Learn about wine

Introducing terroir: a vital concept in wine

2009-11-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

It's time to take a look at one of the most important concepts in wine. Rather unfortunately, it has a French name that doesn't translate well into English. That tends to make what is a controversial subject even more contentious.

The name in question is 'terroir', We could spend a week defining it, and still end up upsetting some people, so here's my own definition. Terroir is the possesion, by the wine, of a sense of place. It is also used to describe the environmental factors that shape the growth of the grape vine and its fruit. These include the meso and micro climate, the soil, water availablity and aspect. Bringing these together: terroir is the sense of place in a wine contributed by the vineyard environment. Or defined more practically: grapes grown in different places produce wines that taste different.

Do we also include the human element: the way the vines are tended? This is contentious. It's probably easiest if we leave people out of it and just focus on the vine and its surroundings.

Grape vines are exquisitely sensitive to the environment. There are thousands of different varieties, and they're fussy about where they are grown to the point of absurdity. This is why terroir is such an important concept.

Take one variety – Pinot Noir. There aren't that many places where it can be grown successfully, because the climate and soils need to be just spot on for it to make decent wine. Originally from Burgundy, it has taken wine producers in the new world decades to find sites where they can get it to perform properly.

As well as each variety having its own enviromental requirements, even grapes of the same variety will perform differently depending on the physical characteristics of the soil and the microclimate. This is illustrated by the fact that even within Pinot Noir in Burgundy, for example, some vineyards do brilliantly with it while others, just a few metres away, make mediocre wine.

Burgundy is seen as the test case of terroir. It is a region divided into a patchwork of vineyards based on long experience. Over hundreds of years, people observed that certain vineyards did consistently better than others year after year. This resulted in a classification and structuring of vineyards based on differences in wine characteristics, and these characteristics have since been found to have their origin in the vineyard's physical properties. When the boundaries for the Burgundy vineyards were put in place, no one knew much about geology. But now geologists can show that the hierarchy of Burgundy vineyards reflects changes in the subsoil properties that influence grape and thus wine quality.

On one level, it's a bit of a truism. Different soils and climates produce wines that taste different. That's not at all contentious. So what's the problem with terroir? It is twofold. First, winemakers from new world countries are a bit upset that the old world countries claim exclusive possesion of terroir. The labelling of wines doesn't help. In Europe, wines are commonly labelled by the region, whereas in the new world, grape varieties are more likely to appear on the label. Old world guys are accused of totally overplaying the terroir hand, claiming that wine is produced by the soil and that winemakers merely have a minor custodial role in letting this site expression show.

Secondly, it's the issue of mechanism, and the lack of a correlation between soil type and flavour. It's not hard to describe the geology of a particular vineyard. It's much harder to actually correlate this with flavours in the wine. Many scientists question the notion that characters from the soil can find their way into, and shape, the wine.

Perhaps a more useful term would be 'typicity'. This brings into the equation the human factor. We shouldn't ignore this: if it wasn't for human intervention, there would be no wine, and if the nature of the human intervention were not critical, then all the wines made from a particular vineyard would be the same. But look at Burgundy's famous vineyards: most are worked by dozens of growers. Some of the wines will be excellent, some poor, and most of middling quality – even from famous sites. Clearly, the ability of the winemaker is really important here, even if its in knowing when to leave things alone.

'Typicity' recognizes this. It's a really useful term, but unfortunately it's not as sexy as terroir, so it will probably never catch on.

A few closing thoughts. First, some varieties tend to express a sense of place better than others. Pinot Noir, Riesling and Syrah are good in this respect, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay are not. Second, heavy handed winemaking, for example by picking very late and using lots of new oak, blasts away the subtle influence of terroir. And third, I think it is totally cool that grapevines are so sensitive to their environment because this is what has brought us the vast diversity of wine styles that we are lucky enough to have today.

Don't rush the journey

2009-08-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

It takes a while to learn about wine. After first being bitten by the wine bug, in 1993, I have drunk a lot of bottles, read lots of words, and visited many of the world's significant wine regions.

But I'm still very much in the learning phase.

Often, insights come from drinking wine. Not just tasting it, but actually drinking it. I drink, and read about what I'm tasting. I discuss with others. I formulate theories and put them to the test. I try the unfamiliar, and then hear what people have to say about what I've just experienced.

The journey is the goal, in a strange way. There's so much to learn, and the learning process is so enjoyable, that it would be sad to reach the destination.

I also suspect that if you think you have reached the destination, you have simply deluded yourself. We need to be at peace with the notion that wine is such a complex, dynamic subject, no one can know it all.

But let's try to learn as much as we can. The journey is fun.

Grape varieties (3) Pinot Noir, part 1

2009-08-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

It has been said that while Cabernet Sauvignon is the intellectual grape variety, while Pinot Noir is the more sensual one. Actually, I think it was Jancis Robinson who stated that while Bordeaux (and by extension Cabernet) appeals to the head, the appeal of Burgundy (and by extension Pinot Noir) is to somewhere lower down on the body. [I don’t think she was referring to the stomach.]

I’m not sure I agree entirely, but I sympathise with the general sentiment that’s being made. Pinot Noir at its best is the world’s most ethereal, elegant and hauntingly beautiful red grape variety.

Beware. If you get bitten by the Pinot Noir bug, you’ll have started on a lifelong quest that will involve lots of disappointment, many lows, and the blowing of a great deal of cash. But the high points will make it worthwhile.

Pinot Noir’s home is the Burgundy region of central-east France. It has been grown here for absolutely ages, and the fascinating thing about Burgundy is how a hierarchy of vineyard sites has evolved, based on the suitability of the underlying geology – in combination with the climate in Burgundy – to make great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (the other main grape in the region). You can travel thirty metres in one direction and move from a vineyard that makes sublime Pinot Noir to one that makes very ordinary expressions of the same grape. We’ll return to this when we cover Burgundy in depth. For now, it’s enough to know that the quality of red Burgundy is in large part due to the character of the vineyard that it comes from.

Pinot Noir is a very sensitive variety. It doesn’t travel well; it’s hard to grow—and even if you produce perfect grapes, it’s easy to mess things up in the winery. For this reason, as a consumer you need to choose your Pinot Noir with care, and particularly so if you are looking at Burgundy.

It’s a thin skinned grape variety, and this makes it susceptible to fungal diseases. And because the pigments that colour red wines are found in the skins of the grapes, this means that Pinot doesn’t make very dark wines. Indeed, the best Pinot Noirs are often lighter in colour, and if you are faced with a dark, opaque Pinot Noir, it’s not an altogether positive sign. It could mean that the climate is too warm for good Pinot, or it could mean that the winemaking has been heavy handed, aiming for making big wines rather than elegant ones.

Time for a digression. What is ‘elegance’ in a wine, and why is it so prized? Good question. We’ll cover this in the next post, before we return to Pinot Noir for part 2.

Grape varieties (2) Cabernet Sauvignon

2009-06-02T00:55:00.000-07:00

So we have looked at the first grape variety, Sauvignon Blanc, currently the most popular white variety. Let’s move on to our first red variety. But which one should I choose?

