Wine Words & the 5 S's

This is where the intimidation starts, but remember they're just words! Throw that dictionary out the window!

When you're in a room full of wine drinkers, inevitably you will hear the "one-upper" say something along the lines that the wine has tremendous structure, elegant nose or showing excellent potential. Maybe you'll see someone holding the glass of wine up to the light to check out the legs and color or making funny "sucky fish" faces as they take a swig. All of this nonsense does have a purpose, BUT if one goes to tremendous lengths to over exaggerate each motion and comment then it's all done for show. All of the adjectives that they use are just words. To each their own. Use what you know to express what you are tasting, seeing and smelling. There are no wrong answers. I can remember one person telling me that a Chardonnay we were tasting reminded her of drinking out of a garden hose in the middle of summer. Does that ring a bell with anyone? It's definitely more understandable across a large group of people rather than talking about the minerality and clay soil composition, right?

When we taste wine, we go through a series of 5 steps. This isn't an exercise routine...well in essence it is when it comes to fine tuning your senses, but it shouldn't be a spectacle for everyone to be witness to. Simple..in, out, done...no more than 10 seconds. Use words you can relate to and understand.

1. SEE...literally look at the wine in the glass. Is it red, gold, yellow, pink, purple? What shade of color are you seeing? Is it cloudy, dark? To a greater length you can also see how old the wine is. Red wines will have a brown edge to them. White wines will be more golden, like apple juice, in color. Hold the wine up to the light or against a white background.
2. SWIRL...this takes some practice. DO NOT WEAR WHITE! Seriously, if you're not used to swirling your wine in the glass you'll end up wearing it. Start with the base of the glass on a flat surface holding it by the stem and give it a little swirl. What you're doing is getting the air in and allowing the wine to wake up and breathe, aerate and give off it's aroma or nose. Think about if you were stuffed inside a bottle for years, you would need a good shaking to wake up too. Also, look at the wine while it's spinning. Does it look watery, does it have viscosity? This will give you some hints before you actually get it in your gullet.
3. SNIFF...get your nose in the glass. Take in the aroma of the wine. Yes it does smell like alcohol, but train yourself to get past that. Fruit, flower smells are easy. Reds usually lean towards berry fruit, chocolate, earthy/dirty (I'll explain later), oak. Whites go towards citrus, butter, oak, herbal, etc. Remember, it's what you are smelling. I opened a red once and it smelled like movie theater buttered popcorn. Hey it's my nose!
4. SIP...the best part! Don't gulp or shoot it. Put a small amount in your mouth and swish it around. Not like mouthwash, but gently ease it around the interior of your mouth coating your tongue all over. You'll now taste what you thought you were smelling. How much body does the wine have? Is it watery or light? Is it big, bold and dry or light, fruity, sweet? Also, while sipping the wine suck in a little air which will bring out more of the flavors in the wine. This is the "sucky fish" face my wife loving makes fun of when I do it.
5. SAVOR...slowly swallow the wine and savor the flavors as the ride comes to an end. What do you taste after the wine is gone? Does that taste stay to hang around? That's the finish and the length of the finish. When someone says that the wine has a long finish this is what we are talking about.

Now put all of that together and you are tasting wine like a pro! Remember it's what you see, smell and taste. You can use all of the BIG words you want, but if no one understands you or no one can relate to what you are saying then it's a wash. So I say keep it simple, understandable and relative. My colleagues and peers would think otherwise, but being too technical brings us back to the snobbery. If it taste like grape juice then so be it.

The more you really take the time to think about all the flavors and smells the more things will come to mind. One wine critic uses the best adjectives when he rates a wine. "This tastes like Trix cereal on a Saturday morning." I love that he's not afraid to tell people what comes to his mind first. Be confident, this is not the SAT's. There is no right or wrong answer. If you taste something like the fruit juice left over from eating a fruit cocktail snack pack then say it with confidence! "This red wine tastes like mocha covered cherries dammit!"

You'll be surprised at how many people agree with you. 9 times out of 10, people are just afraid to say anything for fear of being ridiculed. But c'mon we're all adults. It's wine and it should be fun to share ideas and understand what everyone else is thinking. After all, it is an experience to drink a great wine and remember what you tasted with a group of good friends. class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;">

Benefit Wine Tasting October 2

Local wine tastings are a great way to explore and learn about what you like in wine while at the same time helping an organization.  If you live in southern CT, Anthony's Ocean View, New Haven probably host 2 or 3 a week for various local charity.  Prices range from $30 to $50, but with that you not only get access to some really great wines, but also a smorgasbord of food ranging from several types of pastas to hot & cold hors d'oeuvres to chocolate fountains.  If you happen to be in the area, I'll be attending one on October 2nd.

"M.T.A Scholarship Fund is a privately funded scholarship program for Catholic Schools in New Haven's East Side.

M.T.A. Scholarship Fund's purpose is not only to assist children in our community by providing tuition assistance to low-and moderate-income families.  We are giving families an opportunity to choose their children's future, but also to demonstrate that community-based approaches can revolutionize the educational system and improve the quality of education that children recieve.Please join us at Anthony's Ocean View and sample wines from premium Domestic and Imported Wineries coordinated in conjunction with a local wine purveyor while you enjoy a feast prepared by Anthony's Ocean View of scrumptious hot and cold Hors D'oeuvres.
$30 per ticket
Contact Sal Decola at 203.641.1857 for tickets and/or donations."

