“I hope you know this will all go down on your permanent record…”

I was sitting at the kitchen table with a black sleeping mask over my eyes, a set of bright blue Skull Candy headphones with a screaming face on them over my ears, and 3 glasses of wine in front of me, when my son and his friend came bounding up the steps. The friend must’ve done a double-take because my son, ever the developing wino, said “Oh, that’s just my mom. She’s doing a wine tasting to see how music effects how you taste wine.” Next thing I knew, my son was pulling one end of the headphones off my ear and yelling into my ear, “Ma, I want my headphones back when you’re done with them, OK?”

So what? So I borrow my kid’s A/V equipment…be happy I’m not waxing eloquent about my 8-track player or my reel-to-reel.

I had purchased a malbec, an aglianico and a monastrell, but I had no idea which dark inky wine was in each of the numbered glasses. I tasted all 3 in silence (the headphones do a nice job of blocking noise!) and took some tasting notes. Here were my initial, silent thoughts on the wines:

#1 – Very tight. Not offering much in aromatics other than some bitter chocolate. A little bit hot. Some gameyness to it. (Juan Gil 2007 Jumilla – Monastrell)

#2 – Berries and lovely earth on the nose. Spice & tobacco. Tart finish. (Gascón 2007 – Malbec)

#3 – Lighter berries than #2 and some smoke. Also a little bit tight. (Ars Poetica 2003 – Aglianico del Vulture)

Then I hit the “shuffle” mode on my iPod and essentially let the lions out of their cages. I listened to no less than 14 songs from completely different genres of music, and tasted all 3 wines with each song to see what paired well (or poorly) with what. The reason for the blindfold was so that I could focus strictly on taste/aroma and sound. By the time I was done, I felt like a wet noodle that had been slapped up against the wall—and I mean that in the best way possible. I’m still recovering from the sensory overload. This is all kinda new to me, so I wasn’t sure how to approach the data once I had it. In the absence of any sane ideas, I decided to do what I usually do—make it up as I go. Here, for starters, are the songs I listened to in my enological cocoon:

“Skin and Bones” (Foo Fighters) – Live and unplugged, it’s an eerie sort of rock song with a marching drum pattern.

“Little Drop of Poison” (Tom Waits) – A tango-like arrangement with a piano. Tom’s voice is ever gruffy and raspy, and there’s a high falsetto in the background.

“Do Me Good” (Amy Winehouse) – Sexy R&B groove, sultry voice.

“Fake Plastic Trees” (Radiohead) – Ethereal male voice, slow tempo, string accompaniment.

“Aces High” (Iron Maiden) – Fast tempo, heavy metal, harmonious electric guitars

“Mosh” (Eminem) – Rap, slow marching tempo

“New York Mining Disaster” (Bee Gees) – Mostly a cappella vocal harmonies

“Nature Boy” (Jon Hassell) – Trumpet/flute jazz with 2 melodies that are counterpoint rather than harmonious

“Game Plan” (Bob Schneider) – Hard rock with electric guitars and repetitive patterns

“No Hay Cama Pa‘ Tanta Gente” (El Gran Combo) – Salsa with horns and lots of percussion

“Radio Radio” (Elvis Costello) – Punk-influenced new wave/rock with keyboards

“Sex on Fire” (Kings of Leon) – Syncopated rhythm, strained rock voice

“Concerto #3” (Sergei Rachmaninoff) – Intense piano piece

“Sir Duke” (Stevie Wonder) – Swinging funk with lots of horns

No, I didn’t include any country music. You can find that wine pairing over at the “My Girl Left Me, My Dog Died, My Boss is a Jerk and I Love My Country” website. Other than some Johnny Cash, I don’t listen to much country, though I guess I probably should have in the interest of science. Shit. Oh well.

Rather than give you my notes on how each wine changed with the music (and in the interest of keeping this from becoming a doctoral dissertation instead of a blog post) I’ll see if I can summarize what I found to be some amazing observations:

1.    Apparently Tom Waits, Radiohead, Jazz, Salsa and Classical music are VERY temperamental with your wines. None of the 3 wines tasted pleasurable with these pieces and my guess (though I’d have to experiment more) is that they need extremely heavy-handed wines that have been allowed to open up for some time, because everything tasted weak, or tart, or tight, or bland or thin while listening to them.

2.    On the contrary, R&B, Funk, Rock and New Wave are much more forgiving. Overall, the 3 wines had positive notes across the board with these types of music.

3.    Best combos according to the tasting notes were: “Game Plan” with wine #1, “Radio Radio” with #2 and “Do Me Good” with #3.

OK, must go nap now. Whew.