The most popular, widely encountered red varieties are probably the following four: Cabernet Sauvignon; Shiraz/Syrah (two names used interchangeably for the same variety); Pinot Noir; and Merlot

I think I’ll begin with what I consider the easiest of these to understand: Cabernet Sauvignon. This is grown just about everywhere. It travels well, and makes dense red wines with a distinct blackcurranty character.

Its home is France; specifically the Bordeaux region, where it is the main constituent of many ‘left bank’ Clarets (refer back to our section on Bordeaux for an explanation of the left and right banks, and why they are different). As such, it is the driving force behind many of the world’s greatest red wines.

However, Cabernet Sauvignon is almost always blended in Bordeaux. This is because Bordeaux is at the climatic extreme of where it is possible to get Cabernet properly ripe, and other varieties, principally Merlot and Cabernet Franc, are also blended in to make a complete wine – Merlot is particularly popular because it is a little easier to ripen here.

A digression is needed here to make an important conceptual point about grape varieties. The grape vine has been described as the canary in the coal mine equivalent for global warming, because of all agricultural crops widely grown across the world, the vine is perhaps the most sensitive to small shifts in temperature.

Specific grape varieties only really perform well across rather narrow temperature ranges. A site that ripens Pinot Noir perfectly is often too cool for Cabernet Sauvignon. Varieties such as Mourvèdre need more warmth even than varieties such as Grenache that are already well adapted for Mediterranean climates. Champagne can grow Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, but only for sparkling wine production: the region is too cool for making good still wines from these grapes. I could go on.

Finding the right place to grow the right grape variety matters. But there’s another complexity here: grape varieties often excel in regions that are only just warm enough to get them properly ripe in good vintages. It’s a brinksmanship thing. You want to make fantastic wine? Then you need to take some risks, growing varieties on the margins of their comfort zone.

What this usually results in is vintage variation. For many commercial wines, made with grapes that are grown well within their comfort zone, vintages can be pretty consistent; for fine wines they tend to vary more, and so they matter more.

In Bordeaux, it means that every decade there might be two great vintages, two very good ones, three good ones, two average ones and a real stinker. Actually, there are fewer really bad vintages than there used to be, because global warming has kicked in a bit, and because top châteaux are now getting more for their wines so they can afford to be more selective with their harvests and blending. But the point still stands: grape varieties perform best near their climatic margins. This is why matching variety to region, and more specifically to vineyard site, is so important.

Back to Cabernet Sauvignon. It reaches arguably its highest expression in the top left bank wines of Bordeaux – the leading Pauillacs, St Juliens and St Estèphes. But these are very expensive, so you might want to start your journey of exploration elsewhere. Inexpensive Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon might be a good place to start. These wines are consistently tasty and approachable, and offer a big hit of sweet, pure blackcurrant fruit, which is Cabernet’s calling card. Then there’s Australian Cabernet Sauvignon, which can be a bit dodgy (sweet mint and green herbal aromas can get in the way with less expensive examples) but can also be sublime: try a good Margaret River or Coonawarra Cabernet to experience some of the best expressions of this variety full stop.

I should also mention California, and the well known appellation of the Napa Valley, where Cabernet is king. The problem here is that the prices for top Napa Cabs - which can be really exciting wines - tend to be eye-watering because of the strong local demand.

What flavours to look for? I’ve already mentioned blackcurrant fruit. I also like the structure that Cabernet has, with nice firm tannins, and often the gravelly, earthy, sometimes chalky complexity that helps add extra interest to the sweet fruit characters. It’s a bold, powerful sort of grape variety, and often makes wines that age quite well. It’s probably the polar opposite of the next red variety we’re going to look at, which will be Pinot Noir.

Video: Tasting Sauvignon Blanc

2009-04-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Continuning from the last post on Sauvignon Blanc, here's a short video on tasting this variety.

Grape varieties (1) Sauvignon Blanc

2009-04-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

As we discussed before, there are two ways of understanding wine: the grapes and the geography/ So let's start our tour of the grape varieties with Sauvignon Blanc. It's not the most interesting of varieties, but it is one of the most popular, and it's probably the easiest to get to grips with.

Sauvignon hails from the Loire Valley in France, but its most successful locale has been New Zealand's Marlborough region. In 20 years, this region has grown from virtually nothing to the position it is in today as probably the most important place on the planet for Sauvignon Blanc, eclipsing even the Loire.

So I recommend starting with a Marlborough Sauvignon. These are fresh white wines, fermented in stainless steel (so no influence from oak flavours), with high acidity. The sorts of aromas and flavours you might encounter include green pepper/grassy/herbal notes, perhaps a bit of gooseberry, maybe some grapefruit, and also a touch of passion fruit/tropical fruit richness.

There's some interesting science to Sauvignon. Good Sauvignon typically has a balance between the herbal/green pepper/grassy character (which comes from a chemical known as methoxypyrazine) and the riper passion fruit character (which comes from a group of chemicals known as thiols or mercaptans - these can also have a 'sweaty' character to them).

Marlborough's success with Sauvignon is because it manages to combine both these characteristics in ways that other regions have found tricky. If you have too much methoxypyrazine, Sauvignon can taste herbal and unripe. Too much passionfruit character, and it can taste a bit sickly. In very warm climates, Sauvignon tends to taste fruity and simple, without the zing that brings it to life.

Loire Sauvignon (Pouilly-Fume, Sancerre, Touraine Sauvignon) is usually more mineral and less overtly fruity than New Zealand Sauvignon. Bordeaux grows a lot of Sauvigon, where it frequently blended with a bit of Semillon: this can be good value, but often it's unexciting. High-end Bordeaux whites are usually oaked, so taste quite different. Chile makes some attractive, affordable Sauvignon, particularly from cooler regions such as Leyda and Elqui. These tend to be in the New Zealand style, but with more pronounced green pepper (methoxypyrazine) character. South Africa does quite a bit of Sauvignon, of varying quality, and with more of an emphasis on the green herbal flavours. The best are very good. Austrian Sauvignon Blanc, from the southern Styrian region, is really lively and bright with real personality, but it's rare to find it.

To get the hang of Sauvignon's two sides, I recommend buying a green pepper and a passionfruit, and chopping them open. Smell them and taste them next to an open glass of Sauvignon.

Why wine tastes the way it does

2009-03-21T05:43:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be quite fun to ask a fundamental question about wine. Why does a particular wine taste the way it does? This question addresses the factors that are most important in influencing the flavour of wine, and here are my brief off-the-cuff answers.

1. Grape variety. Each of the thousands of grape varieties used to make wine has its own distinct character. Fortunately for newbies, just a dozen or so varieties are really widely used, and so getting to grips with how these taste isn't such a daunting task. Bear in mind that other factors will influence how distinctive the varietal character is, and that some varieties are more distinctive than others.

2. Climate. The typical weather enjoyed by a particular vineyard site will influence which varieties can be grown successfully, so we could say that climate influences wine taste more than grape variety, because it influences the choice of variety and how that variety performs! Beyond that, warm sites will produce wines with sweeter, riper fruit than cool sites. Often, grapes perform best on sites that are only just warm enough to get them properly ripe.

