Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [35]
At first glance, it might seem simplistic to reduce the wine world to just three style zones (cool, moderate, warm). But looking at the delicious range of flavors shown in the Flavor Map, you can see that it in no way diminishes the range of Pinot Noir’s pleasures, for example, or the many faces of Chardonnay. In fact, the Flavor Map showcases all that diversity and character, and gives you access to it whatever your budget.
USING THE FLAVOR MAP
There are three steps to using the flavor map:
Look at your wine label.
Find the wine’s region of origin (the place where the grapes were grown)—Australia? Pouilly-Fuissé in Burgundy, France? Napa Valley, California?
If, in your mind’s eye, you can place the wine’s growing region into either the cool-style zone, the moderate zone or the warm-style zone of the Flavor Map, you can get a very good idea of the wine’s fruit style.
Tasting Techniques of the Pros
When professionals do wine tasting, classifying wines as “cool climate” or “warm climate” is one of the first steps, especially when they are doing what is called “blind tasting.” A blind tasting does not mean the participants are blindfolded. It means that the taster is given a glass (or several) of wine to identify based solely on its look, smell, and taste—a feat that can seem amazing to the average person. I was thirty years old when I passed the blind tasting in my Master Sommelier exam and won the title Best Sommelier in America. I did not grow up in a wine business family. (Although my dad and I once made a stoneware crockfull of Concord grape wine when I was seven. To my mom’s chagrin, during fermentation it bubbled out all over the laundry room floor. It was very sweet, very sticky, very purple—and the taste was really vile.) But where I lacked encyclopedic tasting experience, I compensated with technique, including the cool climate/warm climate trick. Obviously, it is a very powerful tool for the blind taster. In our tasting comparisons, you will see how easy it is to use the same technique to help you as a buyer.
The Flavor Map and the Bottom Line
I am referring to your bottom line, of course. Even if you are not hankering for broader taste and style options than you get with the big brand-name varietal wines, money is a practical reason for broadening your wine horizons. You buy these big-name wines because they are recognizable and fairly consistent. But as with other products, you often pay extra for the “insurance” of a heavily advertised brand versus a lesser-known winery of comparable quality. It is what I call the “comfort premium,” and it is especially prevalent in wine, a decidedly uncomfortable subject for many buyers. Without a doubt, the branded varietal wines are a great jumping-off point for getting started in wine. But if you use tools like the Flavor Map to branch out into new choices that offer truly great value for the money, both your pleasure and your pocketbook stand to gain.
The Rising Cost of Comfort
For years, I used the Flavor Map premise to teach waiters, but never thought of it as something particularly useful for consumers. What I have seen in the wine industry has changed my mind. I call it “price creep.” In the last ten years, the price of nearly every well-known, nationally available wine has seen a steep increase—from 15 percent to 25 percent or more. I am sure you have felt the sting. The bargain bottle that used to be $7.99 is now $9.99, your $10 bottles are now pushing $12 to $15 or more, and so on across the price spectrum. I taste these wines every day, and I can tell you that with very few exceptions, the quality of what is in the bottle is the same, and sometimes poorer. You’re paying more, but you don’t get more in terms of flavor. These days, anyone looking to maximize their flavor-per-dollar has no choice but to explore the alternatives.
Wine professionals like me who choose wines for stores or restaurants