Is This Bottle Corked__ The Secret Life of Wine - Kathleen Burk [70]
Clear glass is important for the appreciation of wine, because it allows the color to be observed, both at the “core” and at the rim, where surface tension provides a very thin layer rising up the inside of the glass (the meniscus). The color of the rim should be keenly observed. Generally, one can see the aging of red wine at the rim, which is purple for young wines, garnet to brick for mature ones, and brown for those of great age or distinctly past their peak. Therefore, colored wine glasses are not good for wine appreciation. Silver goblets, although not colored, are opaque and therefore are not ideal either.
Silver, nevertheless, is used for wine. It does not impart any noticeable taint to wine—hence its use in the necks of carafes and in funnels for wine. Historically, wine was often drunk or tasted from shallow silver dishes with one or two handles. They had the obvious advantage over glass vessels in that they could be carried around without risk of breakage, and were shallow enough to allow the color of red wine to be assessed. They would not have been very good for trapping aromas, however. In Scotland, dishes with two handles were known as quaiches (and were used for whisky and brandy as well as for wine); they are still manufactured and given as christening gifts. The French equivalent is the one-handled tastevin, used exclusively for tasting, as the name implies. Antique tastevins can still be found; some have an ancient silver coin providing the base. The tastevin gave its name to a society set up in France in 1934 to promote the drinking of burgundy through unashamed ritual, the Confrèrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, which flourishes to this day.
China tea, yes—but Chinese wine?
CHINESE WINES do not exactly crowd the shelves of Western wine shops, so it may come as something of a surprise to learn that, as of 2007, China had the world’s fifth largest vineyard area (although only one-sixth of the total grape harvest was used for wine) and produced nearly 5 percent of the world’s output of wine. Furthermore, the making of wine has a long, if somewhat episodic, history in China. The great poet Li Bai, who lived from 701 to 762, wrote dozens of poems about wine, including “Song of the River”:
My boat is of ebony
the holes in my flute are golden.
As a plant takes out stains from silk
so wine takes sadness from the heart.
When one has good wine,
a graceful boat,
and a maiden’s love,
why envy the immortal gods?
This is not far from Omar Khayyám’s celebration of a book of verses, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou, with Li Bai substituting flute music for verses. There is a certain rightness about the similarity, because China owed its acquisition of Vitis vinifera, the supreme species of wine-grape vine, to Persia.
Alcoholic beverages, including wine made from native grapes, had long been known in China, but it was only in 128 BC that the first seeds of Vitis vinifera arrived in the country. General Chang Chien was sent on an expedition to Bactria, and on his return to the Chinese court, he presented vine seeds to Emperor Han Wu Dia (Han Dynasty). They came from Fergana, the country east of Samarkand, which is now Uzbekistan but was then part of Persia. (In fact, the Chinese—and Japanese—word for grape is budo, while the late Persian word was buda.) The emperor had vines planted around the imperial palaces in Xinjiang and Shanxi, and three centuries later wine was so valuable that it was used as a diplomatic tool—perhaps much as the Austrian emperors were later to use Tokaji. Over the succeeding centuries, the