3. Soil type. The interaction between the soil and the climate in influencing wine flavour is really important, and together these factors are known by the French term terroir. Discussions about terroir can get a bit heated, because it's a semi-religious subject for many. Suffice to say that the soil's physical properties (drainage, water availability, heat retention) are important in influencing the quality of the grapes, and the soil's chemical properties (chalk versus schist versus granite, for example) may also play a role in influencing the way the grapes grow. It's an inexact science. [Pictured above are the soils in a vineyard in Chianti Classico.]

4. Winemaking decisions. Choices made by winegrowers matter. If you pick grapes early you get brighter, fresher wines with more acidity; pick later and you get fuller wines with sweeter fruit (I'm assuming that you aren't picking so early as to get unripeness or so late as to get flabby, jammy, dead fruit). Then, in the winery, factors such as managing the fermentation (choice of yeast, fermentation temperature, addition of acidity or not, addition of nitrogen or not) or choice of fermentation vessel (stainless steel or oak barrel), or decisions about how to mature the wines, or whether to filter them, and even the choice of closure can all make quite a difference to how the final wine turns out. As you've probably gathered, this is a complex topic!

5. The label. You probably think I'm nuts, but the label may well influence how the wine tastes. As I've said before, we bring something to the wine tasting experience. Our expectations will help shape our perceptions. If we know something about the wine, that knowledge will impact on our tasting experience.

Bordeaux: an introduction to the world's most famous wine region

2008-12-28T16:06:00.000-08:00

We've discussed already that there are two ways to understand wine: the grapes, and the geography. Here's a little of the second approach - an introduction to Bordeaux, the world's most famous wine region.

A confession: I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Bordeaux.

First the hate bit. [It’s a rant really, so please excuse me.] I dislike the image and attitude of the region. I despair at the faux grandeur and pomp of the big chateaux, which goes hand in hand with the big money/landed gentry image that the region projects. I don’t like the snootiness. And the fact that it’s prime territory for wine bores and snobs; collectors and speculators; expensively educated (but thick) wine merchants in pin-striped suits. And the region just seems to lack soul. I also dislike the prices of the top wines, but it’s unfair to blame the Chateaux for this – it’s a function of the growing worldwide demand for the best wines.

But you can’t ignore Bordeaux. It’s the world’s largest fine wine region by some distance, and it also makes some seriously good wine. The Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends (with perhaps a dash of Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec) from the best-sited properties on the left bank are the cornerstone of the fine wine market. From a good vintage and property, they have the potential to develop and evolve over many decades, finally peaking in wines of aromatic interest and complexity that have few rivals. It’s also helpful that, unlike Burgundy’s top wines, the leading Bordeaux wines are made in reasonable quantities. And then there’s the right bank: the Saint Emilion and Pomerol appellations can turn out compelling, long-lived Merlot and Cabernet Franc-based wines that are genuinely exciting. And we shouldn’t forget Sauternes and Barsac, responsible for some of the world’s greatest sweet white wines.

Some explanation of terms may be in order here. ‘Left bank’ and ‘right bank’ are unofficial terms that are used widely to describe the rather different bits of Bordeaux either side of the Gironde estuary/river that slices through the region, splitting by the time it reaches Bordeaux to form the Dordogne and Garonne rivers. The bit most people think of when they’re talking about Bordeaux is the Médoc, on the left bank. Here, in a glorious strip of land running north to south, the famous appellations of the Médoc abut each other: northernmost is Saint-Estephe, then Pauillac, then Saint Julien, then Margaux. Further down still, and also on the left bank, are the Graves and Pessac-Leognan appellations.

These appellations were famously classified in 1855, on the basis of the properties which consistently fetched the highest prices at the time. This classification had five tiers of ‘growths’, with the celebrated ‘First Growths’ (Latour, Margaux, Lafite, Haut Brion) at the top, and then second, third, fourth and fifth growth properties following. The classification has proved remarkably resilient: while Bordeaux has changed quite a bit as a region in the intervening 150-odd years, the classed growths, which represent the elite of Bordeaux properties, remain at the fore. Of course, there are some fifth growths which now outperform third growths, and several properties could be marked as over- or under-achievers in their class, but the classification still matters in the marketplace. Only one significant change has occurred: in 1973, Mouton Rothschild was promoted from second to first growth status. A favourite discussion point among wine geeks is which of the leading left bank estates could also be promoted to first-growth status – Palmer in Margaux, Cos d’Estournel in St Estephe and Léoville Las Cases in St Julien could be contenders, as could the ever-reliable Léoville Barton.

There are two other really serious bits of Bordeaux. On the right bank, and not included in the 1855 classification, are the appellations of St Emilion and Pomerol. Here, because of the rather different soils, the Merlot grape variety is king. It’s frequently blended with Cabernet Franc, but the majority of wines are Merlot-dominated. The top right bank properties used to be in the shadow of the classed growths, but this has changed, and now the most sought-after wines cost as much as the first growths do. The right bank is also home to the controversial ‘garagiste’ movement: these are high-end wines made with loving care from small vineyards, and which fetch very high prices: a whole bevy of them have emerged in recent decades.

The final serious, serious bit of Bordeaux is Sauternes. Or, more specifically, Sauternes and Barsac (the latter village can call its wines by either name). These lusciously sweet, richly textured white wines are made from ripe Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle grapes that have been attacked by a fungus known as ‘noble rot’ (or, more scientifically, Botrytis cinarea). Botrytis shrivels the ripe, sugar-rich berries, concentrating the sugars still further, and with this the acidity. The latter is important: a great Sauternes will be lusciously sweet, but because of the relatively high acidity it won’t be cloying and gooey. The botrytis infection also adds complexity: while the grapes look disgusting, the wines taste remarkable, full of rich apricot and dried fruit flavours, usually with a citrussy kick, as well as notes of spice and vanilla.

What about the non-serious bit? The truth is, Bordeaux is a huge region, and outside the elite band of top Château owners, there are enormous tracts of vineyards making wine that no-one really wants. Maybe that is a little unfair: there are some smart wines being made in appellations such as Bordeaux Superieur, Côtes de Francs, Côtes de Castillon, Côtes de Blaye and Entre-Deux-Mers, but there are many wines from these areas that aren’t so good, and which are struggling to find a market. To put it starkly, cheap Bordeaux can be unlovely, and these days people are fussier about what they drink and haven’t really got time for green, stalky, ungenerous reds with a bitter, astringent finish. All in, there are some 12 000 producers in the region, many of whom sell their wine through the 25 leading negociants who are responsible for 85% of Bordeaux wine. It makes sense, therefore, to apply rather different rules to the posh bit of Bordeaux than you’d use when dealing with the rest.

It’s important to explore the Bordeaux region if you are seriously thinking of becoming a wine geek. It’s the most important and largest fine wine region in the world, and, as such, its best wines are ‘benchmarks’ in the fine wine firmament. You need to taste at least some of them in order to calibrate your palate. Personally, I feel that because the best Bordeaux wines have a value as investment wines and are traded in auctions, their prices are a little inflated, and so for wine nuts on a tighter budget, you can have more fun elsewhere. But it’s a region that all wine lovers should pay attention to, even if it is just for reasons of education and benchmarking.

