Sancerre Wines Blind Tasting

Gary Vaynerchuk tastes 2 Sancerres side by side and ups the ante by tasting them blind!

Sancerre Wines Blind Tasting Hello everybody and welcome to Wine Library TV, I’m your host Gary Vaynerchuk and this my friends is the thunder show AKA the internet’s most passionate wine program and I’m extremely excited today. It’s a Monday. Matt as you know, today we started the Cinderella, Thank you three packs. Link that up and that’s going to be going up for the next week. And more importantly, I got to give a lot of credit to Mr. Matt behind the camera. First of all, you guys you give him too much credit but he probably deserves more. We’re doing a series. instead, why not do a head to head match up then I like I always do made it even better by coming up with the idea of doing a head to head blind match up. So two weeks, huge commitment which we’ve never held. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said I would the wines you wanted. I was going to tell you the wines I was going to do every Friday. Their lineup, Matt, show them because we’re taping because we’re traveling quite a bit. By the way, right now Monday so I’m going to be in London and in Paris this week. And then next week, Matt link this part up, I’m hitting a lot of parts in the US I haven’t been to before, Atlanta, Alabama, Louisiana, Denver, Saint Louis. So hopefully, we’ll see a bunch of you Vaniacs. So, I’m on a taping. So, this time it’s definitely happening. We’re doing head to head match ups so we’re doing Sancerre today head to head. I’ve no idea other than category. As you can see, it’s a Sancerre, Sancerre that’s all I know. We go head to head and we pick a winner. I’m pretty excited—Matt, maybe you should get another glass and really do it like to head to head style. Head to head episodes have been popular; they’re usually a little bit tighter. In this time Of the year, you guys are busy buying gifts. One that’s down is —right there I brought next to you. That’s fine, okay, good. And so that is what we’re going to do. Thanks you sir and we’ll pour these two head to head. Now, right off the back, Sancerre we could talk about it all day long. I’m a huge Sancerre fan. Sauvignon Blanc based wines from the Loire Valley in France. It's a varietal that I'm extremely fond of. I picked on California time and time again about being not a place where I think Sauvignon Blanc is great. New Zealand in a lot of ways has jumped to shark. Those wines almost become like—almost like—how do I want to put this?—almost like a fake version of themselves just like overdone, too much grassiness and grapefruitness. It just gone over the top almost got powered over itself. Now, this is really interesting Matt. I don’t know if you’re noticing this, that’s why head to head are so fun. These are substantially different in color. One is urine yellow and the other one is quite light I mean just very light so very intrigued to see what’s going on here. Sancerre tend to be very mineral driven sometimes like seashell. They tend tohave less oak, less goopiness, very clean and I’m excited about trying this. So let’s go to Sancerre number one, sniffy sniff. A little bit of a melon component on the nose this is quite intriguing, not very aromatically exciting to be honest with you. A hint of grassiness actually which is quite intriguing, it tend a little bit more towards the New Zealand action but aromatically kind of boring. Let’s see wine number two again almost Chardannay like, almost — like, almost dessert wine like in color. Now, this one is obnoxiously vegetal which for me is a good thing. But for the common consumer out there, I mean they smell like brussel sprouts and green peas. Matt, give it a little sniffy sniff. I'm just curious what you think here. I mean very, very green. So clearly, two very different noses right I mean just parsley, basil and green peas and very, very different. This is aromatically challenged; this is probably aromatically difficult for the most of the noses out there so very curious where this is going to go. Let’s give it a whirl. Good acidity, wow; very clean, star fruit with a little hint of kiwi on the back which is I like quite a bit and sour, Sour city USA which is exciting to me. I’m not sure that I would go—why would I say I’m not sure? I know myself. I would not go Sancerre in a blind tasting on this wine. I wouldn’t—too much sunshine actually reminds me more of like Casa Blanca, Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. Just very new world on its attack, a little more sugar than I’m used to from the Loire Valley, very surprising unless K. Murph and Ian are playing tricks on me Matt which is very possible. Let’s go here, get grimness I mean just a grim. I don’t really know what to say other than I would be a massive fool on this show if I didn’t know this were Sancerre. I just would not go there. This is also not typical of the Sancerre that I’ve been accustomed to. I don’t know if these are ‘07s and it’s a vintage. It’s a little hotter, I don’t know. This is very grassy, very new world on its attack. It tastes like almost the majority New Zealand’s Sauvignon Blanc that I’ve had. Very grassy, nice acidity on the back end, I do like this overall green component, this basil, green, green beans kind of thing going on. So it’s more of the kind of the wine I like. This is a better wine like it’s made better. I’m perplexed to be really honest with you. I’m going to score both wines an 85. Oh Matt, what are you doing? It’s twice. It’s like twice the fun. I’m going to score both wines 85. I’m pretty disappointed with both efforts. I like this wine better but it’s boring. I like the flavor here but I don’t like the way it’s made. It’s off balanced; it’s awkward, this is a really bad start to the double blind taste to fun two week. We’re in the holiday season trying to make these shows tight and really just an awkward vibe to start these— because both these wines are just difficult at best. I just can’t wrap my head around it, it’s like two twins that are very, very different and they both piss you off. So 85 points each, they are not wines that I would recommend anybody out just going out and finding. Sancerres are normally in the $15 to $25 range. I just would not go there in these wines and I’m really to unveil them and I'm really almost waiting to be like “Surprise” so they trick me but they didn’t. What we have here the Gerard Boulay ‘07 Monts Damnes Sancerre, $36. I’m not even sold if I paid $3.6. Wow, very interesting though and you could see how I said it, it was so obvious to me that this was well-made and so that doesn’t super surprise me at that price point because it was a very well-made wine just—super duper for me in the palate. This thing is very interesting. Henry Natter ‘06 Sancerre, this wine rules in a $24 bones and don’t like it and it’s even my style. As you know Matt, I always overrate anything that’s vegetal so think about what I’m really thinking about this. I’ve nothing to say for myself other than I apologize for this very difficult beginning. We’re going to do Valea lui Mihai tomorrow. Hopefully, that shows a little bit better. But boy, the fact that these two add up to be $60 is a shocking look into the wine world for me because once again, price, impact, quality. I just don’t see it. I don’t see it at all. I can understand this by the way just not for my palate. I think a lot of people would like this still at 36 bones you could do a lot of damage in a lot of places. You can get two great bottles of wine. So that’s it. Question of the day: Word association, I say twins you say You with a little bit of me? Oh, check out the thank you 3 packs this week is going to be epic; gifts for your family, gifts for clients, for your boss. This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done. I’m massively excited about it. You obviously can tell because all the sites are being taken over with it and I wish you a great holiday and we’re changing the wine world.