 

Usually at an event like this you'll sample anywhere from 40 to 60 different wines.  Not a ton, but enough that it won't overwhelm your pallet. 

Check out www.localwineevents.com to find events in your area or ask your local wine shop for details.  Happy hunting!

Navigating a wine tasting

In the retail wine biz, September kicks off distributor tastings/shows with hopes of big buy ins for the inevitable holidays ahead. Sounds glamorous and fun right? Tasting 100's of different wines. Talking to some big wig winemakers. Drinking $200, $300 Cabs. Yeah right sign me up, who doesn't want to go? Here's the side maybe you don't see...

Maybe you want to try the new Far Niente or Caymus or Silver Oak? Well so do your 1000 closest friends and their family. Be prepared to wait in line. How do you get through a tasting of this size and caliber without going postal and without getting completely bombed outta your gourd?

First things first, you need a game plan! Your years of playing Stratego are now going to pay off! Understand your opponents. Depending on the size of the venue, expect 100's of wine drinkers of all different levels and experiences jockeying for position to try all the new and latest wines. They'll also be zeroing in on everything over the $100 price point just to say that they drank those bottles. They'll never buy those bottles but hey it's free, so why not right?

You need to come up with an idea of what you think you would like to try. Maybe it's a different country or a different style of wine. All summer you drank Pinot Grigio, but what other Italian whites are out there? This is the opportunity to find those gems! And they're will be tons of vineyard reps and winemakers to answer your questions.

Remember these three words; Sip, Spit/Swallow, move on.

Those five S's of wine tasting we talked about earlier are going to come into play now.

Ask quick questions as there will be many people behind you waiting to do the same. Be courteous to your fellow tasters and the person at the table serving you. Inevitably you will end up behind the "know it all" who insists on telling the rep or winemaker everything that he/she knows about their vineyard and how the grapes were grown. Seriously! You think that impresses anyone especially the guy/woman that spent 20 hours a day tending the vineyard, picking the grapes by hand, creating the wine while you were sitting in your lazy boy? We got a lot of ground to cover here.

If you can get a brochure of what and who will be at the tasting event that will give you an extra 15-20 minute head start, so ask whoever you can to get that booklet and look it over days ahead if time. You can't possibly taste every single bottle in the room so having an idea of what you really want to accomplish is half the bottle.

Plan your course of attack. Go through all the white wines first. Make sure to spit. Again, be courteous. I've had total tools spit on the ground and on my foot. Not cool. This is CT! You are a far cry from Europe.

Now that all the whites are done go find the food! Put together a nice plate and sit down to take everything in. Have a glass of sparkling water. Give your palate a rest and a cleanse. A nice cold beer would even work good at this point. Restroom trip, freshen up and on to the reds!

Pace yourself now since Reds will be bigger wines to take in. Spitting at this juncture in time would be a great idea. It's all fun and games until someone passes out!

By now you should be exhausted and your palate shot. 

Find the nearest restaurant and sit down order a tall glass of water and relax. Look over your notes and try to remember what all those check marks, stars, etc mean. Get some real food in your body, mission complete! 

Martin Scott Fall Tasting @ Lincoln Center in NYC

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wine cheat sheet

Ok...maybe you're the type that refuses to be helped by a salesperson or waiter when finding that perfect bottle the same way us men refuse to stop for directions when driving.  Maybe t's something in our genes passed down from generations of hunters and gatherers or maybe it's because some people do not want to be ridiculed.  I shop around a lot of stores.  I like to be sold to sometimes.  It makes me feel like I'm off duty.  There's nothing better than going into another wine shop and having someone help me pick something out.  The negative is when some Poindexter wine geek sticks his nose up to every inquire or suggestion I make.  If you don't have the wine, just say so. There's no need to ridicule what I like.  Once in a while you get a shop owner that likes to converse about your selections and offers up some suggestions of his own.  That's the fun part!

BUT what if you don't like taking advice or suggestions from someone else?  What to do what to do?  There is a cheat sheet to make it easy to spot a great bottle and it's FREE!

On the back of every bottle is a label and on that label should be who imports the wine into the U.S.  There are many different groups out there just like there are jars of tomato sauce on the grocery shelf...so how do you tell one from the other?

From France look for the following guys:

• Kermit Lynch
• Fredrick Wildman
• LaTour

From Spain:

• Jorge Ordonez is one of the top!
• Eric Solomon or European cellars
• Ole Imports
• Boedgas Olarra/Classic Wines of Spain
• Gil Family Estates

Italy

• Winebow
• Neil Empson
• Opici...not just the jug wine guy, but an entire empire of great wine selections.

Again with anything it's your taste buds.  This is 9 times outta 10, fool proof.  I've shown people and now when I see them in the shop, they are turning over bottles to see who is on the back.  Understand this though...find the importer, if you like the wine understand why you like it.  Then look at the region it came from and the blend of the wine.  Next start looking for similar wines from that region and you'll be progressing on your own without the "cliff notes".

Cheers!