. If you're in contact with Scarborough, was there any difference? The analysis was pretty much the same. It was picked riper, so it's a 1% alcohol or 1 degree ripeness. The other one was 10.4. This is 11.5. But I don't necessarily think that that can make all that difference. Is it a soil thing? Have they noticed it that this was a richer style? Before Go out and get both of them, just contact the winery, because I'm not sure I'll find links to put in true notes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I even brought the little sheet with me. I was just super, super, super impressed. I wanted to do both side by side, but I was like, oh, I know, I just want to do this without prejudging it. Do you know what I mean? I just want to taste it as a wine.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I love it. Okay, what an exceptional review for this wine Next up. What's your friend fact?
Speaker 2:Well, you told me that you're sick of hearing. You know gloom and doom and shite. So apparently, researchers have found that each bottle glass of bubbles champagne contains 19 million bubbles.
Speaker 1:That is a crazy amount of bubbles.
Speaker 2:Wait, that's each glass or each bottle. Each glass, so I guess probably 200 mils 19 million bubbles.
Speaker 1:That is such a good one for like a trivia day.
Speaker 2:Because remember, they keep coming up.
Speaker 1:Wait, so this is champagne.
Speaker 2:It was a champagne.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, so you couldn't.
Speaker 2:So I just thought that was really cute, that's cute.
Speaker 1:I do like it. That was a good one, meg, so nothing about the triple play gap or anything you know.
Speaker 2:No, we stay light.
Speaker 1:We go heavy in our news episodes. We'll stay light in these ones. Okay, look, let's get into it. You have four glasses in front of you. I want you to start left to right. I've got to close my eyes, I can't take it. So Meg has the four bottles in front of her, so I'll describe them. While Meg starts tasting, we've got two that are a lot deeper. They're all probably on the salmon spectrum. While Meg starts tasting, we've got like, um, we've got two that are a lot deeper. They may, they're all probably on the salmon spectrum, but we've got two that are definitely like a salmon pink and they're deeper. Then we have one that is almost kind of orangey peachy in the middle, and then we've got a very, very pale one. So what Meg is doing is she's going through and tasting them all and we're going to see if she can tell by taste what color the rosé is. Is it easy so far?
Speaker 2:Do you need a?
Speaker 1:pen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need a pen to write, so I can write down the order. Okay, so I can write down the order Okay.
Speaker 1:Mmm. So look, it must be. You'll have to keep talking because it's going to be a really boring episode yeah, I know it's going to be a really boring episode. But like it must be somewhat hard so far, because you're not just immediately saying that's that, that's that, that's that, that's that.
Speaker 2:Well, the first one that sticks out to me I can't see the colour at all is it has relatively high acidity, but it feels like it has a bit of a phenolic grip. So I'm thinking that this was my thinking on the way over here that the difference that I'll see will be a structural phenolic thing, because more colour often translates to more phenolics in the wine. Okay, so that's kind of what I'm looking for. Yeah, see, I could prove my own theory wrong, so I don't want to.
Speaker 1:I don't want to no, you have to. You have to be honest here, meg, but I was thinking that that getting you to be the one to test this is. You have to really rely on your honesty.
Speaker 2:And I'm not looking at the varieties on those, just I'm just looking at the colours, because I don't the variety may have an impact as well. Yeah, all right, I've done it, you've done it. So the the first glass I have, I think, is the third darkest, so it's the second most dark. Now, how am I going to do this? The second glass is the lightest in colour, mm-hmm. The last glass is the second lightest in colour. The first glass is the third lightest in colour in terms of it's darker, and then the third is the fourth is the darkest.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, I can tell you that I'm completely wrong Now. So we do need to point out here that Meg isn't going off anything except for colour, right? So she wasn't allowed to look at the region or the grape or anything.
Speaker 2:Or the grape variety or anything, literally just looking at the colour of the wine in the bottle.
Speaker 1:I can confirm that you were right in a way in the last episode. That colour is not an indication of taste, because you did not get a single one of those right. Perfect.
Speaker 2:What's number two? Number two is Number three. Really, I love that one. Number two is that.
