Beaujolais Nouveau – or What I used to Drink as a Child…

My dad used to drink and my mom did not like it. But that’s not the side of the story I want to say. The story is that Dad used to let us, kids, taste from his glass. Face it: back in Europe we tasted from Dad’s glass and we ended up being way better behaved than our American peers. But I digress…

Anyway, Dad used to drink a lot of bulk wine. That’s how they make it, back in Europe. You go to a small wine store that has the wines in barrels, you taste, you like – you buy it in a plastic two-liter bottle. You don’t age it (and they probably don’t, either), you don’t store it in a cellar. It’s the wine for a day or two – just drink it. Dad used to chill his, white or red, especially in the summer. And at dinner he’d have a glass or two, and in-between he’d sneak in the kitchen and get a few sips more.

I did not drink until two years ago. I still get tipsy from a full glass of wine. And since I started wine school and wine tastings, I could never find the taste of wine my dad used to drink. Until two weeks ago.

We tasted in class a flick of wines, and among them was a Beaujolais Nouveau from Burgundy, France, made out of black Gamay grapes. The professor explained that it is a limited release and there is a whole fuss around it, all according to French legislation. The wine is fermented for a few short weeks after harvest, does not get tannin-taste, it stays very fresh and fruity. You can’t keep it more than one year, it’s not a wine that can be aged. It is released one minute after midnight, the third Thursday of November and (if you’re lucky) you can find it until the end of December, when the sale stops. Before drinking it, you have to chill it a bit, maybe 30-40 min.

To me, Beaujolais Nouveau smelt like sunny late fall days, back in Europe… scarf days – not too cold, not too hot. The taste of it suddenly reminded me of Dad and all his quiet funny faces, behind Mom’s back. I went to Trader Joe’s and bought two more bottles, so I can sip and miss Dad even more.

If you want to try it, it works really well with cheese, chicken, turkey and other winter meat dishes but it’s not big enough for steak. And it’s under $10 for a bottle. Worth bringing it to family gatherings and events where you could stick your nose in the glass and answer only if asked. J

 

A View Over the Picket Fence

You know that dream you’re chasing? Or the one that went away and you’re still thinking about it? Well, for me the 2011 Russian River Valley Picket Fence Pinot Noir was both.

Found it once, by accident, at Costco. We could not skip an interesting wine sold at 10-12 bucks. At least we could try something new and not cry for the money, if it was bad. Came home, opened the bottle, sat to have dinner in front of TV and the fist sip of the 2011 Picket Fence Pinot Noir made me stop and reevaluate the moment.

I like earthy Pinots, not too oaky, full of fruits and with a dash of spice. Picket Fence added a velvet finish to all these. Suddenly, I had cherries splashing in my mouth, over the pork chop I was munching, and all went down so smoothly, so perfectly, like the accomplished dream of sitting on your porch, at dusk, looking over the white fence you wished for so long.

And then, we returned to Costco and could not find it again. Nor in other stores we tried to find it. So, I settled on the idea that I lost the perfect Pinot Noir, the one that made me sigh at first sip.

Well, until yesterday, when we went to Bottle Barn and there it was, my porky-Pinot, my mushroomy-lover, my light-until-I-hit-you-with-the-spice Picket Fence.

Bought two. I should have gotten more. Ah, well, I’m not sharing it!

 

The French Concoction. Again!

I’ve stayed away of French wines, for a long time. I did not like the mystical reverence expressed by American wine snobs – who can’t pronounce a French word, to save their lives. And I was afraid they may make me homesick. In Europe we do like lighter wine, with less bells and whistles than the New World adds to them. We like to enjoy wine and we knock ourselves out with heavier things.

