Varietal prejudice...

What is varietal prejudice? You have all heard it and some of you have it! It's that phrase you hear a lot when out wine tasting, 'I don't like ___ (fill in varietal here)'. You know the one's who when offered a Chardonnay to start a tasting and you hear the nasally 'I don't like Charrdonnaayy!'

Now before some of you chuck a wobbly at us screaming 'you guys often skip the whites!' Just know that the only time we won't taste what is offered is if there is a limit on the tastings or we have been tasting a lot of reds for a while and realise we would not appreciate the potentially nice white wine being offered.

The reality is the weather, clone, vineyard, vineyard practices, harvest conditions, crush methods, the TLC, the storage container and style of the winemaker, can and often and will, make more difference in a wine than variety of fruit.

I don't like Merlot!      Wanker!

While from time to time the industry jumps on a bandwagon and rush to produce their version of the latest consumer fad and when this happens there is often a plethora of that wine that is, well less than good, which after a while can create a backlash of 'I don't like _____'. But that is not the grape varieties fault!

Look there is no shame in using the dump bucket so go ahead and taste and for those wines you don't care for dump em! Give em a couple sniffs and a couple sips and think about what you smell and taste and then decide. The thing is, you may miss the best wine of the day if you don't give em a go.

So check your prejudice at the cellar door and dive into whatever is offered and who knows, you may be pleasantly surprised! Go on, av a go ya mug!

Happy Wine Adventures,

Cheers,

WineWalkabout

Kiwi & Koala