The Wine Savant: A Guide to the New Wine Culture (3 page)

Now, there is no denying that this subject is an interesting one, and it appears that there really is a link between red wine and well-being. It is now widely recognized, for instance, that moderate red wine consumption—generally defined as one or two 5-ounce glasses a day for women and two or three for men, drunk with food—boosts HDL cholesterol, the “good” cholesterol that purges arteries of fatty deposits. In addition, scientists have determined that the flavonoids in red wine have an anticoagulant effect that can help prevent blood clots leading to heart attacks.

Resveratrol, a polyphenol found in grapes, has become a source of particular fascination. It, too, is said to have a role in preventing clots and is believed to inhibit the production of LDL cholesterol, the “bad” kind. Judging by the headlines, resveratrol seems to be the omnipotent ingredient in red wine—a “vascular pipe-cleaner,” as one physician put it. Research suggests that resveratrol can delay the aging process and forestall many gerontological diseases, notably Alzheimer's. It is also claimed that this antioxidant can boost stamina, reduce lung inflammation stemming from chronic pulmonary disease, and help stave off cancer and radiation poisoning. Then there is this joyous news, possibly upending age-old assumptions about alcohol and sexual performance: resveratrol apparently works to enhance blood flow, which in turn may improve erectile function.

Personally, I'm thrilled to learn that red wine could help me avoid cancer, outlast opponents on the tennis court, survive a nuclear attack, and lead a long, lucid, and Viagra-free life. However, a little caution is in order. Most of the testing with resveratrol has been done on mice, and they have been given ungodly amounts of the stuff. As the
New York Times
pointed out in a 2006 article, the mice in one experiment were injected with 24 milligrams of resveratrol per kilogram of body weight; red wine contains around 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so to get the equivalent dose, a 150-pound person would need to drink 750 to 1,500 bottles of wine a day. That would be an ambitious undertaking.

Red wine may contain resveratrol, but it contains substantially more alcohol, and regardless of how beneficial wine ultimately proves to be for the heart, lungs, groin, and other body parts, we already know it has a powerful and mostly salutary psychological influence. Wine—or, to be more precise, the alcohol in wine—leaves us happy; it is a relaxant, a stimulant, a balm. It can make a bad day good and a good one better. All this, coupled with the gustatory pleasure that wine confers, ought to be reason enough to uncork a bottle. It is great that science is uncovering so many possible ancillary benefits to red wine, and I hope that resveratrol is indeed the cure-all that mankind has been waiting for. But I think we should just lighten up and enjoy wine for the immediate gratification. Wine is a habit that requires no rationale other than the pursuit of enjoyment.

2

Becoming a Wine Maven

T
HREE
S
IMPLE
R
ULES FOR
B
ECOMING A
W
INE
G
EEK

 

1. Drink often.

2. Drink a wide range of wines.

3. Drink as well as your budget permits.

 

The last point is particularly important, though I need to tread cautiously here. Nothing brings out the inner Calvinist in some people quite like the prospect of spending more than a few dollars on a bottle of wine. Put a hefty price tag on that Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon and it suddenly seems . . . decadent. The economic travails of recent years have reinforced that parsimony, and even people who had no problem dropping $50 on a bottle of Pinot prior to the Great Recession have scaled back their wine purchases or sharply lowered the price they are willing to pay for a bottle. Everyone is looking for value these days (which is why a later chapter in this book is devoted to value wines), so what I am about to say is a little out of step with the times: generally speaking, the more you are willing to pay, the better you are going to drink, and the better you drink, the more discerning you'll become. To hone an appreciation of wine, you need to taste top-drawer stuff—not every day, not necessarily once a week or even once a month, but often enough to develop a sense of just how good wine can get and what distinguishes the princely stuff from the plonk. No doubt some drinkers will never be able to differentiate a Grand-Puy-Lacoste from a Gallo Hearty Burgundy, but there aren't very many people with palates that leaden; even the completely uninitiated can usually recognize a superior wine when they taste one. And up to a certain point, there is a correlation between price and quality—a $60
premier cru
Burgundy is going to be a big step up from a $15 Sonoma Pinot Noir. There is a degree of refinement and complexity in a
grand cru
Chablis that you will not find in Yellow Tail Chardonnay, and if you are intent on cultivating your palate, it is good to be familiar with those differences.

W
HAT
M
AKES FOR A
G
REAT
W
INE?

• 
Aromatic complexity
A great wine will give off a potpourri of aromas—some sweet (fruit, flowers), others savory (earth, spices)—and will have you dipping your nose in the glass constantly. Some wines literally smell so good that you don't want to taste them.

• 
Concentration
A great wine packs a lot of flavor, and those flavors run deep. With some wines you sense a bit of dilution; you'll occasionally hear oenophiles describe a wine as having a “hollow midpalate,” which is wine-geek jargon for thinness of flavor. Great wines taste
concentrated
. But note: depth of flavor has nothing to do with depth of color or density. The lightest, most delicately textured wines can pack huge amounts of flavor.

