Wine Tasting: Clark County Fair Beer and Wine Competition Results

I entered a cider and my bell pepper peach wine in the local fair last week, and I got the results and the judge’s notes back. I found the judging experience quite fun, but the entering part quite odd.

I got a blue ribbon for my bell pepper peach wine 12 points out of 20 points, which is 60%. According to the judging scale, that is a “Good” wine. A lot of the comments I got I was actually kind of expecting, but I decided to go ahead and enter it anyway just to see it though. Everyone was talking about it, and when I went to pick up the score sheet, the clerk even commented on the buzz it produced. I’m definitely going to make this again with recipe modifications for next year.

My cider didn’t hold up as well, which could have been because it got shoved over to the beer competition, where it is impossible for them to score the “hops”. It got a red ribbon with 32 points out of 50, which fell into the “Very Good” category. Actually, that is a 64%, which is higher than the bell pepper peach wine even though it got a red. Good news was that was the top cider, but I think next year I would purposely mislabel it as a “apple wine” to get it into the wine competition. You see, there is a organized Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) which has encompassed beer and mead, even those two are made in a wine like fashion. I would not expect beer drinkers to really understand how to judge it, as it would be like having a coffee drinker judge tea.

As far as judging goes, my favorite wine that I had tasted that night was a Pinot Grigio by Ken Stinger. I originally ranked it a 17, but some of my fellow judges ranked it only an 11, partly because it was the first wine we had of the night. As a result, I lowered my score to a 15 due to we all needed to be within 4 points of each other, which we all later regretted, giving it an average score of 13.44. I’m glad that he had a Pinot Nior that took second place with 16.50 points. I wish them luck with their amateur winemaking label, Gam Cellars. If they ever get a license, I would definitely recommend them.

Finalizing Bell Pepper Peach Wine for Consumption

Last December, I decided that I wanted to make something to enter into the local fair, per the suggestion of Crush It! As I had mentioned before, I was going through my freezer and realized I had bell peppers and peaches, and decided to ferment them together, and that would be what I entered.

It hasn’t exactly been a smooth ride with this project, but in the end, I did have a unique product. I don’t know if it is blue ribbon material, but I have to try and I have to start somewhere.

It finished fermenting a long time ago, and has been aging for a few months. A few weekends ago, I decided it was time to bottle, even though the peaches in it were still causing a little bit of a haze and fall out. I hope the judges don’t hold that against me.

My husband and I tried it out with three sweetnesses. The first was completely dry, which had a good body, but admittedly tasted a little off. I tried adding a little sugar, but it seemed to make things worse, so I added more sugar, and things got much better. However, to dissolve sugar in wine, you have to first boils some water to dissolve the sugar in and then add it to the wine. That added water did two things. First, it lowered an already low alcohol wine further. Second, it made the wine thinner, loosing some of that body. However, my husband and I felt that despite the lack of body, the taste was much better, and so the trade off was made.

I think if I was to make this wine again, I would definitely boost up how much alcohol would ferment.

Miracle Fruit Food Tasting

I was all set up to leave the topic of miracle fruit today, but when I got home last night, we kind of had an impromptu miracle fruit food tasting dinner.

My husband broke out of his beer cellar a Dogfish Head Festina Peche sour beer and a Deschutes Black Butte Porter, both of which we have had before and are easy to find. The Festina Peche, being a sour beer, turned syrupy, much like the other sour beer did that I had before when I had miracle fruit. My husband did not like it, and I ended up drinking it. The Porter took on a creamy kind of caramel quality, of which my husband said was kind of like a milk stout. Later, I tried it again, and I could still taste the hops, but it is a lower hopped beer, and the added creamy flavors did suppress it a bit.

As for foods, I used a list provided by Miracle Fruit Man as kind of a guide. Basically, we found there to be three categories: no change, syrupy sweet, and a slight change. The foods that had no change were ones like most cheeses, olives, and semi-sweet chocolate, we found no change. The syrupy sweet foods were ones like Ikea lingonberry sauce, balsamic vinegar, and lemon juice. Here is a run down of what we had, and how it changed:

• Porter Beer – creamy, sort of caramel
• Peche Sour Beer – syrup
• Granny Smith Apple – this tart apple was now a very sweet apple
• Cheddar Cheese – no difference
• Unknown Soft Cheese (Havarti?) – no difference
• Parmesan Cheese – this normally nutty sharp cheese got mellower
• Ikea Lingonberry Sauce – syrup
• Dill pickles – became kind of an interesting sweet dill taste, but not like sweet pickles since this still had dill. My husband, who gags on dill pickles, still gagged.
• Tomato – this was the BEST transformation, as it went from tasting just a large salad type tomato to tasting more like a cherry tomato or the small, really ripe, sweet tomatoes.
• Kiwi – very similar reaction as the tomato, where it now tasted like a sweeter, riper kiwi
• Kalamata Olive – no change
• Lettuce – no change
• Broccoli with Lemon Juice – the lemon juice got disgustingly sweet that I couldn’t eat it. The list included suggestions of oysters in lemon juice, but I have to wonder who would want a sweet oyster? I mean, we regularly do not sweeten our veggies and meat, so trying it this way was horrible.
• Semi-Sweet Chocolate – no change
• Dijion Mustard – no change
• Balsamic Vinegar – sweet with a little bit of pucker still
• Tabasco sauce – sweet and hot. We had two drops, and while the heat had been turned down due to the sweetness, it was still there. In fact, both of us later commented that we could feel our throats burning, but not our tongues.