There’s lots more that can be said about Bordeaux and its wines, but this will do for now. Pictures: top - Chateau Margaux, a first-growth property; middle - grapes just before harvest at Chateau Lafite, another first growth property; lower - harvest at Chateau Lafleur in Pomerol.

Tasting is a relationship

2008-11-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

Before we get to look at wine in detail, please forgive me for another theoretical digression. I can't help myself...well, actually, I think it's important. As with any venture like this, the foundations matter. Sink good foundations and you can build higher. It's a worthwhile investment to put in place a good theory of wine tasting.

One thing that we must always remember about wine tasting is that we are not acting as measuring devices. That is, as we taste a wine, we are not giving a read-out of the properties of that wine. Let me explain why I think this is such an important point.

If you ever decide to embark on some formal wine training, for example, though a WSET course, you will be taught a structured form of tasting, in which you attempt to describe wines as accurately as possible. You will first look at the colour of the wine. Then you will smell it, and taste it, trying to identify the different aromas and flavours, giving them names. You’ll have to decide whether the acidity is low, medium or high, and whether the tannins are firm, or smooth, or rough, or light. [I have been at sessions where students have discussed at length whether a particular wine had high or medium acidity.] And so on. It’s a good way to start, but it has its limitations.

The first of these limitations is that this reductionist tasting technique – breaking the wine down into components – is useful but impoverished. Wine is more than just the sum of its parts. Second, the presence of one component in a wine alters the perceptions of the others. A wine might have high acidity, but the fruit sweetness and even actual sweetness will make this seem like lower acidity when you taste it. Third, differences exist among individuals in their ability to smell and taste certain wine components. This is biology, and it’s now becoming quite clearly documented in the scientific literature. Yet in a wine exam, the way it works is that there is a ‘correct’ perception of the wine, and how close to this correct perception you get will determine how successful you are. The wine has certain properties, so the story goes, and you have to learn to detect and describe those properties as accurately as you can.

It’s hard to think of doing wine exams in any other way, but it just seems a bit of an intellectual compromise to assume that there is a single correct answer about a wine, not recognizing that the reality is a bit more complex.

The truth is, we are not measuring devices. In effect, what we describe in our tasting notes is not the wine, but our interaction with the wine, a process in which we bring something to the tasting experience. Our perception is focused on the wine (in this sense I suppose you could say it is a property of the wine), but it involves information we get from the wine that is then moderated by and coloured-in by our own input. This input stems from our own experience, our expectations, our mood, our biology. It’s a complex business.

I guess what I am saying is that our perceptive experience as we taste wine, which we then try to encapsulate in words (as we write tasting notes), is actually a property not of the wine, but of the interaction we have with the wine. This probably sounds rather philosophical and a bit abstract, but it matters. When you stick a pH meter in a sample of wine, the measurement of pH takes place at the interface between the wine and the probe. The probe then sends an electronic signal to the body of the metering device, where it is turned into a number.

But when our sensory apparatus meets the wine – that is, the receptors on our tongues/mouth and olfactory epithelium encounter wine, an electrical signal is then generated that is but the start of some rather clever processing in the brain, which turns the initial signal into something much more complex, with the help of other inputs that are from us. The result is the conscious perception of wine. This is what we describe in our tasting notes, and it is quite personal to each of us, even if we are sharing the same wine together. That’s very different from the way that a pH meter works.

This understanding is important. It helps explain why even experienced, competent critics disagree on some wines.

The grapes and the geography

2008-08-26T01:28:00.000-07:00

So let's continue this rather meandering exploration by taking a look at the two key approaches for understanding wine - the grapes and the geography.

Almost all wines (and certainly all the wines you are likely to find in wine shops and supermarkets) are made from the same species of grape vine, Vitis vinifera. It was first cultivated thousands of years ago, and since this time many thousands of different grape varieties have emerged, although only 20 or so of these are widely used these days.

Names such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz are probably familiar to most people. These names all refer to single varieties of this same grape vine species. Until fairly recently (the last 40 years or so) it wasn't common to see wines marketed by grape variety, and in many European countries it still isn't - there wines are more commonly labelled according to the region they come from. But the new world wine growers in California and Australia realized that putting the name of the grape variety on the label was incredibly useful for consumers, because each grape variety has a particular taste characteristic. So rather than learning hundreds of confusing-sounding place names in order to navigate a wine list, people could get by pretty well by just learning the names of a dozen or so grape varieties.

So the 'grape' approach is the easiest way to begin to learn about wine. Start with typical examples of the classic varieties and you'll soon build your confidence as a taster, perhaps even to the level of being able to taste a wine 'blind' (without knowing what it is) and spot what grape variety it is made of. We'll take another look at grape varieties later, because this is such an important topic for understanding the taste of wine.

But there's also another route into wine. It's a lot more complicated, but it offers a way to understand wine at a higher level. It's the 'geography' route.

The grape variety is probably the single strongest factor in determining how it will taste (providing, of course, that the variety in question is being grown in a vineyard with a climate suitable for ripening it). But should you plant the same variety in vineyards with different soils, or different sun exposures, or subtly different climates you'll find that the wines will taste different. As an example, compare a Cabernet/Merlot blend from Bordeaux with one from the Napa Valley in California or Margaret River in Australia. They're all excellent places to grow these grape varieties, but the wines are markedly different. You might then want to look at the same blend from Chile or South Africa. Even a relatively inexperienced taster will spot differences in the wines. There's a lot more to be said about the influence of geography on wine, and so we'll return to this later.

The 'geography' is therefore an important way of understanding wine, and the best way to learn about wine is to start with the grapes, but then add to this the geography in a sort of tandem approach. If you stick to just the grapes, you'll end up with a simplistic and boring view of wine; if you restrict yourself to the geography, you'll find it all terribly complex and confusing.

Does knowledge enhance enjoyment of wine?

2008-07-11T03:58:00.000-07:00

I once went to a lecture by an eminent philosopher who also happened to be a bit of a wine nut. The point of his lecture? He was addressing the question that I've titled this short piece with, and his answer was no. Now, I'm not an eminent philosopher. Actually, I'm neither eminent nor a philosopher. But I think he's wrong.

Why? Because of the way we taste wine. Our first experiences with wine are entirely at what is known as the hedonic level – that is, we simply decide whether or not we like what we are drinking, and perhaps how much in either direction. The next stage in appreciation comes when we have tasted a few wines, and we compare the current wine with our memory of previous wines drunk. We may also begin to associate descriptive words with the taste sensations we are experiencing. And we may add the factual information we have gained about wine into the mix.

So, as we build knowledge about wine (assuming we do), then our experience will be different, and has the potential to be improved. This is because the way we are appreciating the wine has not only sensory input that is of the moment, as we drink and sniff, but also recruits relevant input from our previous experience and knowledge of wine.

