Instruction Manual

Understanding wine is not limited to being able to provide a description of it. Understanding a wine also means knowing how to drink it. And no, knowing how to put the glass to your lips is not enough.

In my previous post I talked about trade tastings, where a taster can try many different wines; today, I'd like to focus specifically on studying a single bottle. It's very important, I believe, to continue learning about the things you care for. With wine, going deeper and learning more means profoundly understanding a particular juice, which requires a lot of time, drinking many different bottles of the same stuff. Now, let's say you're getting a bottle (probably from your trusted store!) that you've never had before, and you walk out without any instruction on how to drink it. What would happen? Often, people don't know what to do - sometimes even I don't know, if it's a bottle I've never had before. That is when I sit back and I let the wine talk to me; I literally let it "open up" to me.

For example: there is a winery in California called Coturri. They are certified organic, and their wines have the lowest allowable concentration of sulfates. Every time you open a bottle of theirs, it's a journey, and I love to try them time and again. After several different tastes, I have come to believe that the Coturris work with oxidation: sulfates are antioxidants, so a low sulfate content will not protect a wine from oxidizing. That said, a winemaker might as well use that process in his or her favor. This can have some interesting results. When you open a bottle, sometimes it will smell... you might even think it's bad. Obviously, I had this very experience. So the first thing I did was try to understand if the wine was dead or alive - I poured half a finger in a crystal glass and smelled it, set a benchmark and waited few minutes. Then, I smelled it again and noticed that the wine was losing its initial, unpleasant funk and was coming together. It was alive!!!

After that, I periodically tried it in small sips from fresh pours until it seemed ready. And when it was, I poured myself a glass and sipped, and began my analysis of the juice. Oxygen interacts with wine, developing it until it reaches a peak, and then through its subsequent decay. At the beginning, I poured only a small quantity because I wanted to have more air in contact with less wine. This technique accelerates the process of oxidation, like decanting. When I felt the wine was ready, I wanted to slow that process, so I could have time to understand what was happening in the bottle itself. By the end of that experience, I had learned that this particular wine was not a wine to drink immediately; it needs time and patience, so I refrain from recommending it for any occasion where time is short. I also make sure to mention that it can age in the bottle for at least another decade or more. After few hours that wine had lost all of its oxidation flavors and it was simply delicious.

I purposely didn't mention which of the Coturri wines was the star of that story. Here's why: I have found that a winery's style is reflected in different degrees, depending on the bottle. To some extent, all of the Coturri wines will act like the one I had (I confirmed that intuition later, by opening all of their wines). But some may not take so long - others may take even longer. I don't want to tell you that you'll have the exact same experience that I had, because you may not; the specifics vary from bottle to bottle. The goal in fact is not just to detect and expose flavors to your friends, or to know a wine dead-on before you open it. The goal is to develop the ability to choose the right wine for the right occasion and to know what to do with it. That skill will dramatically change the emotions you'll feel and improve the overall experience of your meals, or whatever situation in which you've chosen to enjoy your wine. Then, you can transfer your knowledge to your wine friends, and they can do the same for you. You'll save time and money in the process of becoming informed winos.

One bottle is never enough. If you find a wine you love, you should try it over and over, especially at the beginning of the journey. After years of experience, you'll have enough know-how to understand or at least have an idea of what to do even before opening a bottle. Your brain will be trained to remember better and to categorize the wine so that you'll be able to choose more deftly. Knowing more also make you more confident. You'll believe in your intuitions and surprise your friends and yourself by choosing wines you've never had before, but already having an idea of what they will be like. In this process, learning one bottle of wine will provide you with a knowledge base for countless other bottles - an invaluable category of information.

I'll finish today with a short anecdote about wine confidence, and how it can truly guide you to new and exciting choices. I trust my wine intuitions often when I'm out with my girlfriend Susan; she is very passionate about food and wine, her palate is refined and challenging and even though she could easily pick a wine, she often asks me to do it. She made me think about being more specific in the way I choose wine from a list in a restaurant; several times after I'd made my selection, she would ask if I knew the wine. If I answered "no," she would ask what made me choose that particular bottle. I've always had to think about the answer, and at least at the beginning I wasn't able to put it into words... I was following a system but I didn't really know I had one. Having been coerced to think about it, I was inspired to write this post, through which I am finally able to provide an answer. I look at the list with confidence: if I see the selection is well thought-out, then I trust the palate behind the list, and my confidence increases. Then, if I know the wines from that region are good, and I am curious to try a new producer who I know to be very capable, again, my level of confidence rises, and ultimately, using my own intuition and shared information, I choose a wine I've never had before, and am often pleased with the results, and the subsequent journey.

