What happens when a Master sommelier blind tastes you on your own wine

So today I will be tasting with Master Wilson, a good buddy of mine, founding partner of Verve Wine in New York, San Francisco, soon to be Chicago. I'm blind tasting with Eric Rails back today, which should be interesting. Eric's a good friend of mine, we've known each other for a long time. We worked together as sommeliers on the floor of RN74 years ago, with Raj Par, back in the day. A friend of mine I've been working for forever, and we've been blind tasting together since I was a teenager, maybe. So it's great to come back, we haven't tasted together for a long time. I'm going to be trying to give him some softballs, but I'll **** with him a little bit. Eric is one of the most talented young sommeliers that I've ever worked with. He's got an amazing palate, so I'm excited to watch him blind taste, it's been a while. Eric's never gone through the court. He wasn't a testing, certification kind of guy. He does like to joke about that sometimes. Regardless, he's still one of the best palates and greatest blind tasters that I've come across. Anyhow, he's a dear friend. We went out last night, we maybe hit a little bit too hard, so I'm a little fuzzy this morning, to be perfectly honest. I'm hoping he's as fuzzy as I am, so at least there's an even playing field here. I think he's used to tasting some pretty standard ----, and I was going to give him some softballs because I do feel bad for him. He does get fucked with a little bit, but we pulled some wines that Dustin had purchased for a class he's doing on SOM TV later in the week, the month, I don't necessarily know, but I'm going to open them today. We're ******* up his curriculum for teaching later, and we're going to make him look like a total douchebag in front of camera. We'll see what happens. It's going to be good. He's a ---- talker. I'm fully prepared to get my ass handed to me a little bit this morning. We'll see what happens. The first wine we're tasting is Ludi Melon. Melon de Bourgogne is the grape variety. This is a wine that Eric actually is a partner in. It's one of the wines he makes. Ludi is actually a really great winery located in Santa Barbara. They focus exclusively on Loire Valley grape varieties. They make Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Pinot Noir, Melon de Bourgogne, which is the grape variety of Muscadet. Outside of Muscadet, you don't really see this grape variety planted very much, but it's a lot of fun. This is one of my favorite wines that he makes. I think it's really delicious. It's really clean, fresh, high acid, snappy, and delicious. We'll see what he calls it. I'm interested to see if he likes it. Hopefully he doesn't badmouth his own wine. Just out of curiosity, is it a dick move to pour someone their own wine? Maybe. It might be a dick move. I don't know. I don't really care, though. He's a dick all the time, so he deserves it. I don't see him getting this correct, but we'll see. I might call it Grunewaldliner, maybe Albariño. It lives in that world of somewhat neutral, unoaked white wines. We'll see what he says. I can't believe I'm putting wine in my mouth right now for the night we had last night. What's wrong with me? What are you guys doing to me right now? All right. That's in good shape. For the red wine, this should be really fun. I wanted to mess with Eric for the first wine a little bit, but for the second one, I just wanted to pick something that I know he would probably be pretty excited to drink. This is Butelgraf Chateauneuf-du-Pape, 1995. Eric and I are both big fans of wines from Kermit Lynch, the importer that's based here in California. Kermit Lynch has worked with Butelgraf for a very long time. Eric's brother also works for Kermit Lynch. This wine is just something that's in their portfolio. It's just really an incredible example of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. I've always really liked it because it's a more fresh, bright, aromatic style of Chateauneuf versus some of the big powerhouse styles that you see out there. And it's got some nice age on it, too, so 1995, good vintage. The bottle seems to be in really good shape, and I'm pretty excited to pop it and try it. All right. We're in good shape. We're in business. There he is. Is it a beer? That is a beer. I'm happy to split it. I like to start all my blind tastings with a little beer, recalibrate the palate. This is the first time we've tasted together on camera since the infamous scene in Psalm 1, I think, at our table. I don't think I've blind tasted since, but today is the day, so I'm getting after it. Now that I'm studying for my intro exam, I think it's time to get back into it. Yeah, it's about time. Getting the leg work. Exactly. Strong. I don't think we're doing official court-style tasting here, so you can kind of just do it however you want. Obviously, there's no spitters either, so I did that on purpose. All right, so this one smells like Northern Round Cigar. We're just going to throw that out there. It's got a little bit of age, secondary, 2004. Just go on for it. It smells like that, yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, let's maybe taste it first. We've got to dame that ---- right off the bat. What would you like me to do here? Just, you know, taste the wine. Untuck it. Untuck it, do the wine dirty? All right. Dirty. Go for it. White wine, they're both high tone, fresh, good acidity on the palate. Some texture to the wine, for sure. Not super lean. Medium plus on most everything on this wine, all the things. Up and down? Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely has some viscosity of medium plus. Intensity, medium plus. Complexity, medium plus. Just medium plus everything. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, no, it's good. I like this wine. I appreciate it. I thought you were going to bring me some South African, now that you've been drinking all the Southern Hemisphere ----. I would say this is a taco-pairing wine. I think it's a great taco-pairing wine. These are both pretty good taco-pairing wines. High acid. Texture, medium maybe. Maybe not medium plus, but good freshness, good acid. The minerality is not like super, super in your face, but pretty quiet, aromatically. Leads me to Old World, just because it's subdued, which I like. Not overly aromatic varietal, so something like... Not Viognier. Not, not Gewurz. You know, kind of chalkiness to it, some good minerality. Kind of Chablis-ian type of situation. So a little bit of chalkiness like that, and it's got some texture. No pyrazines, so I would say... So what kind of grouping of grape varieties are you thinking? Mostly French white wine. I think it's a textured white, you know, like Chardonnay. I don't think it's like a Chinon. You know, Gruner can have the same texture, but it's not overly spicy. So it could be something like Austrian, France, Old World. Chinon, but I don't think it's got the secondary kind of confectionery. Probably yellow baked fruits that you might need some more. I'm going to have some more of that beer real quick. Check that out. That is helpful. Yeah, so I'm in that Old World. I mean, it's a really good wine, but I think it's a subtle, elegant style. Old World or France? Old World. Mostly Old World. Mostly Old World. I don't know. This one's not necessarily speaking to me much. It's like pretty quiet. You can go back to it. You've got to make a call. Yeah, 90 points plus. I don't know. Yeah, I'll go back to that. How many master sommelier points would it get? 17, I think. Red, savory, earthy, bloody, meaty. Definitely a lot of secondary tertiary notes on the red. Got some age, for sure. A lot of that primary fruit has kind of moved into that. Got some good structure. Thick-skinned grape. It's pretty tasty. Yeah, I've been known to enjoy wines like this before, I think. Yeah, I'm still going to Syrah. I feel like it's got like 10 years of age or more, so it's got some coffee action. It's also got some nice bloodiness. Could be, I don't think it has the acid or tannin to be anything from Italy, but it could be other areas of France, but a little bit of new wood on that. This wine right here is like not speaking to me whatsoever. Definitely not a lot of, I don't know, I'm moving back into the white wine very quickly. Transitioning after the beer, a little red back into the white. Yeah, it's quite, I would say it's an entry-level. Just go for it. It's got the texture, though. I don't know, entry-level Chablis, but I think that's not correct. Entry-level Chablis. Recent vintage. This I'm going away from, northern round. The aromatics are like less of that peppery violet and more in the kind of Bordeaux camp, I would say. So I would stick, I'm going to move into Bordeaux varietals. Pencil box. Pyrazine? It's got like a lot of that dustiness. It's not overly pyrazine, but it's got, I think so. I think it does have some. So I would do Bordeaux, 10 plus years of age. Throw a vintage? Bordeaux is not one of those varieties I drink. No, I think that it's mid-90s, I would say. Mid-90s. Any particular year? Just throw it. No. It could be even younger. It could be 98 or, I don't know. I'll go with that, 98. 98. 98 Bordeaux. Left bank? Right bank? Left. So cab bass. France. Yes. Alright, and Chablis, you want to call a vintage on this? No, because I don't ******* like that call. That wine is like, I don't know. I feel like I should have drank a little more last night before. Yeah. I think we drank plenty last night. Yeah, I feel like it's, I don't like Chablis. I think it's like, it gets more kind of Austrian-ish, Riesling-ish as we go. This is a bit of a tricky one. I like the wine. I did kind of mess with you on this one. The finish is super light, too. You like the wine, though? I like the wine. I don't think the complexity is high. I think the finish just drops off. I would move it to Austria or, I don't drink a lot of Albariño, so it's hard for me to roll there. But I feel like it's Austrian some ---- that I don't drink a lot. And the finish is really light. You want to see what it is? No, let's just move on