Anyway, after being so impressed by a French Pinot, hand in hand with my Cellar Master, we hit BevMo, to discover more reds. We mixed a case, since they had again the 0.05 cents second bottle promotion. We came home with more of the Wilfred Wong’s over 90 points selection. Just so that you know: when it is about wine critics, I love more Wilfred Wong than Robert Parker. Wong is down to earth. Parker is up in the clouds. Two outstanding critics, but at the end of the day Wong is the one I would care to share a glass. We’d have things to discuss about.

So, here is the pick of the day: the 2009 Émile Chandesais Bourgogne Pinot Noir. It is made out of 100% Pinot Noir grapes. I picked it because of the 90 Wong Points and because it told me it has 12.5% alcohol. Pinot Noirs are hard to make because the grapes are very fickle – the slightest changes in weather can impact them easily. So, anything with less than the “decency limit” of 13% tells me that the wine was carefully crafted and not overwhelmed with alcohol, to hide some grapes or winemaking defects. In my humble opinion, it is an art to make a wine with lower alcohol and keep it pleasant.

 
The 2009 Émile Chandesais Bourgogne Pinot Noir was $19.99 at BevMo and I found it under $12 online. It is worth the 90 points. I’ll save the second bottle, for a rainy day. The 2009 Émile Chandesais Bourgogne Pinot Noir had, again a fresh and nice smell, notes of my beloved cherries and was slightly earthy. I loved the purple-red color, the overall lightness, yelling for less and easier food. It made me imagine a not-so-beautiful-but-lovely French woman, properly walking in her cute (and FIT) high-heels and dragging behind a light veil of perfume. I can talk volumes about wearing perfume and high heels in Europe – versus the American “we are a non-fragrance environment”, improper walking in high-heels and the improper fitting a pair of shoes, that makes me sick to my stomach – but I’ll stop here.

 

Do You Parlez French? – Domaine Jessiaume Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2009

It happened during last night’s class, when my lovely American wine instructor was innocently screeching French appellations into my ears. We tasted a line of Chardonnays from all over the world and I still could not find THE One. Five reds then sat for a bit on my table, so they’d breathe and give me their zest.

Half-awake and ready to zip through the line, I swirled the first glass and stuck my face into it.

Cherries suddenly slapped my nose. Big, meaty, dark, sweet cherries, like the ones that make me dig and fish them through the whole Cherry Garcia ice-cream pint. I closed my eyes. I swirled and smelled, again, and once more, hoping not to be disappointed. Sometimes there is a disconnect between the smell and the taste of a wine. I sipped, did the mouth-walk-around tasting tricks by the book, and then spit it.

Damn the spitting! The Domaine Jessiaume Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2009 felt lively, velvety, slightly acid, low in alcohol. I loved-loved-loved it!

I zapped through the other four wines, thinking I may have been wrong. I begged Willamette Valley, Sonoma Coast and New Zealand for more cherries, less leather taste, less tannin, less boldness and spiciness. I wanted to make sure I was not biased toward the French wine only because it reminds me of Europe and the dry, light and lively wines we like there. As I went through other glasses, I gave fewer and fewer points for color, aroma, flavors, texture and balance. The others fell flat of impressing me.

And back I went to my new French amour, ditching the rules, swallowing sip by sip by sip – eyes closed and throat filled with love. There were more cherries, even more cherries, a bit of vanilla and all I could imagine were red hearts, red roses, delicate aged-paper labels and, eventually, a château in Europe, where people can properly pronounce: Domaine Jessiaume Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2009. 

(Price: $19.49)

 

All I Trash for Christmas…

All I Trash for Christmas….

 

What’s in a Name? Your whole future!

There are a few weeks since name-giving obsesses me. First – I had to change the name of my cat. Then, I got to listen to various jokes about new babies’ names. Then, it was work-related stuff about wineries’ names. All those made me think about the unfortunate word-combinations some people make when they establish something.