I hope that in the future, sharing this kind of information will be the main focus of wine publication as well. I also think it would be very useful if wineries themselves wrote suggestions for how to enjoy their wines on their back labels. Until that happens, the helm of the ship on your wine journey belongs solely to you - navigate well, and the journey will be unforgettable.

Buona Bevuta a Tutti

Quick Sips

If you read my previous post and found some truth in it, you may be looking for a new approach to the wine world. This particular world is not made of absolutes, there is no mathematical certainty. Even if you are able to retain untold volumes of wine statistics, the numbers and figures are bound to change every single year.

So - how can we value a wine? A good start, I feel, is to create a sort of template that will put 'apples with apples and oranges with oranges,' so to speak. There are many different ways to taste and drink wine; in trade tastings or blind tastings, with food or without it, vertically or horizontally (no, that has nothing to do with body orientation... verticals are when you taste different vintages of the same wine from the same producer, and horizontals involve only one vintage), all these different ways will allow you to see and appreciate wine from different angles and prospective. Today, I'm going to stick to an analysis of trade tasting.

When I'm tasting professionally, I'll have maybe two sips of each individual wine, and often I don't actually drink it - I spit it. All professionals have their own specific objectives at trade tastings. My goals are few and simple: I'm either trying new wines, or new vintages of wines I already know. In both cases, my limited tasting time forces me to taste the wine without context (trade tastings are often packed with people, and it is common to feel rushed). Instead, I make a summary judgment either on the differences from previous vintages, or the basic objective value of the wines (if I haven't tried them before).

When I attend these tastings, my sole objective is to find wine that eventually I will buy for De-Vino. That action is comparable to being a critic, with one main difference: I do not primarily use my own personal taste. I buy based on more objective parameters; overall quality, observable elements of the bouquet, palate and finish (regardless of the style), balance, and acidity. Independent of my individual taste, I believe those criteria to be sturdy and thorough in the general assessment of a wine. There are, of course, more detailed parameters applied for specific kinds of wines; for instance, reds require a judgment regarding tannins, and in champagne, the finesse of the "perlage" must be taken into account. Provenance, the size of the winery and price are also key factors. A wine can be spectacular, but horribly outpriced for the market.

These points will work for any style of wine, and I think they are just about as objective as they can be, especially in a field where personal taste is so highly prized. In this particular kind of tasting, whether or not I like a wine isn't as important as whether or not I believe my customers will like that same wine, keeping in mind, we may not have similar tastes. Sometimes I feel as though trade tasting is like speed dating; but, instead of meeting women, I meet wines.

I don't mean to make it seem as though professional tasting is impersonal and menial. It's not. Going to big tastings lets you asses a flavor and style profile; modern, traditional, fruity, dry, full, light, floral, astringent, velvety... you can develop a vocabulary to match the sensations you get from the wines. It is also a good way for non-professional palates to create flavor memories. Part of my own education consisted of going to trade tastings with wine experts. Often, the producer himself (or herself!) will be pouring the wines, so just listening to the conversations between producers and experts can be a great resource. You'll learn about tannins, acidity, wood, mold, yeast, sugar, flavors and countless other elements of the winemaking and tasting process. That said, listening should always be a big part of the process. It certainly has been for me, from listening to my parents talking about wine at dinner as a kid, up to now, listening to the wine itself. If you're just starting out, don't worry if most of what is said doesn't mean anything to you. Consider, perhaps, that you are accumulating dots that only time and experience can connect. With patience, every piece of the puzzle will come together.

Trade tastings are a great resource. It's like scratching the tip of the iceberg - it's a great way to broadly taste numerous wines and help you increase your flavor data base, learn terminology and vinification techniques from the people of the trade. But! It will not give you the value of emotion, because you are tasting wine without context, and thereby without the mechanism required appreciate the more subtle complexities it may have to offer.

In the next few posts I will keep on analyze different ways to taste and appreciate wine, hopefully giving you more dots that than we can try to connect together. So for now and until next time...

...Buona Bevuta a Tutti

And We Are Back

After a long silence, I have decided to come back to my blog. I'm not sure yet how often I will post, but for those of you that are interested I will write more regularly.

