I often hear wine punters discuss vertical tasting events.
Despite the fact that this actually means tasting the same wine from a series of successive vintages I find it amusing to imagine it simply being the normal state of a glass of wine held in the hand.
So what would a horizontal tasting event be like? I’ll let you imagine that one for yourselves. 🙂
Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 843, Horizontal Tasting’, 1/15s f11 ISO100 100mm Lighting 2 x Inon LE720
G’day Robert,
I’m just trawling through your archives – BTW, your photos are stunning on a iMac 27″ screen; haven’t decided if I’ll permanently switch yet, but that’s a tick on the plus side – and read your question. Though a) it’s probably rhetorical, and/or you’d rather not know, b) you may already know the actual answer by now, since you posted this about 17 months ago, and c) you probably won’t even see this comment because (see b)), ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’, in winetasting flights (a “flight” being the comparison of wines which have something in common), refer to time (in a context). Hence a vertical flight is the same wine over different vintages/years, and a horizontal flight is wines that have something in common from the same timestamp. Typically, a common varietal over different regions, such as a Coonawarra cabernet, a Clare cabernet, a Barossa cabernet, & a MacLaren Vale cabernet, all from 2006. (or from same region, different wineries. You could also do something like WA, SA, VIC & NSW, or Australia & NZ & France, but that’d be a bit pointless, though still fun, because the comparison would be meaningless, variables being so wide and unrelated.
Cheers, Russ (Jen’s friend)
Thanks Russ, well I have learned something new today, the use of the word ‘flight’ in a tasting! Thanks for stopping by. 🙂