Our expectation of the wine blending process is to end with a final product that would be well fit to pair with Grilled skirt steak with Chimichurri sauce. Considering that this entree has intense flavors such as garlic and lemon, we want a wine that would be smooth in order to stabilize the palette. Having a great wine will ensure that the guest will enjoy his/her meal. Our initial blend was 75% Cabernet Franc and 25% Merlot. The blend we end up with was quite a surprise. We knew we wanted the majority of the wine to be Cabernet Franc for stability and the rest would be Merlot for its robust, fruity flavors. However, after several trials we decided to give Syrah a second attempt to see if we wanted to change our mind from the previous week. Our final blend ended up being 80% Cabernet Franc 10% Merlot and 10% Syrah. We decided to add a little bit of Syrah to the mix because we liked the way it perfumed the wine. Before, it smelled a bit musty almost like overripe (close to spoiled) fruit. The addition of Syrah provided an aroma of baking spices such as vanilla, cinnamon and clove.
We found it very interesting to agree that Syrah was our least favorite out of the three especially by itself. However, after making several observations, we realized that it compliments the other two really well. A couple attempts later, we had become nauseous from smelling the wines. It has become more of a change as our taste and smell sense have become numb. Despite the challenge of deciding on the best blend for our dish, it was a fun way to study wine. We believe that having students do this experiment forces them to pull out characteristics of the wines they do and don’t like.
