It's time to get caught up on my holiday blogging. All of our families were in town, which means lots of fun, lots to do, and lots of fodder for this forum.
I am not an oenophile (wine lover). It ranks somewhat above beer, which I detest, but not very far above. I believe the best uses of wine would either be in sangria or in a wine cooler, but just as good to leave it out completely.
My brother in an oenophile, or at least claims to be. He carefully swirls the wine and inspects its legs on the glass when we're out to dinner, and spends a lot of time smelling it. Anyway, I decided to put him to the test this Christmas Eve. We had on hand four cabernet sauvignons, and everyone was supposed to rank the wines in their order of preference. Originally, I had intended to purchase wines with various degrees of cost, to determine whether to my family's "discerning" taste buds, expensive wines truly taste better. Unfortunately, this intention broke down in the implementation process and we ended up with only three varieties (four bottles) of cheap (under $10) wine. (Note to self: work on the implementation next time).
Still, I poured four plastic cups for each participant, with wines A, B, C, and D.
My brother and mother's favorite was Wine B, the cheapest at $4.50.
My husband ranked his wine A-B-C-D and my future sister-in-law ranked hers exactly the opposite: D-C-B-A. The interesting thing is that D and A were the same wine, albeit from dfferent bottles.
My conclusion? Just hide the label and buy the $4.50 wine. No one can really tell. BUT, I will repeat this experiment next year under more optmal conditions (pinot noirs, variety of prices, etc.). Mike, Kat, Mom, Austin: get ready!