to the next one. Yes, I want to see what it is. All right. So, I figured you would like that one. **** my ----. Nice. I'm glad you at least liked it. I liked it, but it's weird because the texture was ******* with me. And the finish was light. I haven't had this wine before, so it's good to taste it. And that's ******* sick. 11-7 alcohol. Yeah, it's ******* crazy because it's got some minerality, but it doesn't have a lot. It's not screaming like an Old World spot where it's all over the place. You went where I thought you were going to end up going. I figured you would be like Old World, Gruner, Albariño camp in that vicinity. Chablis, I can see how you go there, too. It's a high acid, neutral, not super aromatic, unoaked white wine with modern alcohol. I would not pass my intro test on that. That's a tough one. This one. Sure you wouldn't go to Bordeaux on that? No. Just tell me. Well, where were you going first? I was going Northern Round. Smelled Northern Round and I was like... That's a better call. Still not the right call, but it's a better call. I figured you'd like that one, too. This one I just wanted to have something fun to drink. That's ******* crazy, yeah. I would never go there. Grenache. I drink a lot of Vide Telegraph and I would not think that... The tannins are high. It's structured. 95 has structure, but... Yeah, but it's not big and overly alcoholic. No, but that's why I like Vide Telegraph, because it has balance. I don't get a lot of Garrique like I was thinking. More Northern, for sure. I mean, it smells like... It smells like Rome. No, no, it does. It's peppery and smoky. I just would not think ******* Vide Telegraph, because I drink a lot of Vide Telegraph. Which is crazy. I mean, I like the wine. The wine is really good. And I like the label before they changed it. That's for sure. Send that over to Kermit Lynch. No, I love these wines. They're pretty badass. At least you brought one good wine. I wanted to drink something fun. Yeah, that ******* sucks. Now Dustin and I will... I will taste you out some wine. Yeah. I'm actually going to give you a bunch of softballs, because I feel bad for you. We're going to tee things up, make it nice and easy. Perfect. So for white... The white is the softball, I feel like. I want it to be a little nice. This is something I like to drink. I try to only blind taste people on wines that I like to drink, in case it takes too long, and they get on the phone and do all kinds of ----. So Austrian white wine is some of my favorite stuff. So I pulled a Riesling from the Comptol Super Classic region. If he fucks this up, he's losing his candidate level. He might go down to intro candidate, and he'll be at the same level as me, which would be embarrassing. So I love this wine. 2016, super fresh, briny, good minerality and complexity. I think he should be okay with this. But, you know, we'll set him up with something easy, and then we're going to shaft him with the red. All right, so for the red, I had a different selection. I was trying to be nice to our boy, but at the end of the day, my whole role in Verve Wine is just to **** with Dustin and tee him up in a way that's going to make him look maybe not as good as he normally would. So he bought these samples, this bottle of wine, for a class he's teaching in a few weeks on TV. He has no idea that I know about this or had access to it, but while he was in the back, I was rummaging through his ----, as I normally do. So we're going to open this for him today. He has no idea I know about it. We're going to see what he thinks. If he calls this wine, I don't know what I'm going to do, but it's not likely. We'll see what happens. He should get to Gamay, but the fact that he would get to this class, I think it needs to open up. Complexities will come out. We'll get that terroir. Shit's *******, that is good. This is, you know, every grocery store, love this. Alright Dustin, so I put a flight together just to **** your couch. So we'll see what you think. One's white, one's red. If you can figure that out beyond that, I will be impressed. It's a master level flight. Yes. Complexity. I would start with the white one, then we'll move on to the red. You make the call, and I'll show you. Alright, let's see. We'll go through part of the grid. Part of the grid. Pretty pale in color. It's got some greenish tints to it. Greenish hues. Pale straw. What do you call it? No sedimentary discharge. Yeah. Kids like that. Nose is clean too, it's pretty aromatic. More on the floral side of things is what I first get. How many points would you give this one? Master sommelier points? Yeah. On the aromatics, it's kind of perfumey and peachy and stuff. So far I'm giving it like a 75. 