So our impressions of a decent Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon might start out with, 'Hmm, that's tasty', and then progress to, 'I like the rich blackcurrant fruit here', to 'Yes, that's a really nice Cabernet with a bit more richness and weight than Bordeaux Cabernet blends, but without the overt sweetness and mintiness of a Barossa Cabernet', to 'I reckon the winemaker did really well this year; it's better than his 2003 and he's toned the oak down a bit, using more French than American'. You get the picture. I'd venture that the person with more knowledge has a different taste experience to the total novice because of this knowledge, and also has the potential to enjoy a really good wine more, in part because they recognize that it is really good compared with the many other similar wines they have tasted.

There is, however, a caveat. And that is that I've seen winemakers who develop what I'd call 'cellar palate'. They know so much that they find it hard ever to really enjoy a wine. Trained to spot faults, often all they can see in a wine is the faultiness that they perceive. It's like the high-end audiophile who ends up not listening to the music, but the reproduction of the music by the sound system. And that's a bit nuts.

What to look for in a wine

2008-05-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

So, you now have some wine in your mouth. Here are some thoughts about what you should look for. Some of these apply to red wines, some apply just to whites, and some to both. I should also point out that some of these terms overlap. What I’m aiming at here is giving you the beginnings of a language about wine. This all seems a bit technical, but it’s important stuff, and it’s worth persevering with.

1. Structure
In red wines, one of the most important elements, but one of the least written about, is structure. This is provided by two components: tannins and acidity. Tannins are the bits in a red wine that make your mouth taste dry; they are a bit astringent. They come from the skins of red grapes; white wines don’t usually have much in the way of tannins. Too much tannin is undesirable, because the wine can seem excessively dry, but tannins also serve a useful purpose, in that they provide a counter to the sweetness of fruit, making a red wine taste more interesting and savoury. Tannins can also vary in their nature: they can be smooth, fine-grained, coarse, green or robust, for example. They are such an important component of red wines we’ll give them their own section. Acidity also provides a counter to sweetness, and helps make a red wine taste fresher. We’ll discuss acidity in its own right further below. Structure is what enables a red wine to age well. Part of the skill of red wine making is to get the structure right, bearing in mind the style of wine that is being made.

2. Texture
Texture is related to structure. In part, it is the structure that helps determine the texture, but there’s more to texture than this. Both reds and whites possess texture: it is the way that the wine feels in the mouth. Another term for this might be ‘mouthfeel’. For reds, they can be silky, smooth, coarse, robust, chunky, velvety or even thick. This isn’t an exhaustive list, and some of the terms used to describe texture can overlap with terms used to describe actual flavours. For whites, they can be thin, fat, oily, piercing, smooth or drying. Again, this isn’t meant to be a complete list.

3. Fruit
Grapes are a sort of fruit, so it isn’t surprising that they often taste of fruits. Fruitiness is probably the easiest thing to describe in a wine, although I wonder about how many people will have a good point of reference for some of the more exotic descriptors used by some wine writers. I can’t tell you what a star fruit, or a pomegranate taste like, for instance, even though I’ve had both before. In white wines, commonly encountered fruits include grape, peach, pear, apple, apricot, grapefruit, lemon and lime. In reds, it’s common to see the fruit profile described broadly as red fruit or black fruit; more specific descriptors such as blackcurrant (and the related cassis), blackberry, raspberry, dark cherry and plum. All rosés seem to taste of strawberries, or so it seems, although they can also taste of raspberries and cranberries. It’s also possible for fruit to be fresh and bright, or rich and jammy. Red wines from hot climates often have jammy fruits.

4. Balance
A critical element in wine quality is that the wine should be balanced. This is hard to describe in words: I reckon you know a balanced wine when you meet one. It’s when all the components of the wine sit easily with each other, with nothing sticking out terribly much. Some examples? Well, a bit of spicy vanilla oak can sometimes balance out sweet fruit in red wines. The richness of Chardonnay can also be offset in this way, with oak spice and acidity providing a counterpoint to the broad, fat fruity flavours this grape variety often displays. With German white wines, the best show a delicate balance between a little bit of sweetness and acidity. Tannins work in red wines to offset sweeter fruit: a more sweetly fruited red can get away with more tannin than a red that has quite lean, savoury fruit.

5. Oak
Oak is important in wine – it’s a topic that deserves separate treatment, which it will get. For now, it is enough to say that oaky flavours, derived from barrels (or, these days, commonly from oak alternatives such as barrel staves bolted into tanks), can act as a sort of seasoning for wine. The famous Spanish wine Rioja is an excellent example: frequently, Rioja wines display sweet coconut and vanilla characters that are derived from the barrels that the wine is aged for long periods in. Many Australian and Californian reds also display spicy the vanilla notes imparted by new oak barrels. Most Chardonnays tend to have some oak influence, with toasty vanilla notes meshing well with the richness of flavour that Chardonnay from warmer regions displays. Like all seasonings, though, oak can be overdone. Personally, I find a strong oak influence in a wine to be a bit off-putting: I want it to support, not dominate the fruit.

6. Freshness
Wines are much better when they taste fresh, as opposed to tired and stale. Bright, focused flavours are usually better than mushy, diffuse ones. How fresh is the wine you are tasting?

7. Complexity
Complexity is a word that often crops up in tasting notes, and it’s always a positive descriptor. A complex wine is one where there’s lots going on. You take a sip and you ‘get’ something from the wine; later, you return to the wine and you ‘get’ something different. A complex wine is one that makes you pause as you taste. ‘What is going on here?’, you may ask yourself. Like a many-faceted diamond, the best wines tend to respond to the light of your attention by revealing many sides to their personality. It’s like the difference between a field of wheat and a meadow in summer – there’s much more going on in one than in the other.

8. Elegance
Ah, elegance: a tricky descriptor indeed. I suspect that some people just add the term ‘elegant to their tasting notes simply because they really like the wine and want to say something else positive about it. Elegance, like balance, is quite subjective. And, as with balance, you kind of know elegance when you meet it. An elegant wine for me is one where there’s a smoothness and sense of assuredness to the nose, and most particularly, to the palate. A showy, demonstrative wine that shouts ‘me, me’ to you is not an elegant wine. Neither is a young, tannic red that clearly needs time to develop. Pinot Noir, when done well, often shows elegance. I guess you could say that elegance is the opposite of power and intensity.

9. Power
A powerful wine is one with impact. It has lots of flavour. It will typically be quite concentrated, but not all concentrated wines are powerful. Some people love their wines to be powerful. ‘Muscular’ is another term that is often used for powerful wines.

10. Concentration
Concentration in a wine is a highly prized attribute. Perhaps too highly prized? No one really wants their wines to be dilute, but mid-bodied wines can often be very alluring. A concentrated wine is one that has lots of flavour, but more than this it is a wine that just seems to have more substance, because it is possible for a wine to be concentrated yet elegant.

