A warm welcome from the Wiens family started our exhilarating wine blending event at Wiens Family Cellars yearly wine blending seminar. After a warm reception, the crowd of more than 30 attendees was ushered into the stunning barrel room. This handsomely decorated room had 10 tables covered by linen table cloths. Each table had a setting for four, four mystery wine bottles marked A to D, a graduated cylinder (similar to the one you would find in a chemistry class), and several other tools for blending wine. To begin our time together, each of us were poured a glass of Wiens exquisite wine and provided tasty hor doeuvres.
The seminar was lead by Doug The Palate Wiens, a winemaker, viticulturist, and one of several Wiens family members that attended. His 30-minute seminar was designed to ready us for a contest, baiting table against table, as we constructed our own blended wine which was to be tried by the Wiens family later that evening. During the class we discovered that wine blending is a very common practice by wineries. It is used 1) to heighten the capacity of the wine in terms of color, fragrance, mouth feel and finish, 2) to expand the quantity of a harvest lot in order to multiply bottling economies of scale, and 3) for marketing considerations. Doug also shared that as he blends wine and tastes the results, his math skills (critical for the blending process) deteriorate as his philosophical skills awaken. Amazingly, we were able to share this strange experience as the night developed.
Once Dougs seminar was done, the teams got to work. You could feel the testosterone as each team struggled to perfect their blends. Some teams had more fun than others as their bottles emptied faster. It made me think of my younger son and his early experiments mixing various household items to see what would result; even though my son had a fun time, he did not taste his creations (Thank goodness.). Some of our mixtures were not fit to be tasted either, but in the end, all 10 teams submitted their best mixtures with pride, dreaming about how large the royalties would build for their award winning creations.
These 10 blends were taken to another room to be judged by the Wiens family. Five minutes later, when the judges came back from their task, we were told the identities of the four wines we had blended: two were high quality Wiens Temecula wine and the other two needed more time to mature. Being able to distinguish the weak from the strong wines really separated the novices from the connoisseurs in terms of wine tasting palates. The connoisseurs congratulated themselves with their award winning blends, while the balance of us took our slightly damaged egos home with a better comprehension of what is thought to be good wine. Surprisingly, several of the winning teams were able to include large amounts of the less substantial wines into their blends–a critical goal for professional wine blenders as they do not want to throw away a drop of the crop.
After the awards were announced, we each tasted the winning wine blend. Most of us agreed with Rich Wild’s (one of the participants) observation that increasing a small qualtity of a different wine to a blend can make a huge difference to the blend. Because of the enjoyment we had at the class, other attendees, like Su-Chun Huang, are planning on throwing wine blending challenges of their own at their next dinner gathering.
What really caught my eye was the fact that so many of the Wiens family members attended the event. They warmly greeted each attendee as we came into the winery and supported each of us as if we were extensions of their family. This family oriented Temecula winery is a reminder of an earlier day when the family and community stood behind one another. The visitors enjoyed having the family there and gave a lot of extra attention to Grandma Wiens. As Mike and Holly Lester said, Your help allows us to return home as wine Mix Masters. We all look forward to the next seminar at the Wiens Winery. Thanks Wiens family.
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