Wine

So some of you reading this will know that I do not drink, and yet I am a wine snot. A "wine snob" suggests that I have the money for the really, really expensive stuff, which I clearly do not, so I am instead a "wine snot"--a baby in the field who can spend a little of my disposable income on interesting wines that are not available at Target (for my New York friends: you can buy wine in Grocery Stores, Target, Walmart...it's insane in Cali).

For the 2 of you reading this who don't know, I match people with wine based upon my nose, mostly. I've learned how to taste wine without drinking it (I'm the spitter with my spit cup), and I don't do that frequently. I also can stripe my tongue with the smallest of tastes. And I'm pretty good at matching people with wine they love.

I've seen the "take the online quiz and we'll match you with your best wines!" deals, and I just tried one, called Bright Cellars. They give you taste choices (far too few of them, by the way) and then match you with your "best wines".

Well.

I need to open up a competing business, pronto, because their responses were...poop.

According to them, I am a Pinot Noir and Riesling lover who also would go for some Fume Blanc.

If you've ever been to one of my wine parties, you know that:
1. I never serve Riesling.
2. I keep Pinot Noir on hand for those who like it, but I do not spend my evening with my nose stuffed in a Pinot Noir glass. You may also have heard me refer to the smell of all Pinot Noir as "Chicka-cherry cola", because they all smell like flat Cherry Coke to me. To note: not a big fan of cherry cola.
3. I'm not a huge fan of Fume Blanc, although I think it's ok.

Now, I do throw wine parties, where I pair the wines with food and people. My Cali friends tend to like whites, and it saddens me that these people will never know the joy of Syrah. I am a Syrah fiend. It's the most interesting wine to smell of them all, really it is, and you can see me occasionally at Turkovich Wines in Winters with my nose stuffed into a wine glass with just a tiny bit of their Syrah at the bottom, swirling, smelling, smiling. I love it so. Yes, I've also tasted it, and I assure you, it's wonderful on the palate, too.

So if I were to have gotten a proper read from the Bright Cellars people, I would have gotten:
1. Syrah
2. Pinot Blanc/Pinot Gris (a wholly different animal from Pinot Noir, I assure you)
3. Sauvignon Blanc
4. Malbec
5. Merlot
6. The Watermelon Rosé

So now I wonder...how could you make an online test be accurate? I like sweet candy (one of their taste tests) but I do not like sweet wine, because the sweet doesn't make it to the nose of the wine, and quite honestly, if I wanted to drink something sweet and fruity, I'd make Kool-Aid (which is how some of this wine tastes). I also am not a fan of my wine smelling of Petrol (see Riesling, above).

I am interested in learning about lesser-known varietals, but how can I do this if their initial read is so off? (In fairness, I took the quiz again with different answers, and they paired me with Malbec and Fiano, which is much closer to reality.)

I think I'll compose my own online quiz, and call it Renegade Sniffers. Go different! Go bold! Go...sniffing?

People will think I'm into glue.

Alas.