Bordeaux Blind Tasting

A blind tasting of Bordeaux red wines at Restaurant Ni&Tyve during an early spring afternoon. We love wine, we love Bordeaux and the restaurant was unexplored by us so far. Blind tasting of wine sounds easy, right? You taste, and you either like it or not, no? Well, it's not quite that simple. We also had to describe the smell and taste, guess the area (if we could) and rate them.

We were together with far more experienced wine tasters, for sure. Wine writers from different specialty magazines and sommeliers from known restaurants and wine bars, amongst them our friend Magnus from Territoriet. Regardless of that, we tried our best to describe the seven different glasses of red wines from Bordeaux. In the end we rated them, and to no surprise, when the identities were revealed, it turned out Andrea's favorites were the three most expensive wines.

It was all Bordeaux red wines from 2001, from some of the best winemakers of the region.

We also learned about the bacteria "Brett" or Breattanomyces. A fault in wine that can both add flavor to the wine or ruin the wine completely. Young wines can get more complexity and/or an aged character from Brett. When a wine is spoiled by Brett it smells of horse manure or a musty basement, and it may have a metallic taste. This could of course be confused with cork taint as well, which makes it even more difficult to distinguish.

After tasting we went to the terrace to eat. We were served a three-course meal from restaurant Ni&Tyve and we enjoyed red, rosé and white wine from Chateau Rauzan Despagne. They come in plastic bottles (PET), which is very handy e.g. when you are traveling to your cottage or going to a picnic. The bottles are less heavy and can't be broken. The wine is quite cheap, but still with a good quality to it. We tasted the Chateau Rauzan Despagne Bordeaux rouge too, and in July that will be released in a three liter bag in box for NOK 450.

Chateau Rauzan Despagne in PET bottles

Crayfish with lardo and a vegeterian wonton. Not a very successful dish in our opinion. The flavors didn't go together too well and the dish lacked acidity. The crayfish was overcooked.

Magnus from Territoriet

Andrea had the chicken as main dish. It was served with Jerusalem artichoke mousse, potato puree and grilled apricot. The dish was tasty, but the sauce and both mousses were too salty.

A beautiful, sunny, spring day in Oslo

Anders picked to no surprise the entrecôte with béarnaise sauce and fried potatoes. He asked for rare and they managed to cook it correctly. The meat was decent, the fat was soft enough so you could eat it, and the sauce was rich and tasty. The potatoes were ok, but the mushrooms and green beans were a bit boring.

The winemaker in the middle

The dessert of milk chocolate ganache, hazelnut ice cream, caramelized hazelnuts and some sort of strawberry powder. The latter was overpowering and made the dish too sweet, but it had some good flavors in between.