11. Length
Length is one of those words that is frequently used in tasting notes, but which runs the risk of merely being a bit pseudy. It’s the sort of term that people can use simply as a reinforcing, affirming descriptor when they really like the wine. A ‘long’ wine is one where the flavour persists in the mouth for a significant period after the wine is swallowed or spat out, which is known as the finish. I often find that older Sherries and Madeiras have long finishes. Cheap wines often have short or abrupt finishes. Sometimes you’ll see references to how long the finish of a wine is in seconds or minutes: personally, I think timing the finish is a slightly absurd practice.

12. Body
Body is quite a useful tasting term. Just as we all have bodies of differing physical attributes, wines come in different shapes and sizes. What we are trying to do by using this sort of term is to give a mental picture of the flavour of the wine, I suppose. A full-bodied wine has richer, more intense flavours than a light-bodied wine. Medium bodied wines lie somewhere in between. I guess it’s kind of obvious. I suppose we could describe an intense but fresh, focused wine as being lithe or slim, but being athletic with it, rather than sort of weedy.

Bad hair days for wine

2008-02-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

At this stage, there's something I need to tell you. It adds another level of complexity to wine tasting, but we can't ignore it.

It's the fact that wines show differently on different days. It's not clear why, but the same bottle opened on a Tuesday might taste different to the same bottle opened on Friday. It's known in the trade as 'bad hair days' for wine. Well, actually, it isn't but it should be. I've only heard the phrase mentioned once, by winewriter Simon Woods (pictured), and I like it.

What's the explanation? I can think of several. First, it could be that we change from day to day in our ability to taste. It could be our hormones; it could be our mood; it could be whether we have the beginnings of a cold; or it could be the other wines we've just tasted, or food we've recently eaten, that have affected our palate.

Context could matter: where and when we are tasting the wine.

Atmospheric pressure may have an effect - wines could taste better on bright days with high pressure than they do on cloudy, low-pressure days. Ambient temperature and humidity are likely to factor here, too.

And there's also the biodynamic calendar. Stop sniggering at the back: some UK supermarkets actually schedule their press tastings to take into account whether it is a shoot day or a root day. I'm not sure which is best.

The long and short of it is that experienced people in the trade think that there's something real about the fact that wines have these 'bad hair days', although personally I suspect this explanation is marshalled more often for wines with the 'right' labels than it is for humble wines.

Different levels of wine appreciation

2008-01-27T15:21:00.000-08:00

One of the keys to being able to make sense of wine is understanding that there are two different ways of appreciating wine. If we fail to realize this, then all sorts of contradictions and confusions creep into our discussions.

Both these forms of wine appreciation are valid, and there's a degree to which they overlap, but I reckon the distinction is still an important one.

The first level of appreciation is, to use a posh, rather pseudy term, the hedonic level, which basically means how much we actually like the wine – this is a sort of first-pass sense of deliciousness or disgust, or even ambiguity. This is the level at which most people operate in their taste world: they like something or they don't like it. If you press them further, they might say that they really liked it, or really hated it, or that they didn't mind it, but that's as far as they can go in their description.

I can think of lots of foods that have elicit this immediate hedonic response. Sweet things are a good example: I love the taste of ice cream without thinking about it too much. It just tastes nice. I love the taste of chocolate in a similar way. I hate the taste of marmite (a yeast extract spread known elsewhere as vegimite), again, without thinking about it.

Moving to wine, some wines have that immediate hedonic appeal, particularly when they have ripe, sweet fruit and perhaps a bit of residual sugar. Many branded reds and whites are designed to taste 'nice' without the drinker having to think too much about them. Other wines, however, can require a bit of effort, and have flavours that novices find a little off-putting. Let's face it, wine itself is a bit of an acquired taste, isn't it? Wines such as Californian rosés with sweet, fruity flavours reminiscent of alcopops are designed to appeal to a broad audience – and particularly non-wine drinkers.

The second level of appreciation involves learning and experience. As we think about the flavours we are encountering, there emerges a new way of appreciating these flavours, and we realize that we have the capacity to learn to like things. Thus even flavours that we fail to appreciate at a hedonic level (those we are unsure about, or don't like) can grow on us. Interestingly, it is these acquired tastes that are often the more enduring ones. We rarely go crazy about flavours that are easy to like, but those which we've grown to like are frequently compelling.

Let me give a personal example. Some five years ago I never ate cheese. I didn't really like it, to be honest. But I kept getting exposed to it, most notably on trips to wine country. One time, tasting Queijo de Serra – a Portuguese sheep's cheese from the Dao – I decided that this rather pungent, intense flavour was one I was going to make an effort to get along with. Now I really, really like cheese. Not every cheese, mind you, but most of them.

I reckon that it's only as we add this learned element of appreciation to the initial hedonic level that we can really get going in tasting wine properly. So much of wine appreciation involves learning to like strange flavours, thinking about what we are experiencing as we taste and bringing all these elements together in rich combination. I don't think that someone who is new to wine can 'get' the world's finest wiines, because there's much more to them than just deliciousness. It's only when you come armed with the proper context, built up through repeated exposure to lots of wines, that you can 'get' the difference between a truly great wine and a merely good one.

Satiety is another posh pseudy term that needs to be mentioned here. In some senses, this is a third level of appreciation, and it relates to how hungry I am for a particular flavour experience. Here's an obvious example of satiety: it's a scorching hot day and I've been walking in the hills, and i'm incredibly thirsty. That first, cold glass of water tastes absolutely, mind blowingly delicious in a way that the third or fourth won't. This is because after I've drunk some water, my thirst has been sated. Repeated exposure to any particular flavour can induce what is known as 'sensory-specific satiety'. This means that even if I am still hungry, I don't really feel like eating, say, a banana, if all I have to eat is bananas. We can become sated (have had enough) of one flavour even though we haven't had enough of other flavours. I guess the application for wine is that there are occasions when we just want a glass of wine – say, for example, we've just got home from work, or we've sat down for lunch outside on a summer's day – and almost any drinkable wine will do. But after a glass or two our need for just any wine is sated, and whether we continue to drink or not is then driven by other factors such as whether the wine tastes nice to us or is of interest.

Tasting wine: an introductory video

2007-12-22T15:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a slightly different approach. You've been reading about tasting wine. Here's a short introductory video where I talk about how I approach wine tasting.

The taste of wine, part 1

2007-11-22T08:46:00.000-08:00

Now it’s time to put the wine in your mouth. Whereas sniffing wine involves just the nose, putting it in your mouth involves input from both the tastebuds on your tongue and also the smell receptors in the back of your nose. Thus the sensation is a combined one.

There are five basic tastes: bitter, salty, sweet, sour and umami. [The last one may need some explanation: umami refers to the sense of deliciousness or savouriness we experience when we taste the amino acid glutamate, which is a component of proteins. Apparently, some wines have this umami flavour. It’s a recent addition to the tastebud repertoire in that until a few years ago we didn’t know about it.]

Now these five basic tastes, in terms of information about what is in our mouths, are rather basic. Think of them as the lines in a child’s colouring book. The colour is added by the smell receptors in the nose, which are activated when volatile components of what’s in our mouth travel through to the nasal cavity from the back of our mouths.

