"Wine is the most civilized thing in the world"

(In case you are wondering, the quote is by Earnest Hemingway.)

Saturday, after spending time at the zoo and sightseeing around Amsterdam, Mr. Traveler and I switched gears attended our first wine tasting event at the Nina Quax Creative Studio. (I apologize for the lack of pictures, but we were having so much fun, I forgot to get the camera back out.)

The theme of the night was Old World vs. New World, which meant we would be trying and comparing wines from both locations (Old World meaning Europe and New World meaning the Americas, Africa, or Australia).

We started the tasting a little bit late to give some of the attendants, who had run into a problem with the trams, a chance to arrive. During this time, we visited with some of the other members of the group, including people from France, Poland, the U.S., India, and Holland. Soon, though, everyone had arrived, and it was time to begin.


We started with a selection of white wines and then moved to reds, observing the color, smell, and taste of each sample. Each pairing included two wines from the same grape. Between wines, snacks including pieces of pork, duck, bread, and cheese were provided. I won't bore you with details of each of the wines, but overall we learned that the Old World wines tended to have more of an acidic taste, while the New World wines tended to be more fruity. We also observed that the Old World wines offered more consistency than the New World wines. Our favorite and least favorite both came from the New World selection. The one we liked the least stood out the most. It smelled like a skunk or burned rubber. Supposedly the smell is a common trait of Rieslings.


After the tasting ended, we walked back to the train station since the bus wasn't scheduled for another 15 minutes. When we got back to Utrecht, it was past 1am and the buses there were no longer running. We hailed a taxi to take us back home, where we quickly fell asleep after a very full day.