FYI:

Arrowroot powder is a thickner for sauces, soups, gels, etc. It is tasteless, like normal quantities of gelatin is tasteless.

Holy crap! You are a bona fide madman. There are some profiles I would have like to see covered. I won’t got for the ridiculous barnyard and cat pee, growing up on the farm, I know the aromas. I was really glad to see black raspberry, I use it so often, it is something we used to pick as children. I would have liked to see:

Grapefruit peel – In so many NZ SBs
Lychee
Starfruit
Anise
Loganberry
Pie Cherry – Found in so many pinots
Mint – a classic cab flavor especially Chile
Mulberry – a sick sweet berry that I use for wines I do not like
Ground Cherry – Rare outside the Midwest, maybe Lars knows about it, tomato like but very sweet
Tobacco
Cedar
5 spice powder

Great episode. Still laughing 20 minutes later.

Heehee. Arrowroot is also used to make things like jellies and glazes shiny. No wonder your tongue went all numb. =D

This episode is as great or greater than the “The Competition” episode of Seinfeld. No lie.

Found out about you through Men’s Health article on wine. I started with The Traveling Vineyard in May and we are always getting together to try the wines from our list and this episodes tasting would be great to try at a team meeting sometime. Maybe even with an adventurous host. (We are the tupperware of the wine world, if you haven’t heard of us we do in home wine tastings we are a division of Geerlings and Wade. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm for wine – its awesome. I’ll be recommending your site a lot.

Hey Davey, his mouth got numb from the clove, not the arrowroot

Classic episode – I’ve only discovered WLTV in the past few days, and I’m loving it so far. Keep up the good work!

Ok, you win. I’ve been watching for a short while, but after seeing this episode there’s just no way I could be a lurker anymore. Gary, your insanity is absolutely brilliant. I’ve been drinking wine for years, and can’t even begin to count how many times I could parse out certain flavor elements of whatever it was I was drinking only to go crazy trying to identify them. I’ve eaten just about everything under the sun, but the idea of methodically tasting through isolated, concentrated flavors like this never occurred to me. It’s such a great idea. Thank you so much for what you’re doing. Keep up the great work!

Wow, amazing. I laughed and even cried a little. You Rock GV!
Amanda

Gary, I love your site and love what you are doing for us novices out here. I am opening a small wine bar in my hometown and your site has been very useful. I am just a guy who loves wine not a guy that knows a whole lot about it so these lessons are invaluable.

Thanks, and keep up the great work!!!

Best episode ever? Maybe

I am new to winetasting and new to the site (the site came first, in case you were not sure). Thanks for doing this. You have removed all the obstacles for me (concern about snobiness and price) to be able to appreciate the gift of wine. Wine is the force that will bring us world peace 🙂

Dude I am so doing this. For the longest time I just thought the wine snobs of the world had their own private lexicon that really had no basis in reality. Well, actually I still think that, but regardless I’m going to hold some “palate workouts” with friends to really get into this so that when I hear a GV, a Robert Parker Jr., a wine spectator reviewer talk about bell pepper with subtle hints of thyme and lemon peel, I can understand what they’re saying. And the jalepeno was funny. You and your team keep up the great work!!

Wow. I’m glad I stayed through till the end. You’re a brave man, Gary. You made me think of how many things I’ve eaten but not really taken the time to taste. Also, had a crappy Merlot/Cab blend tonight that was the epitome of Hi-C wine. I never would have thought of that if not for WLTV. Crazy.

Thanks Gary! I’ve been meaning to watch this episode for a year and I’m glad I finally got to do it. I can’t believe you actually tasted all that stuff. What a martyr. I plan to do this with some of my friends during Project Runway Parties, but I think we’ll just take on a few flavors at a time and then try some of the wines you suggested to go with them.

wow amazing, epic like you said. many thanks.
you said you liked goji berries. they are very good, big part of chinese medicine too.
lots of interesting tastes in traditional chinese herbal medicines too. roots, tree barks, dried gecko…

Awesome GV, i am definatly going to get some peeps together from the CKC and do this. i bought some black currant jam the other day, maybe it was not a good one, but i did not get a dramatic flavor profile from it, i am going to pick up a couple different ones and try again.

Wow!! I am In awe

I love What you do

Episode 148 is the best educational comedy video blog! I’m totally stoke thanks to WLTV.

I heard you mention this episode a while ago, and I finally got round to watching it … Wow, this is one for the history books … I think this officially is the shiznit. As several people mentioned, arrowroot is used as a thickening agent and isn’t supposed to taste of anything … although, to clarify impchimp’s comment, it’s *not* made from animals, like gelatin is. The last couple minutes were *priceless* … I may have to come to Jersey to try the dirt v. Cristal comparison. -and- If you liked the jalapeño, you should try one of those crazy habanero cultivars ;~P

Also good to know that you get the comments from the old episodes that we watch … I’d always assumed that they just disappeared / went totally unnoticed, so I never leave any even if I watch an ep, say, from a week ago … Maybe it’d be good to mention again on WLTV that you *do* get old-episode comments!

This episode was both educational AND entertaining … you find that so rarely these days lol! … Gary you are my hero!

Gary,

This is excellent. I am discovering my palette. Thanks!

That…was…awesome. GV is hilarious. I am definitely going to give that a try sometime soon. Now that you are almost up to 400, you should go back and do this again with some new stuff, and maybe AJ to train his palate. That huge bite of the pepper really shows your dedication. You bring the thunder nonstop.

Gary is the man.

The stuttering of Cinnamon was classic as was the eating of the whole top of the asparagus bunch.

I am definitely going to try this sometime. I am from now on, going to make it a point to taste everything….

what an appetite