Speaker 1:So that's so the lightest one, which is a Rogers and Rufus. The lightest one, I thought that was that one you have put. Yes, no, it was that one You've said is number two. Yes, so it's still a lighter colour, but the lightest one you haven't identified as the lightest one and the darkest one to Bilk you've. That's your number three, so you've said that it's. Yeah, I mean, look to be fair to Bilk and the biological, reasonably similar in colour, but yeah, so what?
Speaker 2:line them up in order of how I tasted them, okay, and then take a photo? Yep, sorry, this will require a male movie. Okay, so the right order.
Speaker 1:There's not much else to say. This is going to be a very short episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically the two lighter ones I picked. Yeah, that's true, you just didn't get which one it was. Yeah, which one they were, but they are very, very different. One's got a very what the French would call pigeon eye, the Rogers and Ruffo, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's got that definite grey tinge to it and but basically the way that I judged it is. I didn't look at fruit or anything. I was literally just looking for the structure of the wine. People associate colour with sweet. That's the problem. It is the problem. So I think that the issue that we have commercially is that people are assuming that if it's a darker coloured wine then it is going to be sweeter, and I know this happens in America.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure how many sweet rosés there are in the world these days Can't be many, but, to be fair, the ones there's not many of them, but the ones that are sweet, are all dark in colour, vibrantly pink.
Speaker 2:Just in terms of great variety. What was the lightest one? The lightest one was made from rose grenache. The second lightest one. What's that de jure-iest one? It doesn't say, Okay, it's from the Hunter, is it? Yeah, it's from the Hunter.
Speaker 1:So what do they have up?
Speaker 2:there, shiraz. Then what was the tebilt made from Mouvertre?
Speaker 1:Grenache, grenache, okay. And then the Lowy Biological Rosé does it sayache Okay, and then the lowy biological rosé Doesn't say Doesn't say yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So grape variety clearly doesn't have much impact at all.
Speaker 1:No, and so maybe we've learned that you can tell a little bit, but not a lot, from the colour.
Speaker 2:And maybe for marketers, just sell it as rosé. Don't even bother telling them what the Great Friday is, because I don't think for me. I mean, I wasn't looking at free characteristics.
Speaker 1:No, it works with some people. I think Like you've got to give us something to play with, meg. Otherwise we're just like cigarette packets that all have the same packaging.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I still. This is what I wanted to discuss with you. I knew there was more to this, so natural wine.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How many of those are bottled in clear bottles?
Speaker 1:Well, yes, once again, because they rely on oh my God, I see what you're saying. Okay, you've got me. You're saying, maybe that?
Speaker 2:You know me, so you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're saying that the reason a lot of them might taste shit isn't because they're a natural wine, it's because they're in clear bottles, because it's sort of a light strike.
Speaker 2:That is a Because we know from the champagne studies that the more yeast leaves contact you have and a lot of these have skin and yeast leaves contact and are still in bottle with the yeast leaves the more chance you are of producing these yucky yucky chemicals that cause light strike. Flavours in wine.
Speaker 1:So if a natural wine were to bottle in A clear bottle?
Speaker 2:which a lot of them do.
Speaker 1:But if they. No, no, no. If a natural wine were to bottle in a green bottle, would it taste a lot better and stop having all these faults.
Speaker 2:That is everyone's complaint with natural wine, because we know from the studies that it only takes two days and it's across the board. It's not like no wine is unaffected. You know they're all affected and you know I was talking about the other day making a sort of a naturally white wine and I was going to put it in a clear bottle and I went oh, I've got to get everything that I've said, but is some of the impact and one of the Nance? Think about it All the yeast leaves are still in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, but that's how people buy them. Like, I don't think that genre would even exist if you couldn't see that it was cool and funky and cloudy, so it just goes to prove my point that the faults are the reason that people are enjoying those wines. So maybe they really are faults. They are faults, we know that, because remember that the Talent Study did.
Speaker 1:Oh, 45% of natural wines are clean, or some wines can be clean, yeah, so this is a broader question for this is going to be on the scope of colour here, but it's a good question, for this is going to be on the scope of colour here, but it's a good question. Well, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's impossible If any natural winemaker out there would like to bottle some wine under green bottle and then some under white clear bottle. It would be a really interesting study, because I mean Shout out Someone find this for us. Yeah, interesting study, because I mean Shout out, someone find this for us. Yeah, I look, I cannot think of a single natural wine that I have drunk.
