Some Of Wine's Great Pleasures Come From The Connections It Makes
Gloria Maroti Frazee
Issue: October 31, 2005
Connections with people. Ever notice how enthusiastic wine-and-food people can be? How they genuinely enjoy sharing a great bottle or a "plate-banging-good" dinner? I've developed and deepened many friendships at tastings.
Connections with food. Food and wine are meant to go together. After a dusty day of traipsing through vineyards in Piedmont, some friends and I found ourselves in a tiny restaurant that didn't even have a sign out front. The pasta, golden-yellow from the many egg yolks used to make it, was buried under a blizzard of white truffles. The tender goat chop was served sizzling on a hot stone. And the Dolcetto and the Barbaresco and the Barolo!
Connections with vineyards. Vineyards are almost always located in beautiful areas, and they're so much fun to visit. The summer I set out to learn about Riesling, I began by hiking along the Mosel, where the vineyards are steeper than triple-black-diamond ski runs. Another summer, I spent a week bicycling around Burgundy—where the hills are, thankfully, much gentler than the Mosel's—and stopping to gaze at the tiny vineyards that make some of the most ethereal wines I've ever tasted.
Connections with history. Vintages remind us of distant events: a daughter's birth, a friend's marriage, a war (amazingly, many regions in Europe managed to harvest grapes and make wine in 1944), and even a comet. 1811 was the year of the comet, when the skies were lit for 17 months and Château d'Yquem made a stellar wine; I can still remember the finish from tasting it more than a decade ago.
Tasters And Supertasters
Twenty-five percent of Americans are supertasters—are you in that group?
Gloria Maroti Frazee
Issue: October 31, 2005
Average tasters account for about 50 percent of the U.S. population. The other 50 percent is split equally between nontasters (people who have difficulty detecting acidity even when biting into a lemon wedge) and supertasters (those who are sensitive to even minute concentrations of taste components).
At this point, you might be secretly hoping that you're a supertaster. Imagine being able to taste everything in wine! But it's actually not as good as it sounds. For a supertaster, even the smallest amount of bitterness can be overwhelming and a hint of residual sugar can seem cloying. Supertasters tend to be very picky eaters; they tolerate a limited range of food, and alcohol is usually not in that range.
In contrast, nontasters will eat and drink just about anything. Regular tasters are the people who tend to really enjoy wine.
Wine and Food
The right match can mean the differencebetween a good meal and a great one
Gloria Maroti Frazee
Issue: October 31, 2005
Food alters your perception of wine. On rare occasions, the perfect match creates a memorable experience. On even rarer occasions, the match is similarly unforgettable, but unhappily so. Almost always, however, the wine and food get along fine, so unless you're pouring a very special bottle with dinner, there's no need to obsess about the pairing.
Simply remember that lighter-bodied wines go with lighter-bodied foods (such as white-fleshed fish) and heavier-bodied wines go with heavier-bodied foods (such as steak). Also, if the dish you're having could take a squirt of lemon, stick with white wine.
If you're at a formal tasting, save the nibbles for after you've evaluated the wines. There's an old saying: "Buy on bread, sell on cheese." In other words, if you're buying wine, you don't want to eat anything other than bread, which won't affect your palate. If you're selling wine, you want to ply your customer with cheese; the proteins will make the tannins seem less harsh or aggressive and more harmonious. Foolproof cheese pairings can be made with hard, aged cheeses such as Parmigiano-Reggiano and older Goudas.
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