Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Knowledge and the enjoyment of fine wine

In my 19 years of experience as a wine consultant the one phrase that is often uttered and that gives me concern is, "I don't know enough about wine to enjoy good wine".

I still don't know how much education people assume they need to move up to a better caliber of wine. Personally my thoughts are that no knowledge is needed to enjoy the nectar of the grape in all it's splendor.

Granted wine can be a complex topic and there are mountains of information on wine, and more coming each day, this missive included.  In spite of the massive volumes of information, if we look back into the past man has enjoyed wine even before he was able to write about it.

In it's essence wine is very simple, and some of the very best in our modern age of technology are still made  with a minimum of human intervention.  Likewise the enjoyment of wine is quite simple.

Knowing a great amount of detail about a wine is not going to make it taste better, it may enhance your understanding of the wine and your appreciation of it's propriety, but the quality of what is in the bottle will remain the same.  All one need do to enjoy a wine is to put it in a glass, give it a sniff, if it doesn't smell good you have gone as far as you need go.  Since the majority of our 'taste' is in the aromas we inhale, if the wine doesn't smell appealing you can bet it won't prove to be any different once you get it in your mouth.  If it has a pleasing aroma then all one need do is take a sip, and voila, if it tastes good then that wine is a good wine for you. Conversely if you don't like the smell and/or taste then it is not a good wine for you.

 The person next to you may have a completely different opinion, and that is fine, what I encourage people to do is trust their own palate, your palate can never lie to you.  One person's treasure is another's trash, your taste is yours and will always be true to you.  We all have our own taste in cars, art, mates; we are also free to have our own taste for wine.

Over time your taste may change, but if it does, and to what degree, is still unique to you, therefore you need to follow your palate rather than some popular trend. Often as we begin to pair wine with food rather than merely consuming it as a cocktail; our tastes begin to gravitate to drier styles of wine and as this is a common transition, others may continue to enjoy their cocktail wines with meals and as long as you are happy so be it.

The one caveat I would propose is to always make sure the wine is good quality wine.  Unknown to many consumers, wineries, especially those producing large volumes of 'value' wine, are in the habit of enhancing the aromas and character of the wine with various additives.  The FDA is not the branch of government that regulates wine, it is the Department of Revenue division of Alcohol and Tobacco, and therefore any additives in the bottle need not be listed on the label.  the exception to that was mandated decades ago and that is the phrase "contains sulfites", this is required for any wine containing more than 5ppm (parts per million) sulphur dioxide, the maximum allowed under this regulation is 350ppm.  Most wines will produce more than 5ppm in natural fermentation so this is seen on literally all wine bottles, there may be an exception to this but I have never seen it nor am I aware of a wine sold in the U.S. that this is not on the label.  Wines packaged for sale in other nations may not be required to do so at all.

The advantage of better quality wine is that not only are the flavors more authentic, but your body isn't hampered with processing who knows what synthetic and organic compounds that are foreign to natural wine. A wise man told me many years ago, " if you spend 50% more on the wine you drink, you will be 100% happier about it", that was over 30 years ago and he is still right.


1 comment:

  1. You had me until the last sentence. While I agree someone spending $5 - $20 now will be 100% happier at $10 - $30 a bottle that doesn't translate when one is already spending $30 - $100 or more. The gray areas of wine economics get all the grayer after the $20 price point and is a whole new topic! ( or old topic, really)

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