Article 2                                                                                  July 23, 2009

Your Second Step in the World of Fine Wine

or

Free Your Mind Some More!

by

the Vino-Maven

In my previous article I explained that tasting wine is more than enjoying yourself or impressing the neighbors with your sophistication. It is a way of experiencing the subtle kinds of beauty and joy that hide in this physical world. I described my own first experience with a truly fine wine, and my surprise at what happened. I tasted things that I didn’t think could be tasted, like the sun on the grapes and the cold mists of the night. I was even more surprised to discover that such experiences are for real, meaning that experienced wine tasters can actually share these kinds of experiences and agree about them. At the time, I was unsure if I was actually tasting these unusual qualities or just imagining them. Sure enough they are really in the wine. 

So I repeat my conclusion from my previous article. Becoming a serious wine taster will make you into a deeper, more sensitive person. And that is a wonderful thing.

The ability to experience wine on this level has to be cultivated, like a good vineyard. True, my experience happened once for me without any preparation, but afterwards I had to work at making it happen time after time. Here is the question: How are you going to make yourself into the sort of person who can taste the “earthiness” “brightness” “spiciness” “fruitiness” or “complexity” in a glass on wine? You guessed it! It takes training.

 You need to practice calming your mind and shutting down all the thoughts that usually rush by. You need to let your senses of smell and taste encounter the wine in a relaxed but focused way. Let yourself really sense the sensations the wine brings your nose and tongue. Descriptive words will come to mind. Sometimes the words will be fairly direct in describing what you taste, like the words “Sour” or “Sweet”. Other words might be metaphorical, like “Vibrant” or “serious.”

Write down the words that come to mind when you drink a wine, and then go back to that wine again later. See if the same sensations and words arise. Compare your impressions of the wine to what it says on the label. Compare your impressions of a wine to what wine reviewers have said about it. Of course it is OK for you to reach different conclusions about a wine, and no critic can tell you what to like. You will know you are making progress not when you succeed in liking what the wine critics tell you to, but rather when you can experience and describe in your own words the different levels of tastes and aromas a wine can have. A great wine is one that brings you lots of these interesting experiences. This is a quality of wine called “Complexity” and it happens when the grapes encode in their chemical make-up lots of different kinds of information about themselves and the environment in which they grew. The wine from those grapes will bring you this information in the form of tastes and aromas. Sometimes a taste or aroma might not even be that pleasant in of itself, but the wine will still be a great wine. This is because the wine is communicating something interesting, and also because the other qualities of the wine balance everything out. A wine like this is all the more enjoyable because of the skillful balancing act it performs.

One example of this is common in dry red wines, especially those made from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. Red grapes contain a substance called tannins. Tannins are found in the skins and seeds. Tannins taste something like unsweetened dark tea. They have an acidic taste that makes your mouth pucker up and go dry. In fact, tannins are often responsible for a dry wine being dry! Tannins by themselves don’t taste that good, but they are an important element of the wines flavor. If the tannins are balanced out by the other tastes and aromas, they give the wine a wonderful serious attitude and a solid hearty quality. If they are a little bolder, they make the wine rugged and down to earth…something of a manly wine, if you get my drift. But if the tannins get out of control, watch out! The wine might not even be drinkable! One of the reason wines are often aged in wooden barrels is to soften and balance out the Tannins!

Similarly, there are some very fine white wines, made from Riesling grapes which actually have a Petrol taste or aroma. Lots of people don’t like this taste, and you can understand why. However, wine lovers think well of it, because it contributes to a wines complexity.  When you have the petrol taste balanced out by the fruit flavors of a wine, it is an amazing thing. Imagine the excitement you get from watching a tight rope walker balancing over a canyon, sidestepping disaster with every step and even making it look easy! A great, well balanced wine can be like that!

This reminds of the Incense that was offered in our Ben Hamikdash, the Holy Temple. It was composed of 11 different kinds of resins, perfumes and spices, all ground to a fine powder and combined in perfect balance and harmony. One of the substances in the incense was called Helbena in Hebrew or “Galbanum.” It actually smelled bad. But combined with everything else it added something to the complexity of the final aroma!

Let’s get back to wine tasting! To be a great wine appreciator you have to develop your skills for sensing and putting words to the sensations you experience. The more you can say in words the deeper your experience of a wine will become. A Great wine has the ability to convey a lot of interesting information, tastes and aromas.

Be sure to always use a wine glass. This might sound silly at first, but nothing brings out a wine’s aroma like a rounded wine glass. Fill it about one third high and swirl the wine to release its aromas. Sniff and smell the wine deeply before you drink. Drink in sips, but take in enough wine for it to completely envelop your tongue. After you swallow, breathe out through your nose. This will let you receive a final message from your wine as it goes down. Following these three steps will give you information about three aspects of your wine:

1) Its Aroma (usually called its “nose.”)

2) Its taste, and

3) Its aftertaste (usually called its “finish.”)

So…Go out, try lots of wines, read lots of information about them, and make lots of notes! Remember that each wine is trying to give you a message about the place and time from which it came. What a delicious message that can be!