Sip by Sip: An Insider's Guide to Learning All About Wine - Brossura

Michael Bonadies is a partner in the Myriad Restaurant Group, headed by Drew Nieporent, whose restaurants include Montrachet, Tribeca Grill, Nobu, and Layla in New York, as well as Rubicon in San Francisco.  He is the 1996 recipient of the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for Magazine Writing on Spirits, Wine, and Beer.

Wine Myths

The myths of Zeus, Thor, Oedipus, King Arthur, and Pecos Bill arose out of a society's need to explain its world or a specific phenomenon of its world.  These same myths, in some cases after thousands of years, continue to offer insight as well as to entertain.  So why do myths exist about wine?

There are three reasons why wine myths have currency in the United States:

1.  Wine remains a "foreign" beverage, not part of our American upbringing or culture.  And as such, it remains mysterious and a subject of myth.

2.  Wine myths foster the elitism and sense of secret knowledge that wine snobs thrive on.

3.  Wine myths enable everyone in the business of selling wine to charge more for their product.

So if there are kernels of truth in the ancient myths that keep us trying to decipher them, what about wine myths? Are there any self-evident truths lurking in these tales? Let's see.
Myth #1: Expensive Is Better/Cheaper Is Better

There are two dramatically opposed and fervently believed myths on price: 1) expensive is better (pure snobbery), and 2) cheaper is better (reverse snobbery).  Slavish adherence to either myth limits your options and fun.  The big-bucks school confines you to the big names and might blind you to discovering a great $9 bottle of Zinfandel or Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc.  Subscribe solely to the bargain-basement school and you'll never know the thrill of splurging for a great bottle.

Price, high or low, is an accurate indicator neither of quality nor of value.  A high price can be an indicator of hype, limited availability, speculation, or greed.  But a low price doesn't guarantee value either.  The measure of value is the sensual pleasure that a wine is able to deliver.  If a $9 bottle delivers at least nine bucks of pleasure, you're way ahead of the game.  If a $900 bottle delivers at least nine hundred bucks of pleasure and enjoyment, you've gotten your money's worth.  But a word of caution: Beware of the rising expectations that can be created by a price tag.  Throw your monthly budget out the window, splurge for that $900 bottle, and you may find yourself wanting it be so wonderful that it has no chance in hell of living up to your expectations.

Bottom Line: Don't be afraid to splurge, and don't be shy about bargain hunting.  Just remember that price, like taste, is entirely relative.  What is expensive today might be cheap next week after you win $10 million in the lottery.  At $9 or $900, it still gets flushed down the toilet the next morning.
Myth #2: French Is Better

Yeah, right.

Bottom Line: Don't limit yourself to only one country or region.  Explore the entire world of wine and all the fun and pleasure it has to offer.
Myth #3: Pronunciation Matters

Does a wine taste any better if you pronounce it correctly? I am phonetically challenged.  My French is terrible.  My Italian, German, and Spanish are even worse.  Do I care? No.

Bottom Line: Never hesitate to order a bottle of wine because of a lack of language fluency or fear of pronunciation.  Do what I do: Point or use the bin number, gleefully butcher the pronunciation, and get the wine you want.
Myth #4: Cellar Size Matters

Is bigger better? Is this a question anyone (except for those with a big cellar) ever answers truthfully? Let's be honest.  Bigger is better.  It is fun to collect and build a cellar.  But it is critical to have a collecting strategy tailored to your taste, lifestyle, and wallet.  The last thing you want is to end up with a cellar full of wine that you don't like, that you can never find the right occasion to drink, or that pushes your credit cards past their limit.

Bottom Line: Whether you have a single-case cellar in a closet or a 10-case cellar in the basement or a 1,000-case high-tech marvel of a cellar, what matters most is that you drink, share, and enjoy the wine you purchase.  And remember a motto to live by: "He who dies with the most wine loses."
Myth #5: Technique Is More Important Than Size

Only for those with small cellars.  But let's take a look at technique anyway.