• 
Balance
In a really great wine, the fruit, acidity, and tannins (if it's a red) will be perfectly balanced, and there will be an unmistakable sense of harmony to the wine—a feeling that each element is perfectly integrated and that each is in perfect proportion to the others. Great wines have a seamlessness about them and a sense of completeness—nothing missing, nothing extraneous.

• 
Crescendo
I find that truly great wines tend to unfurl slowly in the mouth, building in flavor and intensity as they cross the palate. For me, it is the telltale sign that I've got something special in the glass. Wine geeks refer to this sensation as the “peacock's tail”—the flavors puff up and fan out. Call it what you want, but that peacock's tail or crescendo is another hallmark of a great wine.

• 
Length
With a great wine, the flavors persist long after you've swallowed the juice. Sometimes the finish lasts a minute; other times it can linger well beyond that. But persistence is another mark of a brilliant wine.

The most overrated attribute in a wine: fruitiness. Yes, wine is made from grapes, grapes are a fruit, and wine is thus a fruit-based beverage. But the fruitiness in a wine just isn't terribly interesting. Whether it's evocative of cherries, strawberries, or blackberries, it's still just fruit. It smells good, it's part of the pleasure, but I think it is the least compelling aspect of a wine. I'm more drawn to savory elements—herbs, spices, minerality, and so forth. I think the French have it exactly right: the grape, along with the vine, is primarily a vehicle for conveying the influence of the vineyard—the
goût de terroir
, as they put it. The best wines have plenty of ripe, appealing fruit—it is the minimum required—but they offer much more than that: they show aromatics that go far beyond the cherry-and-berry thing, and they exude a real sense of place. A great Châteauneuf-du-Pape, for instance, will have lots of exuberant fruit, but it will give off a strong whiff of lavender and other plants of the
garrigue
, as the fragrant scrub that you find in Provence is known.

The most underrated attribute in a wine: texture. Wine writers use the term
mouth feel
to describe the physical sensation of a wine flowing across the tongue. Alas, the phrase
mouth feel
is a bit clunky; so I prefer to go with
texture
. All wines have texture—some are silky, others chewy, still others borderline syrupy. How we react to a given wine depends in no small part on the tactile sensations we perceive, and that varies from person to person. For instance, I find that I'm almost allergic to Pinot Noirs that display any hints of syrupiness. I want Pinot that's crisp, in which the fruit almost seems crunchy. So much of the discussion about wine focuses on aroma, but the feel of a wine as it moves about the mouth is a hugely important factor in determining whether we like a given bottle.

T
HE
C
OST OF A
W
INE
E
DUCATION

If you are unmarried and free to spend your money however you wish, you can skip this next section. If you are married, engaged, or otherwise in a serious relationship and your partner is not as besotted with wine as you are, you should read it. Wine can cause pain in a relationship—or, to be a bit more exact, spending lots of money on wine can cause problems. That's particularly true if the money is being spent furtively. Take it from me: an incriminating receipt will turn up at some point, and you don't want that (mine was discovered while I was boarding a flight home from Paris; the phone conversation while I was on the tarmac was not an especially cheery one, nor was the face-to-face discussion when I arrived home). One possible solution to this issue is to try to convert your significant other into a fellow wine zealot, but that could wreak havoc on your household finances. It's better just to exercise a little restraint.
Drink as well as your budget permits
doesn't mean busting your budget. It's easy to get carried away, to think that you absolutely must have this or that wine in your cellar. Actually, you don't, and the sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be—and here, too, I'm speaking from experience.

T
ASTING
N
OTES

This may be stating the obvious, but the key to becoming a smarter, more perceptive taster is practice. In his best-selling book
Outliers
, Malcolm Gladwell claimed that to become an expert in any given field requires a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice. I suspect that if a person spent 10,000 hours drinking wine, the result would be a badly pickled brain. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the best way to become truly knowledgeable about wine and to get to a point where you really know what you are talking about is to sample as many wines as possible. That means drinking a wide array of wines at home and attending as many tastings as you can; wine classes can help, too.

Book knowledge matters greatly in wine as well, and you can learn a lot from reading good books about wine. Five must-have books for the budding wine enthusiast are:

• 
Adventures on the Wine Route
Famed importer Kermit Lynch's classic travelogue about viticultural France, full of brilliant insights into French wine culture and the ways and whys of wine.

• 
Tasting Pleasures
British wine writer Jancis Robinson's charming, informative memoir about her life as a globetrotting wine scribe. A book that leaves you excited about wine.

• 
Wine for Dummies
Mary Ewing-Mulligan and her husband, Ed McCarthy, did an outstanding job with this book, and it is a great source of basic but indispensable wine knowledge.