Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Industry wine tasting at Four Seasons

As it so happens, I'd never been to a wine tasting before. That is, before today. A couple of colleagues and I attended a wine tasting at the Four Seasons in downtown Vancouver today, and I found the event to be somewhat educational.

I didn't take notes nearly as diligently as a blogger might be expected to - and that was perhaps a mistake. I didn't remember to start taking photos until quite late in the tasting, but not all was lost! I did get to taste several different products, for one, and had the opportunity to wrap my brain around these types of events, as well.

What I mean by that last comment, is that I realized these types of events are mainly intended for people with purchasing power. BUT, there are some other sides to it. By going, I received the chance to try several higher price point wines that we carry at Milestones, which I can now compare to our other products with confidence. The best example of this that I can give was our tasting of the Oyster Bay Chardonnay. None in our group had ever tried it despite it being on the menu - but only by the bottle. I was taken aback to find that the New Zealand Chardonnay was not oaky in the least. Much less dry than some of our other Chardonnays that I'm more familiar with. Now, in the future if I'm asked about our less oaky products, I can give a more complete answer. And that wasn't the only product which I had the chance to educate myself on either...

But stepping away from work related education, I've also been taking it upon myself to learn about all other types of libations that I'm unfamiliar with. I've been putting it on my to-do-list to explore the world of tequila and mescal. Okay okay, I know what you're thinking, and I want to dispel those thoughts. We all know how great tequila can be in a margarita, and some of us have had tequila sunrises as well. But there's so much more to it than that. Tequila and its less popular cousin can be comparable to rums or whiskers in their diversity, and that's something I want to learn more about.

So the skinny of that last mini-quest is that I tried mescal for the first time. I found it more bearable in taste than tequila, but the strong after taste made it clear that it was no aperitif. As a sipping spirit, I would compare it to scotch, but in my mind, I'm trying to imagine how one could turn it into a classic-inspired cocktail, taking notes from the Manhattan, Martini, or Old-Fashioned.

Mescal was not the end of it, though... And unfortunately I will not be getting into further details into what things were tasted until....


Next time! 

But here's a spoiler:


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