For this reason, when we are tasting wine we swish it around in our mouths a bit, or do a sort of closed mouth chew. Some people take air in as they are doing this, but it’s noisy and I find it really annoying at wine tastings when I hear it because it’s kind of ostentatious and a bit pretentious, I reckon. And it sounds disgusting. [End of mini-rant.]

One more thing to add about taste, while I’m in nerdy mood. It’s about the tongue taste map. You may have seen this in textbooks, or even wine tasting books: it consists of a diagram in which the tongue is split into zones, each of which is supposed to be where one of the primary tastes is predominantly detected. Wine glass manufacturers who offer a gazillion wine glass shapes, one for each type of wine, have used this map as a part-justification for why you must have a separate glass for each wine style: they have claimed that the different glasses direct the wine to different zones of the tongue.

Well, I hate to be a party pooper, but this map is apparently a myth. Yes, different bits of the tongue are more sensitive than others, but they are more sensitive to all tastes. But the myth of the tongue map is a surprisingly enduring one: even though Professor Linda Bartoshuk of Yale University, who is a taste expert, has debunked this map on several occasions in print, you still see it around.

A brief aside: wine glasses

2007-09-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

Do glasses matter? The short answer is yes, but probably not as much as some people seem to think. I’ve enjoyed great wines from tumblers in the past. Having said this, if you try the same wine in three very different sized and shaped glasses, it will taste different, although you’ll probably still recognize it as the same wine. I guess it’s like seeing someone you know in different photographs. They look a little different in each, but almost always you know who it is in the picture. It’s also true that different shaped glasses can suit different styles of wines better—Austrian glass manufacturer Riedel has built their business round this concept—but for most people who aren’t ultra-serious about their wine, one suitably shaped and reasonably generously sized glass should be good for all wine types. Avoid the squat, hemispherical glasses known as Paris goblets (the left-most glass in the picture), and instead go for something bigger and more tulip shaped.

Why do glasses affect the way a wine tastes? The main effect seems to be on the way that the aromas are released and then trapped. If you drink from a small beaker or a glass that’s pretty much full to the brim, there’s no opportunity to swirl the wine in such a way as to encourage the release of the volatile aroma molecules. And any aromas that are given off will rapidly dissipate into the air. With a larger, tulip-shaped glass, modestly filled, you can swirl the wine around, releasing aromas which are then caught—to a degree—within the headspace of the bowl. Putting it simply, the wine smells more. And if it’s a nice wine, then that is a good thing. Don’t despair, though, if all you have to hand is a tumbler or a mug: you can still taste the wine, and while it is in your mouth it will give off aromas that are then picked up by your nose through the back door route. This is known as retronasal olfaction. Thus the wine will still give you much of which it has to offer.

But there’s another aspect to wine glasses that is separate from the way that the wine is detected by our nose and taste-buds: aesthetics. Nice stemware is beautiful. If you are drinking out of a really attractive glass, this adds greatly to the wine drinking experience. This is because of expectation. If I go to my cupboard and select what I believe to be exactly the right glass for the wine I’m about to open, then this enhances the level of expectation that I bring to the wine drinking experience. And this is something not to be sniffed at; it can powerfully affect the way I perceive the wine.

Sniff my wine...

2007-09-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Take a good sniff of your wine. We get a lot of information from our noses in tasting. In fact, the nose is involved both in sniffing the wine, and also when the wine is in the mouth, at which point you’ll be receiving information from both your tongue (taste buds) and the olfactory receptors in the back of your nose – a sort of smell known by scientists as retronasal olfaction (normal smell as you sniff is termed orthonasal olfaction).

We have an impoverished language for taste and smells, and this makes the next phase difficult. This is the process of beginning to put words to our experience as we assess the wine. Why are words necessary? Because it’s only as we begin to think of descriptors for our sensory experience that we are able to make sense of it. These words act as pegs on which we hang our impressions, or, to use another metaphor, they are like drawers in a desk in which we file our impressions away. Not only do words enable us to structure our perceptions in such a way that we can write them down, they also focus the tasting event in such a way that we can get more out of the wine.

This all sounds a bit theoretical and complicated. What I’m saying is that developing a language for wine is a vital step in being able to appreciate it. More on this later. For now, let’s stay practical, and think about some of the smells you might experience.

Dr Ann Noble, emeritus professor at the University of California, Davis, is famous for developing a wine aroma wheel. This is a circular dartboard-like chart, broken into rings and segments, which groups all the sorts of aromas you might experience in smelling wines into similar categories. This aroma wheel is a useful tool for developing a vocabulary for describe wines with. It begins with broad category terms, such as ‘fruity’, or ‘earthy’, and then offers a range of more specific descriptors for each category.

But let’s not get too carried away with aroma wheels. While they are very useful for analytical tasting, their very nature carries with it a danger. The problem with these sorts of winetasting approaches is that we become ‘reductionist’, breaking the wine down into its component parts. In this sensory dissection, it is very easy to lose sight of the whole. Wine is more than just a sum of its parts.

Let me try to use a rather stretched metaphor to explain this. Think of one of these reductionist descriptions of a wine as a CV. There’s a world of difference between reading a CV – which gives factually correct and useful information about a person – and meeting the person themselves. If I were to ask you to describe a good friend of yours, you could send me their CV, but this wouldn’t tell me what they are really like. It would be better for me to meet the person, but if I couldn’t do that, then you’d be better off writing a few paragraphs about what the person is like, than jotting down facts about them in CV-like fashion.

When we come to try to write down our impressions of a wine, it’s important not to get too carried away by just listing descriptors. Yes, I’m impressed that you’ve spotted three different fruits, two distinct earthy components, another two different spices and that you’ve nailed the way the tannins are showing. But what does the wine taste like? What is the overall impression? Don’t lose sight of the whole as you look at the bits. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Before we put the wine in our mouths, we’ll dwell a little on the ‘nose’, which is the term used in the trade to describe what the wine smells like. Is it aromatic (particularly smelly) or muted (not showing a great deal)? Is it predominantly showing fruity aromas, or are there what are known as ‘secondary’ aromas, such as earth and spice? Is there any evidence of vanilla or coconut or toast, which could indicate some oak? Is there some greenness (herby or grassy aromas)? Is it sweet or savoury? Is it complex or simple? Is it nice? Is it weird and a bit funky? These are just examples of the sorts of questions you can ask yourself which will help you tie down some of your sensations so that you can put them into words.

The eyes: looking at wine

2007-09-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

It's time to taste. So pour a glass of wine. The colour tells us something – and appearances matter, because expectation does seem to guide our perception to a degree. If we’re expecting a wine to be great, or we’ve spent a lot of money on it, we’re more inclined to hunt for complexity, and give the wine the benefit of the doubt. If it’s a really cheap bottle we’re usually a bit more honest about its shortcomings.

In brief, with white wines, the darker the colour the more likely it is to have some age, or to have been given some oak treatment (such as being fermented in barrel). Richer, fatter whites tend to be more yellow/gold, while brighter, crisper whites tend to be more transparent, or have glints of green to them.