There were many reasons behind my silence; one in particular was the sore state of the wine industry. It somehow made me lose hope, and thereby the will to write. The past year was difficult for many reasons... 2009 was the year of scandals, fights, accusations and a lots of turmoil in our world. There were many voices focusing on wines that were considered "great deals," and the fight for quality was definitely lost against the economic meltdown. On top of that, we had the Brunello scandal, which was not much of a scandal in my eyes. All of a sudden, purveyors became concerned that some of the wines bearing the name "Brunello di Montalcino" contained grapes other than Sangiovese (the DOCG law prohibits this). The notion that many Brunellos are composed this way was, to me, a well known fact, and it made me laugh to see the major Montalcino players in the "defendant" role. Even the "Consorzio" hierarchy, the ones who presumably preserve the Brunello quality, were accused of wrongdoing. The same sore of scandal occurred in Chianti and in the North of Italy where few wineries decided to bottle of Pinot Grigio and Prosecco that were tainted with muriatic acid (the same chemical as hydrochloric acid - yum!), and similar problems plagued some of the highly prized Bordeaux wines. It was fun to see the excuses behind the scandals; most of Montalcino blamed American wine critics. Evidently, in order to please the "American" palate, the winemakers had to put unauthorized grapes into their Brunello... so they were forced to break the law to sell their products. How absurd - especially if one thinks that critics are there to protect quality, when they often, in fact, force producers to lower it.

Where is the truth? As always, I see it to be in the middle. Italians love shortcuts, the so-called "easy way." So, instead of trying to let the critics understand and explain what "Good Brunello" should be, they figured it would be easier (and cheaper!) to just tailor the wines to the critics' taste. Great job! Congratulations!!! The real misfortune is that, in spite of all the scandal, not much has changed. Critics still think that wine can be categorized with points and wineries still try to get higher scores in every way possible, even with clandestine methods, to sell more.

Things aren't much different than they were a year ago... but I think it's time to express myself again. I will try, starting now, to approach the subject from a different angle. I will try to let go of the "Which Is The Best Wine?" philosophy, and focus more on When And Why Is A Wine Good?" Hopefully, this will leave my readers with options, rather than a hard and fast suggestion based on some circumstantial idea of expertise. I don't believe in the best wine, but in the right wine at the right time. So, instead of prizing a theoretical "best," I will give you options that you can use at your own "right time."

Tasting many wines for work and drinking as many for pleasure, I often wonder why the point system is so successful. I mean, really. Does anyone really believe that the millions of differences that exist in as many wines can be explained and categorized with a 100-point chart? I've had wines that, on a given night, were perfect. Then, on another arbitrary night, the same wine was not as exceptional. That could have happened for several reasons: maybe my state of mind was different. I might have been upset, tired, taking medication or eating something different that didn't pair as well. Most likely, the weather conditions were also different; warmer, colder, drier or wetter. All of those factors change the perception of what a person is tasting.

That said, it might be more useful if the point-based wine reviews also disclosed the conditions in which the wine was tasted. That way, enthusiasts will know that a particular wine was a 99-pointer when it was tasted after great news, or the taster was very happy, or had great sex the night before, or... whatever. Then, perhaps the same wine was an 85-pointer after the taster was audited by the IRS, or had a fight with his wife and slept on the couch, or was taking aspirin for a migraine. Obviously, I'm exaggerating the situation to give you a better idea, but if you consider the difference a 90 or a 95 score makes for sales, it's clear how important it can be to know the state of mind and the environmental settings when the wine is tasted. It is true that a professional taster is able to adjust and take in consideration things like palate fatigue or other interfering factors... but trust me, it is very difficult to be that objective, even for a professional.

Scoring wines in a more realistic sense, however, is essentially pointless. Why? Because we all have different palates. I, for instance, like more challenging and austere wines. It's rare for me to like - or even see the value in - many 95+ Parker point wines... not because I have a better or worst palate than he does, but because I have a DIFFERENT palate. With Robert Parker, you deal with a well-defined style; many wineries around the world have been "Parkerized," meaning that they produce bigger, more concentrated, fruit-forward wines, because that's what Parker likes. So, when you buy a wine with a 95+ Parker score, you know that is going to be a big juicy wine. Easy. With a lot of wine publication, however, it's not that simple. You don't deal with just one palate or style, so the scores are all over the map, which makes deciding on a wine even harder for the final consumer. The scores just confuse the situation. And that's not even considering the fact that these publications also need to generate revenue of their own, leaving any active consumer with lingering suspicions regarding the origin of a wine's score. It is a vicious circle that can lead to uniform wines - if all producers start to make their wines for the critics, we will lose diversity for the sake of just a few palates. This is already happening in many places, like Chile and Spain... and the noble region of Montalcino.

So let's find a new way to talk about wines together. Let's look at these beautiful juices with a perspective that is less mathematical and more empirical. Let's focus more on the right fit than on an abstract search for a non-existent "best." Wine is a complex matter, and I think that trying to simplify it is not the best we can do to transfer our passion to fellow enthusiasts. I think that the best thing we can do as wine professionals is to teach the people how to think with their own heads (and palates) instead of relying on someone else's numerical accounts. Let's get to it.
... Buona Bevuta a Tutti

What Has Happened to the Journey?

