So a wine spy ended up at the state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron, and he informs us that the wines included a 2009 Peter Michael Chardonnay Ma Belle-Fille, Sonoma Valley, California (average price about $97), a 2008 Leonetti Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon, Walla Walla Valley, Washington (average price about $90) and a 2007 Iron Horse Vineyards Russian Cuvée (average price about $30). This will probably not please the White House:
The White House stopped disclosing the names and vintage of the wines served at state dinners after the Jan. 19, 2011, dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao. Some criticized the White House for serving wine as much as $399 a bottle, Bloomberg News reported.
Say, how did that $30 bottle sneak in there? Is the official White House sommelier a closet cheapskate or something?
OK, I know this is a White House dinner. They were serving Crisped Halibut with Potato Crust and Bison Wellington, after all, not Beanie Weenies and Tater Tots (hell of a meal, by the way). They have to serve something a little classier than Thunderbird or Mad Dog. But here's a dirty little secret about wine:
An expensive wine may well have a full body, a delicate nose and good legs, but the odds are your brain will never know.
A survey of hundreds of drinkers found that on average people could tell good wine from plonk no more often than if they had simply guessed.
In the blind taste test, 578 people commented on a variety of red and white wines ranging from a £3.49 bottle of Claret to a £29.99 bottle of champagne. The researchers categorised inexpensive wines as costing £5 and less, while expensive bottles were £10 and more.
The study found that people correctly distinguished between cheap and expensive white wines only 53% of the time, and only 47% of the time for red wines. The overall result suggests a 50:50 chance of identifying a wine as expensive or cheap based on taste alone – the same odds as flipping a coin.
Might I suggest laying in a good stock of Yellow Tail's shiraz-cabernet blend, a lovely medium-body red from Australia that you can pick up for less than $10 a bottle. It bursts with red berry flavors that will help soften the tang of the Beanie Weenies and it has a lovely blend of plum, cassis and reaspberry aromas that will shore up the Tater Tots' mushy blandesss. Now, there's a White House dinner I wouldn't mind being invited to.