With red wines, as you’d expect, the darker the colour the more intense the flavours generally are. Warmer climate reds tend to be darker; younger reds also tend to be darker. Redder wines tend to be fresher and more acidic; blacker wines tend to be more lush and have lower acid. Oaked wines are generally darker. Bright purple is the sign of a very young wine. These are all generalities, but they can be useful cues if you are tasting blind.

next...take a sniff

Advanced tasting part 1, the eyes

2007-08-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

So you’ve taken your time, thought deeply about the wine you are drinking, and you may also have jotted some of these thoughts down. Are you closer to ‘getting’ or understanding this wine? Perhaps. Now it’s time to look at some slightly more advanced tasting techniques.

Advanced tasting
Tasting begins with the eyes. Colour is important in wine. It sounds silly, but the taste experience we have is quite heavily influenced by visual cues.

What we see prepares us for our taste experience without us realizing it. Even experts can be led astray: in rather naughty experiments, a French psychologist got experts to taste the same wine separated by a couple of weeks.

The first time it was labelled as a humble Vin de Pays, the second as a Grand Cru. The experts were fooled and used much more flattering terms to describe the same wine the second time round.

So as we come to a wine, it’s useful to remember this as we look at the colour in the glass, which is usually best revealed against a white background.

Learning to taste

2007-08-22T05:38:00.000-07:00

It sounds a bit silly instructing people how to drink wine. I’m assuming that most people are familiar with the practice of drinking a liquid. Well, wine tasting is the same, it’s just that to do it well you need to be a bit thoughtful about it.

Pour a small measure, swirl it in the glass, and then take a sniff. Then put some in your mouth, swish it around a bit, and then either spit or swallow. All the time you need to be thinking the following sorts of thoughts:

What does it taste and smell like?
Do I like what it tastes and smells like?
What sorts of components can I taste or smell?
Does it work as a whole?
Is it simple, or complex?
As I think about the taste and smell of the wine, am I getting any fresh nuances, or does the experience change?
What sorts of food might this wine go with?

It’s no good just reading this, because it will rapidly be lost in some dark corner of your memory, never to resurface. To understand what I’m getting at, you need to be reading this glass in hand. If this isn’t appropriate or possible now, then make a mental note to come back to this page on a suitable occasion when you can actually drink.

Have you got a glass in front of you? Now go back to the list of questions above. Think about what you are drinking: it may help to have a notepad to hand to jot down and make sense of your thoughts.

Tasting takes time, especially if you aren’t experienced. I find the analogy of a Turkish carpet shop helpful. For most people, the taste experience is like looking at a rolled up carpet. You can tell it’s a carpet, but not much else about what it’s really like; in a similar vein, to most people a glass of wine is wine, usually either white or red, and dry or sweet. For many others, the taste experience is like leafing through a stack of plied up carpets. Now you can see a bit of the pattern, but not too much.

But if you take the time, and think about what you are dinking in a semi-analytical way, as you gain experience it will be like taking a carpet and unrolling it across the floor: suddenly the entire pattern becomes apparent. But there’s an uncertainty – and imprecision – associated with the senses of taste and smell: so however experienced we are, it’s often as if we are studying the carpet in the dim light of a back street shop in Istanbul with a pushy salesman at our elbow. We just have to live with this imprecision.

Tastes change with time

2007-08-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

It’s also important to bear in mind that our perception of wine itself – how it ‘tastes’ – changes with experience. As you drink wine thoughtfully, you’ll begin to ‘get’ it better. It will say more to you. And your taste preferences will also likely shift. This is worth bearing in mind if you are planning to build up a cellar of bottles: I know chums who have bought enthusiastically the sorts of wines they liked when they were first developing into geeks, only for their preferences to change, leaving them with a cellar of wines in a style they no longer cared for.

Wine is best shared, but as you learn more and become more confident of your own tastes, you’ll begin to be able to appreciate a great bottle even when you drink it on your own. I remember when I first started tasting wine thoughtfully. I needed the second opinions of others to help me decide whether the wine I was drinking was particularly good or not. I guess that’s why critics who operate in absolutes—giving wine scores, for example—are so popular. They reassure people that the expensive bottle of wine that they are drinking really is incredibly good.

Why it's good to learn, and don't be afraid

2007-08-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

First, let’s begin with three key introductory points:

Learning enhances enjoyment.
We learn best by experiencing.
As we learn, our tastes change.

I believe that you’ll have more fun with wine if you know a bit about it, which is the reason I’m writing this course. I’m assuming, though, that you don’t just want knowledge for the sake of it, and you don’t want to have to spend hours reading through a huge doorstop of a textbook. I’m also aware that entering the world of wine for the first time can be daunting. There’s simply too much information to absorb. Relax! The truth is, you are never going to know everything about this subject. Don’t be even the tiniest bit gutted by this revelation; rather, be relieved. The wine world is just so huge and changes so rapidly that it’s no longer possible for any one person to be a real expert on all the world’s wines (although some claim to be; dig deeper and you’ll find areas where their knowledge is superficial, or out of date, or both).

Good news: you can learn a bit at a time, slowly building up your knowledge base. Even better news: you don’t have to learn by reading large books – instead, you can learn on the job.

Last year I had my first experience of flying, and it was great, because as soon as we were up in the air I was given the stick and told what to do. I was flying, and I hadn’t looked at a single book or had any lessons on the ground. I didn’t have much clue about what I was doing, but that’s the way to learn. You move the stick, you feel its effects. Hence the goal of this course is to encourage you to drink wine, and think about it as you drink, picking up the relevant information at the same time. In that way, you’ll really learn, and what you learn will be useful.

First, though, you must leave you fear of getting it wrong behind. So many people come to wine scared stiff of making mistakes or being made to look stupid. I’ll let you in on a secret: almost all wine ‘experts’ are pretending that there are more absolutes and more certainty than there really is. In truth, much of what passes for the body of knowledge in wine is made up, imaginary and passes on from generation to generation without really being challenged. Experts don’t like to admit how incomplete and uncertain their knowledge really is, because there’s a risk that they’d be taken less seriously. It’s really OK to question things, even things said by experts.

Introduction

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I’ll admit it. Wine is complicated. Walk into even a modest-sized supermarket and you’ll likely be faced with a wall of hundreds of different wines. In a situation like this, how is a non-expert supposed to make an informed choice? Easy, you just go for what’s reduced by a couple of quid on the gondola end, or else you choose by label design, or mere guesswork.

But this complexity that can prove so frustrating to consumers is actually part of the appeal of wine – it means there’s always something new to discover. The fact that wines come in an enormous range of different styles, many of which reflect a real sense of place, is what lures so many into the hugely rewarding pursuit of wine geekdom.

So it’s inevitable that there’s a degree of learning associated with exploring the world of wine. The goal of this wine course is to help people who are interested in wine find out more, not so they can become wine bores, but so that they have more understanding, which usually leads to more fun. And I’m going to try to make this an enjoyable journey of discovery: you’ll find the writing style here an accessible one, without the content being dumbed down.

Learning about wine

2007-07-11T06:07:00.000-07:00

A chance to learn about wine

Digestible content
Assuming very little prior knowledge
Acessible but not dumbed down
A fresh approach