The Wine Savant: A Guide to the New Wine Culture Read online

  In the past, this approach made sense and was probably even necessary. There is no denying that wine was a tough sell in America for many decades. Historically, a taste for high culture has often been regarded with suspicion and disdain, an attitude that has extended to habits of the table. Thomas Jefferson, America’s first and greatest oenophile, was excoriated by fellow Virginian Patrick Henry for having “abjured his native victuals” in favor of French foods and wines, and for two centuries thereafter, wine was regarded as something Continental, decadent, and elitist. Even after the first shoots of America’s wine revolution emerged—the Judgment of Paris in 1976, the arrival of the wine critic Robert Parker a few years later—wine’s image problem persisted, and wine writers responded accordingly. The general thrust of the literature was that wine was arcane, intimidating, and exotic and needed to be demystified and spoken of in ways that the man on the street could understand if it was ever going to win over large numbers of Americans.

  Some wine writers believe that this is still the case. Eric Asimov, the wine columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote a book called How to Love Wine, in which he claimed that wine remains horribly intimidating for the layman—that wine experts, with all their jargon and obscure metaphors, create feelings of anxiety and inadequacy in regular people and scare them away from wine. (Asimov, it should be said, writes in a delightfully accessible and genial way and is a source of unfailingly excellent wine advice for his readers.) Asimov contrasted our supposedly cowed wine culture with America’s dynamic beer culture: “Beer consumers are a far more confident lot than wine consumers. They’re at ease with beer, mostly because they’ve had a solid grounding in their subject, unlike wine consumers who’ve been brainwashed into believing they must be educated or taught how to ‘appreciate’ wine before they can enjoy it.” He went on to say that with top-end restaurants starting beer programs and scholarly tomes devoted to beer popping up on bookshelves, “some fear that a consequence will be a rise in the same sort of anxieties and pretentiousness that plague and intimidate wine consumers.”

  Asimov took some flak for these comments, and not without reason. By beer consumers, he presumably meant beer geeks (beer snobs, if you prefer), as opposed to the muscle-shirt-and-tattoo types swigging Budweiser at the neighborhood tavern. But beer geeks weren’t born with that “solid grounding”; they acquired it by tasting, by listening, and by studying. And no one has “brainwashed” wine consumers into thinking that they can’t enjoy wine if they don’t study it; the point is that one’s pleasure can be enhanced by knowing a little something about the subject. Writing in the Wine Spectator, the aforementioned Matt Kramer pointedly rebutted Asimov’s comments, and it is worth citing his rejoinder in full:

  This is the “cringe.” Too many wine lovers are needlessly embarrassed by wine. They feel a need to “democratize” wine by debasing it. Wine, you see, is too hoity-toity. So it’s best if it gets taken down a peg or two. Ironically, nowhere is this more prevalent than among the very intellectuals who have spent a goodly part of their lives becoming educated and are, in turn, educating others. Wine lovers have nothing to apologize for. You don’t see music lovers apologizing for suggesting that perhaps you might better understand a concert or even a song if you spend a little time learning about music. You sure as hell don’t see art lovers apologizing for the seeming incomprehensibility of so much of contemporary art. If we don’t get it, we’re unashamedly told, the fault is ours for not bringing enough context to what we’re viewing. Whether that’s true or not is beside the point. The point is this: Wine, like many other aesthetic pleasures, admits and supports deeper investigation. To suggest that such investigation is worthwhile is hardly “brainwashing” or bullying. It’s called education. And that’s surely an admirable, worthwhile thing, right?

  Yes, it is.

  But the bigger problem, it seems to me, is that Asimov was describing a problem that no longer exists. The idea that wine consumers are plagued by “anxieties and pretentiousness” just doesn’t accord with the reality of the American wine scene circa the second decade of the twenty-first century. If people are being chased away from wine by all that arcane wine talk, it sure doesn’t show up in the data. Indeed, the historic, two-decades-long wine boom that America is experiencing has coincided with the proliferation of Robert Parker–style tasting notes, filled with florid, esoteric descriptions (caramel-coated autumn leaves, anyone?). While it might be a stretch to think that the notes have somehow encouraged this budding oenophilia, they clearly have not inhibited it. With more Americans drinking and collecting wine than ever before, it is hard to see exactly how the high-end discourse about wine is serving as a barrier to entry.