A wise man once said that the greatest pleasure is not in the destination, but in the journey. In today's world, it seems we are way too focused on our destinations, so much so that we rush through our journeys, or we take the so-called shortcuts. Applied to wine, the journey is the time a vine needs to grow deep roots, or for a bottle to develop and reach its potential. When I try a new wine or a new vintage of something previously tried, I usually open it, pour a small amount in the glass, and try it right there to get an idea of the wine's initial condition. This helps me foresee how much time it needs to be ready to be drunk. A decanter will speed the process up, but sometimes it will speed it up too much, with the risk that the wine will die in your glass. Of course, you'll get the wine ready in a much shorter amount of time, but in doing so, you'll miss the journey, you'll miss years of the wine's life. To me, it's like giving birth to a kid that is already 21 years old and an adult, and I would hate to lose the experience of all of the years in between. I learned about the pleasure of the journey by riding motorcycles. I used to take long trips, and always chose the side roads over the highways, if only because they are much more beautiful to ride. I once went from Manhattan to Montreal, a ride that would have taken 8 hours on the highway. It took us 3 days, but it was one of the most wonderful trips I have ever taken. I was lucky enough to experience a wine after I saw, 5 years before, the vines right after they'd been planted. I saw them growing, until they were old enough to produce wine, and then tried the wine, and realize that it was better the day after it had been opened. The way I see it, waiting for a wine or the vines to be ready should be, romantically, part of the enjoyment. Seeing how it develops, like a baby taking its first steps, or saying its first words, is an irreplaceable experience.
Buona Bevuta a Tutti

Nice evening at The Ten Bells

I was introduced to The Ten Bells a few months ago, when I went for the Dresners' after-tasting party. Since then, I've been back another 4 times and liked it more every time. This is probably because it took me some time to get over the fact that they are cash only, and they serve amazing wines, but in the smallest glasses imaginable. The Ten Bells is a very informal French Bistro with no menus or lists. Everything they serve is written on huge chalk boards on the walls, where the decor is proportionally inverse to the quality of the plates and wines served. The service is home style, but the staff has a good grip on their extended wine list. As you can see in the picture to your left, they use a Erlenmeryer flask as decanter, the silverware is available in water glasses, and the bar napkins can be found in good old-fashioned silver dispensers, a symbol of many diners around the world.
Last night I went there with Bobby, an old friend who had moved to Austin a year ago or so. He came to visit and I brought him to The Ten Bells for some wine and food. We chose an impressive bottle of Chinon 1989 from Olga Raffault, an organic producer, like all others present on their list. This was a Cabernet Franc from 50 year-old vines, facing south over the beautiful Loire Valley, in Savigny en Veron. Emily, our helpful and prepared wine-tender uncorked the bottle and poured some in the 500 ml "decanter" and a small amount into our tiny glasses. Contradictions are part of the charm of this place, and I have learned to love them. The wine was already open and still very vibrant in the nose, the palate, and the finish - it really didn't show 20 years of age. Herbal spices, red currant with hints of mushrooms and barnyard filled the nose, very elegant, with a complex simplicity typical of wines made by great "vignerole" that respect the vines more than favoring the cellar. While the wine was breathing we picked from the above-mentioned chalk board a spicy duck tartare, some delicate and lean lamb prosciutto, an octopus and potato salad, delicious, warm, seductive, and spicy that comfortably melted in my mouth, and finally, some trustworthy Cacciatorini. The Chinon was flowing and quickly opening (even too quickly), with persistent minerality and clearthinness. The wine was structured and ethereal and the texture built on the mature and yet still firm tannins. In the end, I'm not sure this bottle benifitted from decanting, as it had a fairly short window of vibrancy, and I had the sensation that the wine was descending by the last glass.

If you'd like to go there, I highly reccomend it - try to abide the unwritten house rules, and bring cash since no plastic is accepted.

The Ten Bells is located at 247 Broome St., between Ludlow and Orchard.

Buona Bevuta a Tutti

A volte capita...

...di svegliarsi non immaginando quel che si scoprira`, a volte capita di leggere una frase che cattura la tua attenzione non sapendone ancora il motivo, a volte capita di chiedere perche` "non ha senso" e di scoprire che un'amico di vecchia data se ne andato sbattendo addosso ad una macchina. La vita e anche questo purtroppo!!!
Ciao Riccardo Riposa In Pace

Sadly I have to announce...

...that my journey in the United States has come to an end.
I sold the store and I'll be moving to Australia where I was hired by Yellow Tail. I'll be their ambassador to enhance the perception of the high quality levels Yellow Tail wines had reached to the world population.
I'll be gone by the end of the month it was a pleasure talking with you all for so many years.

Buona Bevuta a Tutti and Happy April's Fool