Keswick Vineyards Blending Party. And the winner (for the day) is ....

Some of you know that I was not at work last Saturday as I went to Keswick Vineyards with Dave for their Concensus Blending Party.  What a GREAT time!  If you haven't been to a blending party it's a must.  This was the second time for Dave and I.  The first one was for Molly Dooker.

Concensus is an annual wine club member blending event that takes place over 8 days.  Each day there are 9 or 10 teams of 5 or 6 people. The objective for each day is to have the BEST blend.  In the end, all 8 (best) blends are judged and a winner declared.  The winning wine becomes Keswick's house blend, Concensus.     

January 17, 2015

We all gather in the barrel room and are given 3 hours to create a blend from the varietals we are given.  For this vintage we were given 4 varietals - Touriga, Norton, Syrah, and Chambourcin.  It's up to each table to decide if they want to use all four varietals or not.

Every table was set with all we needed to begin blending.

Four varietals plus an empty bottle for our final blend.

Team Table 7 - Joann, Holli, Tracey, myself, Dave

Let the fun begin!  First on the list is taste each wine, make notes and discuss with the team.  From there, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  We decided on the percentage of  each wine to include in the blend.  Then with beaker in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other ... blend away.

Joanne and Holli blending.

Dave and I blending.

Blend, swirl, sniff, sip, analyze.  Another blend. Swirl, sniff, sip, analyze.  The table begins to get a tad bit red.  Holli said if we didn't win for best blend that day, we'd at least get messiest table.

Another blend. More swirling, sniffing, sipping and savoring. (Well, not all blends were savored.)  Another blend and ...the fun keeps on going.  In all, our team created 17 blends before deciding on our final submission for the days judging.  

Judging, for the day, is by the participants.  All wines are blind tasted and each person gives each wine a score based on appearance, aroma, taste, aftertaste, and overall.    The wine with the highest average score wins.

When Stephen Barnard (Winemaker) read the results we prayed we were not the lowest score. (Just like in reality shows, it sucks to be the first one eliminated.) As the wines were read from lowest rank to highest, the anticipation builds.  We were surviving 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 ... it was finally down to the top 2 wines.

Look at the look of anticipation on Holli's face.  It was down to the top 2 wines.  Then there's Dave ... ho, hum.

Best blend of the day goes to ... TABLE 7!!!  Joann, Holli, Tracey, Dave and Anita.  Our pictures will be on the label (along with the winners from the other 7 days) when the wine is released.  

Stephen Barnard, Joann, Holli, Tracey, Anita, Dave

Thank you to Cindy Schornberg (Owner Keswick Vineyards) and Holli for sending me pictures.  My ever faithful blog photographer, Bruce, wasn't with me and I didn't think to bring a camera.