Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [6]
Taste the Wine
Take a mouthful and hold it there for a moment or two. Professional tasters swish or swirl the wine around in our mouths quite a bit. Not particularly elegant, but it reveals a lot:
Body and texture The richness and body of a full red wine, the bubbles of a sparkler, and so on are some of the things you can feel.
Taste Sweetness, if any, is sensed mainly on the tip of the tongue; bitterness, a subtle element in certain wines (usually red), is mainly sensed at the back of the tongue; acidity is perceived mostly on the sides of the tongue. It feels a bit tingly, and makes your mouth water.
Flavor The heat in your mouth helps send the wine’s aromas to your smell center, letting you distinguish, for example, the style and flavors of the Riesling grape versus the Chardonnay grape.
Balances This is your overall impression of the wine. Do all the components—body, texture, flavors, sweetness, bitterness, and acidity—seem in harmony? Do they seem pleasant? That’s balance. It is the same way you evaluate a culinary creation—for example, is there the right amount of pepper in the steak au poivre? Enough butter, but not too much, in the mashed potatoes?
Quality Did all your senses sit up and take notice? Does the wine’s flavor linger pleasantly in your mouth? Do you like the wine? How much? Did you think “That’s nice,” or did your senses shout “Wow!”?
A Note on My Tasting Notes
In each of the tastings in this book I will be suggesting which wines to buy and giving you notes on tasting and comparing them. If you have read wine descriptions in other books or on bottle labels, my wine notes may not be what you expect—namely, they are fairly short and to the point. My strategy is not to use specific and subjective wine descriptors unless we have already defined and sampled those styles together in one of the tasting lessons. So you will notice that, as the chapters progress, I will add a little more detail to the wine notes. I like to work this way because I have found that, like anything else, it’s best to absorb information in gradual doses—the “walk before you run” theory. And I want every wine note to be clear and helpful when you read it.
You Can Do It!
Feeling a little skeptical? Worried you don’t have what it takes? Remember, the subject is wine, not rocket science. And it’s me you’re talking to. My method works for anybody. I have tested the principles on thousands of restaurant guests, from investment bankers to travel agents to high-tech gurus. And I have trained literally hundreds of chefs, waiters, bartenders, and sommeliers around the country, in everything from suburban family steakhouses serving no-name “house wine,” to pinnacles of fine dining like Windows on the World in New York City. The light goes on every time.
CHAPTER ONE
The Big Six Wine Grapes
Where do you look to start learning about wine? The label. Given that it contains everything you need to know to confidently choose a bottle, I think it is some of the most important real estate in the entire wine world. In this chapter, I’ll show you how to navigate it easily.
What you find on the label of most quality wine sold in this country is the name of the grape variety used to make it. Wines labeled with the grape are called “varietal wines.” They are most common in the United States and in Southern Hemisphere wine countries (such as Australia and Chile). You have seen many of the popular ones—Chardonnay, Merlot, and so on—so it is a familiar place to begin our tasting lessons.
The “Power Elite” of the Wine World—The Big Six Wine Grapes
There are hundreds of wine grapes, but we’re going to focus on just a handful of them, the white and red grape types that I call the Big Six. The white grapes are Riesling (REES-ling, not RISE-ling), Sauvignon Blanc (Sow-veen-yone BLAHNC), and Chardonnay (Shahr-duh-NAY). The reds are Pinot Noir (PEE-no NWAHR), the partner grapes Merlot (Murr-LOW or Mare-LOW, your choice) and Cabernet Sauvignon (Cab-uhr-NAY Sow-veen-YONE), and Syrah (aka Shiraz).
What