  The reality is, we live in a very different wine moment now than we did fifteen years ago. I see it all the time—at dinner parties, cocktail receptions, and other social occasions. I meet people who have little, if any, formal wine knowledge but who enjoy drinking wine, are eager to learn more about it, and are not remotely intimidated by it. Even though they know I am a wine writer, they don’t hesitate to share their opinions of wines and are not afraid to take issue with mine even though I am supposedly the authority figure (it’s the same way with my kids). A few years ago, I hosted a tasting in Chicago at which I served a López de Heredia Rosé. López de Heredia is a great producer of traditional Riojas, but its Rosé is an unorthodox wine; it is aged for a number of years in barrel, and it has a very distinctive oxidative note as a result. It’s one of those wines you either like or hate (I’m not sure anyone actually loves it), and half the room at the Chicago event hated it and wasn’t afraid to let me know. Was I insulted? Hell, no: I found the pushback gratifying. It’s a sign of an increasingly confident wine culture.

  Like Asimov, I am envious of America’s beer culture, but for another reason. With the advent of the craft beer movement, beer has been able to move upmarket, but at no cost to its blue-collar bona fides. The beer geeks and those heavily tattooed Bud drinkers happily coexist. Wine, by contrast, has not been able to bridge the highbrow-lowbrow divide nearly as effortlessly. It is still portrayed in the media and the culture at large as a hobby for rich swells, and every attempt to dumb it down, to make it seem somehow more accessible, ends up just . . . dumbing it down. (A few years ago, one somewhat prominent wine writer wrote an entire book geared to women in which she compared wines to articles of clothing; she managed both to demean wine and to insult women.) Wine writers, and wine enthusiasts generally, have no need to apologize for their oenophilia and ought to give the apologias a rest. If wine makes some people insecure, that’s their problem, not ours. Oenophilia is now just a normal American hobby.

  But while we’ve come a long way as a wine culture, there is one other thing that I would love to see: it would be great if we could get over our fixation on the possible health benefits of wine. In 1991, 60 Minutes ran a segment calling attention to the so-called French Paradox, which posited that the low rate of heart disease in France, despite a national diet gloriously abundant in foie gras, cheese, and other rich foods, was due to the country’s prodigious consumption of red wine. That report led many Americans to start drinking wine, but it also fanned an obsessive interest in the nutritional and therapeutic properties of fermented grape juice, an obsession that endures.

  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 inhibi
t 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

  THREE SIMPLE RULES FOR BECOMING A WINE GEEK

  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.

  WHAT MAKES FOR A GREAT WINE?

  • 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.

  I won’t deny that being a wine writer has its perks, and one of them is that you occasionally get to taste some very special wines. And like many wine obsessives, I not only take detailed notes on those wines, but I add them to a permanent greatest-hits list that I maintain. (Much to my wife’s chagrin, I also have a habit of keeping the empty bottles of great wines I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing; it’s a trophy case, you might say.) On the chance that it might interest you—and because we grape nuts are always looking for an opportunity to talk about our conquests—here is my greatest-hits list, and long may it continue to expand: />
  • 1947 Château Cheval Blanc

  • 1996 Domaine J.-F. Coche-Dury Corton Charlemagne

  • 1990 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche

  • 1990 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti

  • 1971 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche

  • 1989 Château Haut-Brion

  • 1961 Château Haut-Brion

  • 1959 Château Haut-Brion

  • 1961 Château La Mission Haut-Brion

  • 1982 Château Mouton Rothschild

  • 1989 Château Pétrus

  • 1982 Château Lafleur

  • 1988 Krug Champagne Clos du Mesnil

  • 1974 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

  • 1963 Quinta do Noval Vintage Port Nacional

  • 1959 Henriot Champagne

  • 1991 Domaine Chave Hermitage Cuvée Cathelin

  • 1990 Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste. Hune

  • 1795 Barbeito Madeira Terrantez

  THE COST OF A WINE EDUCATION

  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.