75, okay. Because I was going to call Stucky before this whole thing just to make sure we could represent hard. Okay, I like that. Anyway, it's more stone-fruited with peachy apricot, nectarine, flowers. The color is really weird for this. Anyway, highly aromatic, very floral. High aromas. Texture is pretty good. It's fairly kind of waxy on the palate, a little oily textured. There's some acidity there, but it's not screaming high. It's more in the moderate, we'll call it medium, potentially medium plus camp. I'm in the ******* medium plus camp all day on this wine. I think it's good. I like this wine. It's great. I would drink this outside, patio, parking lot. Unoaked. Unoaked, as in no oak at all? No new wood. I'm not getting any new wood on the wine. There's potentially some older barrel here to give it a little of that texture. Can we get another one of these papers here? These are very helpful. I need one more of these papers. These are ******* sick. Who brought these papers? This one's not as big as the one I wanted. I wanted a slightly bigger piece of paper. I asked for a white background and this is the best we could provide. Aromatic white wine. New world, old world. Medium plus acid. I think it's old world. Temecula is coming up, brah. I feel like it's old world. It's aromatic. No new oak. Medium plus acid. Aromatic variety. From the old world. Things that come to mind are first things to jump to mind are Albarino and Viognier. Albarino and Viognier? Mm-hmm. Let's see. Could be Sauvignon Blanc, but I'm not getting any sort of like pyrazine or green like grassy aspects to it. Really? Shut the **** up. I'm going to move on to the next one. You are in my head. You got to call the white, bro. Call the white. I'm ******* revealing very soon. What do you got? It's so hard, dude. I'm going back to the white. I'm pulling it at rails back here. Certified exam for days. All right. Red wine is kind of a medium ruby color. Very pink around the outer edge. So youthful. It's kind of like purplish pinkish like almost magenta hue to it. Sedimentary? No sedimentary discharge. No? Complexity? Complexity is moderate. It's very fruity. Very fruity. It's like kind of ripe and underripe with like dark fruits on it. Blackberry and currant and whatnot. This is something you and I don't drink together a lot. We're hanging out just by ourselves. What do you think about the white? Let's go back to the white, dude. This one is delicious though. This is probably one of my favorite wines. No, I don't think so. What do you mean? I think you're messing with me on this one. No? No. I don't think this is something that we would ever normally drink. It's not that tasty. What do you mean? It's not like a hot tub wine because we would have rosé or white, but it's pretty good. It's very fruity. There's some alcohol here, but it's also like a little bit underripe at the same time. It's like overripe, underripe. It's like syrupy on the palate. It's part of the Raj Parwai Club wine over here. I don't like this wine at all. Really? No. Seriously? Seriously, yeah. It's not good. Jesus Christ. What would you say? What are the points for the Master level? Dark fruited. It's really super fruity. It's candied a little bit. It's a touch of coffee grind. A little mocha. Complexity though. What are the Master points we haven't heard? We've heard from you for the white, but you haven't revealed I give 60 points for this one. 60 points. What is the white one, by the way? Alright, so still aromatic white wine from the old world. Still like, acid's too high for Viognier, so I'm going to scratch that. I'm going to keep suffering and blocking the mix. First of all, Viognier, why the **** would you go Viognier? I hate Viognier. So I only bring wines that I would like to drink. I like to think about the possibilities of what it could be, and it's an aromatic variety. Viognier is an aromatic variety. There's acidity though. That's why I got rid of it. So you don't like this ******* wine. You don't like this wine. Viognier is terrible. Have I ever brought a Viognier to you? ****. I knew this was exactly how this was going to go. I've never brought a Viognier. Can I get two new wines and a new blind taster, please? No ----. God. You can have extra. You need. I do need. I need. Alright. Let's go back to the red. Give me two seconds. It's so good. This is my whole job. This is going to be the worst episode of the show of all time. Could be. Could be the best. We've got a master candidate, or intro candidate, and a master sommelier. That's very true. Free fire. That's true. I'd like to get my fees waived for the intro exam if we can do that as well. I don't know if you can talk to someone. Alright. I'm going to go back to this. I think this is New World. Obviously a thicker skin grape variety from a somewhat warm climate. First things that pop into mind are like Malbec. Potentially could be Zinfandel. Could be I don't know. It's not Cabernet. It's not Merlot. Let's go back to the white. I feel like we should go to the white. I'm going to call this Mendoza Malbec. Current vintage. We'll call it 18. I'm going to let you change that guess. Let's do the white and then we'll go back to the red. I'm not going to change that guess. That's kind of what I feel. I would let you change it. You would let me change it? I will let you change it and I recommend you do after you do the white because you're not close. I can't get two seconds to think. Well, you better ******* think fast because you've got to go back to the red and totally re-******* do the whole thing. You are crushing me right now. I'm dying. White wine. Fully falling apart. Yeah. This wine you should like, dude. This is your ----. This is your jam. Fionje. High acid. Aromatic. Old world. I don't get pyrazine, no. There's no pyrazine. Let's take that off the table. It's not. There's no Sauvignon Blanc in there. We were just hanging out with Robert Moore last night. I could never show you a Sauvignon Blanc after hanging out with him. It's pretty minerally. I'm going to go. I'm going to call this Chablis. Yeah. It's like limestone-y too. I feel better about that call. All right. I'm going to call this Chablis. Village. 