Vintage Flows: Halloween Hack to Level 1 Wine Tasting

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Vintage Flows: Halloween Hack to Level 1 Wine Tasting

“I sip fine wine to spit vintage flows. What y’all didn’t know? Cause you can’t knock the hustle…”

I am not your everyday wine connoisseur or enthusiast. Some say I am a little rough around the edges. To begin, I do not consider wine to be fancy or elegant. My wine descriptions and pairings are unorthodox and untraditional. Sommeliers despise me and may say I don’t know a damn thing about wine, but I truly love and embrace that! Through the journey of “Vintage Flows”, you will learn exactly what wine experts don’t want you to know, and why I am public enemy number one.

I will be introducing you to incredible wines that give all types of crazy aromas and flavors that won’t mean a damn thing if your taste buds can’t identify what I’m referring to. Therefore, we are going to take this moment to bring you up to speed and train your palate using something you have in home already, but would never expect. Leftover Halloween candy. So run to the liquor store, grab yourself an inexpensive bottle of Pinot Noir or Merlot, and also a Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc. Now back to the leftover Halloween candy trick-or treaters never got to, and or robbed our children for. You can look at this hypothetical candy jar as half empty and full of calories and cavities. You can also look at this jar as half full with a unique opportunity for a fun and unique wine education.

For white wines, look for apple, pineapple, lemon, lime, orange, watermelon flavored candies. Yellow, orange and green Skittles. Yellow and orange Starbursts. White, green and orange Gummy Bears and Sour Patch kids also work as well. You can also try tropical fruit flavored candies as another great choice to help you identify flavor profiles in white wines like Pinot Grigio, Rieslings, Chardonnays, blush wines and more. Sour candies will train you against acidic white wines like Sauvignon Blancs and Sancerre. Almond Joys, Milky Ways, Reese’s, Snickers, Hot Tamales, Charleston Chews, and Sugar Daddy’s all have common flavors you will taste and smell in red wines. You will often taste chocolate, dark chocolate, caramel, cinnamon, nougat, coconut, and vanilla in red wines like Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Syrah. Red fruit flavor candies can also train your taste buds for red wines. Swedish Fish, Twizzlers, other red chewy candies, as well as pink Starbursts and Laffy Taffy’s can have similar tastes in certain red wines like Pinot Noir, Gamay, Garnacha, and Sangiovese.

Now you may see why ‘Traditionals” in wine community might view me in a way due to my unconventional approach. I will take an expensive wine and align it with a flavor you may pick up on a late night 7/11 run. I look to show and prove that wines do not have to be eaten with just steaks, seafood and salads. Wine should not be garnered as sacred; it’s a fun experience for any and every one. I feel it’s like art in the sense that it is all self-expression. Interpret wine however it suits your happiness and imagination. If you taste jelly doughnuts, well then damn it, say it tastes like jelly doughnuts. If no one else tastes it, maybe it is his or her palate that isn’t as strong. No one can taste for you. You have to make things work for you.

So ride with me as I pull back the curtain on the wine world. We will break down, ignore, and erase all these unwritten rules and stereotypes with wine. I will make sure you no longer feel left out of the conversation. So uncork, unscrew, untwist a bottle or box of wine, pour it into a glass, solo cup or go straight from the bottle. However you get down, toast one #fordacultcha!

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