I was all set up to have a salad since the lettuce and olives had no change, and the tomatoes were great, but the things I usually used as a dressing were now too sweet, so I abandoned that idea. I will also note that at the end of all this, we decided we needed to have a real meal, so I made nachos because I knew they would taste the same, and it didn’t take long to whip up.

Besides being a fun experiment, I could see how may those allergic to sugar, diabetics, or those seeking to lose weight might find this useful, as one could potentially bake desserts without sugar, using lemon juice instead and becoming reduced in calories. However, it would be easy to add too much lemon juice and therefore make it too sweet. The Miracle Fruit Man does have some recipes posted. Some of them I don’t think I would try, such as the watercress and endive salad because I just don’t think I would like my watercress and endive sweet, but other things like a fruit salad with yogurt dressing made with plain unsweetened yogurt sound great!

Miracle Fruit

I remember an episode of CSI: New York titled “Forbidden Fruit” in which the murdered victim was found dead at a party in which people were eating foods that normally are avoided because they are unpleasant tasting. The detectives found out that the people at the party had consumed a Synsepalum dulcificum berry, AKA “miracle fruit” from West Africa that alters the taste buds. In this case, it allowed the victim to ingest dangerous levels of drain cleaner without knowing it due to the altered taste buds. The episode showed the head detective biting into an onion and declaring it tasted sweet.

Now, I believe the writers did twist the truth a little bit writing that episode, as Lindsey claimed that it makes bitter foods taste sweet, but most research, although not all, I have seen says that the berry makes sour foods taste sweet, not bitter foods. In my experience, I tend to agree. Another flaw with the clip is that she did not tell him not to break open the seed of the berry, as so many warn against. Still, this clip does a pretty good job explaining how it works, though I remain skeptical that one could drink drain cleaner.

Miracle Fruit recently crossed my path again when I was reading a blog by the Mad Fermentationist titled “Miracle Fruit Sour Beer Tasting.” Reading about his experience, I decided that since I was kind of talking about taste that I would get my hands on some Miracle Fruit Tablets and try it out myself because it sounded fun.

One thing I should point out that the TV clip got right is how dangerous it can be to alter your taste buds, even for a little while. Taste buds are there to protect you against potentially harmful foods, as you will not ingest something that tastes bad to you. This helps to protect you against some poisons and harmful bacteria.

See also:

• New York Times “Tiny Fruit that Tricks the Tongue”
  
• Mberry
  
• Miracle Fruit Man
  
• Suggested food items (scroll down to see)

IBU

I’ve been writing about tasting here recently, and this weekend is the Portland International Beerfest 2010, of which my husband really wants to go. He has been on a sour beer kick recently, and I’m counting six that are going to be there.

But what would I like? Well, since I don’t like most beers because they are too bitter, I look for the IBU rating to help guide me as to what beers I might find drinkable. International Bitterness Units (IBU) is a measurement of 1 mg of isomerized hop oils per liter of beer, so beers that used a lot of hops have a high IBU. And since I don’t like beer due to bitterness, I gravitate towards really really low IBU beers, which includes wheat beers, and, apparently, sour beers. I’m guessing that the bitter hop flavor interferes too much with the sour flavor.

I should note that IBU measures how much hop oil is in beer, but it doesn’t really reflect how bitter the beer might truly be. This is because there are other things that can make the beer bitter (dandelions, orange peel), and then things like sugar or perceived sweetness can balance out the bitterness. For instance, malt is not completely fermentable, leaving a sweetness, and alcohol is also perceived as sweet. If two beers are at 50 IBU, but one is 5% and the other is 8% alcohol, the 5% alcohol is going to taste more bitter. However, usually if a beer is at 75 IBU or higher, regardless of the alcohol content, it is thought of as being a very hoppy beer.

I tire of beer at the festival, there is cider and mead! Local Wandering Aengus Ciderworks should be there with their excellent Wanderlust and Cherry Anthem Ciders, both on tap. JK Scrumpy is one of my favorites, who will be pouring their Orchard Gate Gold. And cider powerhouse Crispin Cider is suppose to be there with their Artisanal Honey Crisp and The Saint. I’m also glad that Mountain Meadows Mead will be back up from California. I’ve sampled and bought their cranberry mead, which they will have with them this time along with the agave mead.