Serving Temperature: The serving temperature is important because it affects the wine's taste.  The problem in this country is that, on the whole, white wine is served too cold and red wine too warm.  A frigid white loses its complexity of aroma and flavor.  A warm red smells and tastes too much of alcohol, and its charm and pleasure are obscured.  If you don't believe me, try the following experiment: Chill a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket or freezer until it is frigid to the touch.  Open it and try a taste.  Leave the bottle out on the counter and then every ten minutes pour a fresh taste.  As the wine "warms," it will begin to develop greater complexity of aroma and flavor and, in short, taste better.  (Don't try heating up a red, because you could easily ruin the wine.)

So what's the ideal serving temperature for red wine: Cellar temperature? Room temperature? Fifty-five to 65 degrees? Let's be realistic here.  Unless you're lucky, or have spent some bucks, the "cellar" that stores your red wine is probably a little too warm (touch the bottle and see).  This can be easily "fixed" by placing the bottle in the fridge for fifteen minutes, or until it is slightly cool to the touch before serving.

White wine should be served cold, but not Arctic-blast cold.  If your refrigerator is perfect for beer, it is probably a little too cold for white wine.  If the bottle is ice-cold, allow it to stand ten to fifteen minutes outside the refrigerator before serving.  You'll learn to use your own sense of touch to discover the temperatures you find most enjoyable for whites and reds.  With practice, you'll soon be able to touch a bottle of wine and know if the temperature is just right for your taste.  So don't worry about the articles and books that list ideal temperatures for each and every kind of wine.  Life's way too short to worry over every bottle's temperature, and there's too much good wine to drink.

Opening the Bottle: Now that you've got the touchy-feely part down pat, your challenge is to liberate the wine.  In a world of consumer-friendly packaging--flip tops, screw tops, pop tops, and zip locks--most wines require what looks like a medieval instrument of torture guaranteed to extract confessions from heretics.

Unfortunately, the success rates for corkscrews, even in the most practiced hands, is far from perfect.  Corks are not a zero-defect product.  They have a tendency to break, crumble, split, and slip back into the bottle.  It's enough to make you reach for a beer.  See page 184 for recommendations on corkscrews and how to use them, and pages 185-86 for what to do if the cork fails to cooperate.

Heavy Breathing: What was your wine doing that it needs to breathe? Fifty push-ups? If air were a magic elixir for wine, there wouldn't be a cork stuck tight in the neck of the bottle, working full-time to keep it out.  Open the bottle and pour.  Over the course of drinking the bottle, you will notice that the wine evolves in the glass.

Decanting: You'll need a decanter when you are drinking an older red wine or an unfined and unfiltered wine that has thrown sediment.  How do you know if the bottle contains sediment? Pick the bottle up and hold it in front of a strong light.  If the bottle has been standing up, you will see a dark ring of sediment at the bottom.  If it has been lying on its side, you will see a swirling cloud of sediment when you lift it upright.  In the second instance, stand the bottle upright, allowing the sediment to settle to the bottom before decanting.  See pages 188-89 for instructions on how to properly decant.

Glassware: Glassware definitely counts.  Wine does taste better in relatively large hand-blown glasses.

To Swirl or Not to Swirl: Swirling the wine helps release its aromas and is perfectly correct, as long as you don't swirl too vigorously and stain the tablecloth.

Q:        When do you know that you've become a wine fanatic?

A:        When your kids start swirling their milk.  Bottom Line: Don't get hung up on technique.  As long as you can get the wine out of the bottle and into the glass, you're ahead of the game.
Myth #6: Old Wines Do It Better

Says who? The British.  Our obsession with the mysterious wonders of old wines is due mainly to the influence British wine writers have had on wine experts in this country.  The British prefer their wines old, if not dead and buried.  This unseemly bent toward necrophilia certainly leaves an unpleasant taste, as many old wines disappoint.  Why?

1.  Ninety-five percent of the wine produced every year is meant for immediate consumption--bottoms up and down the hatch within a year of its release to the marketplace.

2.  The remaining 5% is considered age-worthy because of track record, grape variety, style, or the vintner's ego.

3.  When you read of incredibly wonderful bottles of old wine, and they do exist, what you do not read is that many exactly similar bottles have become tired, fade...