Speaker 1:No me either.
Speaker 2:They're all in clear bottles that isn't in a clear bottle, because they're selling the look.
Speaker 1:Okay, seriously, can we crowdsource someone to do this for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll have to wait until next vintage, unless someone in Europe wants to do it. But they are literally selling the look.
Speaker 1:And by selling the look, you could be Ruining the wine. Ruining the wine. Oh my God, I love this tangent. We went on.
Speaker 2:And I think we should do it on champagne. Just so we can drink champagne I like.
Speaker 1:do you know what I want to try? That blue champagne that's in Dem. It looks revolting and it's champagne.
Speaker 2:The wine's blue or the bottle's blue?
Speaker 1:No the wine is blue. It's a clear bottle with blue wine. Blue champagne why, I don't know. We'll look into it more. We'll do an episode. Okay, any standout of the wine, though. What did you actually enjoy of those?
Speaker 2:That one.
Speaker 1:Number two. So the De Julius I of those um that one number two so the d d julius, I think he is, that's the hunter valley. One interesting, yeah, okay it was.
Speaker 2:That's one, as I said, I think, has a little bit of light strike in it it has a bit of a vegetal character which is adding to the sort of funkiness of the wine. Yeah, um, it's because it was a little bit confected when I first tasted it and then, when I went back, of vegetal character which is adding to the sort of funkiness of the wine. Yeah, because it was a little bit confected when I first tasted it and then when I went back and had a look at it, when I tasted it, it was confected on the nose. Let me explain this, I'm getting ahead of myself. And then when I actually tasted it, it had more of that vegetal character which I think was knocking back that confected fruit character.
Speaker 1:To be fair, I did prefer the lighter wines, really yeah, so you liked the Rogers, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Mm, that's got some sugar in it. That was the only thing, the Rogers and.
Speaker 2:Roof had some residual sugar in it, which is a little bit annoying. I did the. If I was drinking on a summer's day, I would pick the two lighter wines. If I was drinking it with food, if I was having some seafood or, you know, red curry with some prawns, I would definitely go for something a little bit more phenolic-y, a little bit more grip, a little bit more structure. So actually people don't buy the light wines. Go and buy the darker wines because they're a little bit more food friendly. I would argue just based on this sample size of wine.
Speaker 1:Four how are we going to do that, meg, if they're only in green bottles and we can't see, like I?
Speaker 2:said, there has been the suggestion made that you have a display bottle out.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's not going to happen in retail stores around the country. You're dreaming, I don't know. You're a dreamer, meg. It's lovely, keep it.
Speaker 2:That's the reason why I don't like Wosai because it's all been light struck.
Speaker 1:But also it explains why I don't really like natural wines as well.
Speaker 2:It's for the cold kind of yeah, this is, you just don't like light strike. It's really interesting Since I heard the episode on Wine Blast and then proposed to you that we do it.
Speaker 1:I'm hearing more and more people talking about light striking, it's a very trend setting podcast. Yes, there's a German study now, but that German study definitely happened after we spoke about it. I have no doubt Because my name's Broadbent.
Speaker 2:It's a good German name, but yeah. So in all honesty, I preferred the two lighter wines for drinking. Yeah, but if I'm going to sit down with you and have some nice food, I'm going to have something with a little bit darker colour, and that is a revelation to me.
Speaker 1:Oh, so I will actually go out and I was really setting you up here. There was no winning for you. Either you got everything right and deemed yourself wrong or got them wrong, thus making you right. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:My husband Pete nearly gave me one. He's just made some kosher wine and it's quite dark in colour and I was like, oh, is that for my tasting tomorrow? And he went no, I just brought it home because we've just had the kosher wine released. That would have been so thoughtful, pete, I know right, he doesn't listen Almost.
Speaker 1:To anything I say less than all the podcast. Alright, well, that is all for this week.
Speaker 2:It was a little short one take home message just buy what you want. Just buy, go deep in colour if you want some.
Speaker 1:That's my sommelier's recommendation we will be back with you next week and until then, enjoy your next glass of wine, drink well.
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