18. Vintage? 17. Small Chablis or large Chablis? Regular Chablis. Okay. Not petite. Village. Yeah, Village. Village. Call it Village. Yeah. Great. Going back to it, I'm not like, it's aromatic, but it's not as peachy and whatnot as I thought. It's more like that kind of chalky, mineral-y. But it's not the right kind of chalky, mineral-y for like a Shannon. Acid's higher than I originally thought too. So I think. Plus the pyrazines are starting to come out now. So, I mean, we could go back to Sancerre. ****. Stop messing with me. I'm calling this Chablis. I'm calling this Malbec. No, no, no, no. We're redoing the red. Are we redoing this too? The red. No. The white's wrong, but we should redo the red. I don't get like carbonic-y, Beaujolais stuff. It's not Syrah. It's not. I don't know what this one is. It's not Malbec. Just guess anything else. So there's only how many other grapes are classic that we can pull. Malbec is ******* thrown out. Pick the other ones. Another grape that's not Malbec. What could it not be? That's the best way to look at it. Couldn't be, is it Res Morgani? It's not Cabernet. It's not Bordeaux Varieties. Throw that ---- out. So if it's not Cabernet, how could it be Malbec? Because it's like those can be close when they're overripe and ----. but Malbec can be this color. All right, so no Cabernet Varieties, and it's not Malbec, so we're like all five Bordeaux Varieties are out. They're off the table. What else is delicious that we love to drink on the weekends? I wouldn't call this delicious. No, but if I give you enough tequila before this, you would love this ----. I'm sure if I had lots of tequila beforehand, this would be delicious, but right now this is not delicious. All right. Even in my hungover state. Work up to it. We'll work up to it. I don't get the pepperiness of Syrah. I don't get pyrazine for Cab Franc. No pyrazines. I think those are coming back on the, like the white wine pyrazines might be coming back into this. Is it Cab Franc? That's the only other thing that kind of makes sense. You think so? Kind of. Yeah. It's not. No. It's not Cab Franc. You sure you guys even want to publish this? Cab Franc is a Bordeaux varietal, right? It's one of the five blending grapes that we already took off the table. I don't get pyrazine on it. No Malbec Cab Franc, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. So that ----'s all gone. It's all gone. Is it a thin skin or a thick skin grape? I think it's a thicker skin grape variety. Really? It's dark in color, dude. Look at it. It's primary, ************. It's not. Yeah, it's primary. It's pink, but it's not, you can, it's dark in color. This is not Pinot Noir. It's not Gamay. It's not like... To me... I don't know. I think you're wrong. Well, obviously I'm wrong. Yeah. It's kind of watery. I think this is a poorly chosen wine. That's what I think it is. You think that I ******* chose a bad wine? I think you chose a ---- wine to pour for me. That's what I think. That makes me ******* happy. Makes me very happy. Well, the first wine, Deliciousness, Ririn, from Austria, Kemptop. Ah! It's 5,016 bitte. What did I call it? I called it Chablis. Yeah, you fucked this one up. Yeah, I fucked that up. It's cool. That's fine. That's fair. Yeah. At least you didn't like really **** it up. The red wine, do you want me to... Maybe we shouldn't film the reveal of the red wine because it might be embarrassing for you. It's... What is it? It's ******* Northern Rhodes Straw or something. It's your favorite producer. Yeah, it's fucked up. It's totally fucked. It's Beaujolais Nouveau. Ah! You had selected, you selected the wine for your curriculum. I chose this for Homeboy later on. Yep, and ---- got weird. You guys are assholes. I thought it was delicious. I really enjoyed this wine. It's ******* terrible. I'm glad I called it terrible. This ----'s terrible. Kids, don't drink this. It's not good. I love how you were like, oh, Malbec. God, I've fucked up, I've messed up Riesling a few times now. I don't know why. I don't drink enough Riesling. What the **** do you drink? Not Riesling. I drink a lot of Chablis actually. I still love you. Besties. All right, bro. Great to hang today. Oui, oui. Number one. So when I take my certified exam... Come see me. Yes, I will. We'll train you. Oui. Yeah, it's good.