Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [54]
WINE TASTING
Old World and New World, Beyond the Big Six
I urge you not to skip these next tastings. We will be focusing on some delicious wines made from grapes outside the Big Six, which are nonetheless important wines in the buying market, and also great ways to illustrate the Old World and New World style contrasts. We will taste two white grapes that have traveled beyond their Old World home bases: Pinot Gris (PEE-no GREE), called Pinot Grigio (PEE-no GREE-jee-oh) in Italy, and Viognier (Vee-own-YAY).
Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio
New World winemakers typically use the French spelling of gris (meaning gray), rather than the Italian grigio. The Italian versions are the quintessential “luncheon” wines— light, crisp, refreshing, and noncerebral. The American versions have more obvious fruit flavor and make a good aperitif at cocktail hour because they taste good without food, but are not heavy.
Viognier
This is a wonderfully exotic white grape to explore, traditional to France’s Rhône Valley but planted in small quantities elsewhere. You will need to conjure up your floral and spicy vocabulary, but also be prepared for exotic fruit flavor. It may require a search or a special order to acquire some of these wines, and they are not cheap. But it is worth the extra effort and expense to try something this distinctive. Enjoy!
As always, I hope you had fun with these tastings. Now you have a better understanding of the style differences between classic Old and New World wines so you can choose between them to suit your taste and the occasion.
Wine professionals sometimes say that the New World wines, whose bold style tends to steal the show, are best-suited to simple foods—a fine cheese or a meat or fish simply grilled or roasted without fussy preparations—that let the wine shine. When the meal or a special dish are the focus, the subtlety and reserve of the Old World wine style is often thought to better complement the food without overpowering it. Ultimately, that decision is up to your personal taste, which means you must experiment. We will explore that and other wine and food dynamics in Chapter 10.
CHAPTER SIX
France
The Objects of Desire
Ah, Paris. It is the city of romance and food, and the order of priority can change like the wind. Is that Chanel No. 5 perfuming the air, or croissant? Either is enough to drive you to distraction. But in May 1990, cash-poor and flying solo, I barely stopped long enough to sniff the breeze. In fact, I spent a grand total of two hours and seventeen minutes there—the time it took to take the airport bus from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the Gare du Nord train station, for the first train to the town of Reims. For although it was neither love nor lunch, I did have an agenda.
It was wine. My first stop was the Champagne region, less than two hours east of the City of Lights but a world away. The first Champagne cellar I happened upon, just minutes by foot from the train station, remains one of my sentimental and taste favorites—Taittinger. Forty-eight hours later, I had visited seven other Champagne cellars, and was on the train again.
Eight weeks, 7 youth hostels, 650 wines, and 2,200 miles (mostly by train and foot) later, the immersion was complete. I had tasted and breathed and slept Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhône, and Loire Valley wines—all the classiques. And as I learned later, in those same weeks I navigated virtually the entire fine-wine world, without ever venturing beyond the borders of France.
France, the Fashion Leader (in Wine Styles, Too)
In the global world of wine, France is indisputably the headquarters. Most of the wines on the world