Let’s take my cat, for example. She is a cranky beauty who spits on everyone, but adores me. Born in a barn, she was named Foxy by her previous male owner. Can you believe the misfortune of having a man naming her, and living her first years with a peasant name? Well, it took a whole afternoon for three of us going through the dictionary and mythology, to find a name suitable to her personality. We gave her a short goddess name, from an exotic foreign language. How many of you dare to call your cats anything less than god-like creatures? They are the very definition of elegance and aristocracy! The only peasant term allowed for ours, now, is “bitch” – when she scratches the couch. But that’s all.

I’ll skip all together the issue of naming your kid all sorts of apple sauces and things he/she will be mocked and traumatized in school. That’s your choice for his and your future mental health.

And let me go to naming a business – in this case some wineries. I was frustrated typing business name that goes like “Albatross with Three Wings Vineyard and Winery”. Then, here it comes the domain website, under this name, and the emails for employees – that may sound like winemaker.spitzenberger@albatrosswiththreewingswines.com. Oops. I just filled more than half line on my Word page. Would you like an email that long? Me neither!

I mean, really? Do you want your customers to remember THAT name? Do you want them to get the email address right from the first three trials? How do you carve your name in their minds? And, oh, foreign words that mean something only to YOU will eventually lead to countless daily questions about the meaning and typing – and trust me, spelling my last name every single damn time is not funny, either.

Just remember, when you establish your business – keep the name short, sweet, easy. People identify with things they understand and reject the unknown. If you can, spend an extra 200 bucks for a marketing whiz who can think for you. You’ll spare everybody’s time and nerves, in the future, and make your money back in no time.

 

The Case for Spitting

Your mamma taught you the good manners about not spitting in public. And it is very likely that some other people in your life were really passionate non-spitting advocates. Yet, there is an active spitters group, and they are not displaying bad manners. They simply don’t want to get high.

We are talking now about spitting wine as a way for not getting drunk.

Yes, for the purposes of this blog, spitting is allowed.

By now, you’ve probably seen wine tasters who ask for the spitting bucket or cup. They take a sip of wine, swirl it through their mouth, gargle it and spit it out. Then they take notes on a little journal about the taste. Their tongue gets the flavors of the wine, the different components of it – but the wine does not get into their blood stream and they won’t get drunk. Think about the fact that professional tasters can evaluate up to 100 wines a day, for judging competitions. That is a lot. And for amateurs like me, the whole purpose of wine tasting is not to get drunk, but to discover new wines I would like to buy and bring home, share with friends.

Unfortunately, many tasting rooms don’t give you a spitting cup. It is no shame in asking for one. Better than swallowing (and we are specifically talking about swallowing wine). Case in point – me, two nights ago, at a tasting at Whole Foods. Don’t get me wrong, I love the place and the people working there. My problem was that I did not ask for a spitting cup and they generously pour – while wineries sparingly drip in your glass. And I liked the wine. And there were five wines. And I thought about what my mamma said “it’s not nice to spit.”

Well, it was the boyfriend’s task to drag me home and mock me all the way back. Although, I am sure he is a non-spitting advocate, as well.

 

The Sniffing Issue

We are all sniffing creatures. Things we eat or drink, should smell good to us. While the tongue recognizes five tastes, our nose can identify hundreds of scents. If you ever tasted something without smelling it, you lost more than half of the pleasure. This being said, let’s see how and why people sniff the wine, before tasting it.

Swirl and sniff: After you looked at the color, you should swirl the glass and smell the wine inside it, to see if you like it. When it is sealed in the bottle, the wine does not interact with the oxygen (it can cause oxidizing and the wine goes bad). But once it gets poured in the glass and swirled, the particles in the wine get mixed with the oxygen from the air, they “breathe” and release the smell. Sniffing is an important factor in evaluating if you like the wine or not – but not the only one. I have smelled wines that didn’t give much away, but had an absolutely wonderful taste. And I experienced wines that smelled divine and only to leave a nasty aftertaste. There are surprises in every vintage.

How to do it: The proper swirling is done by holding the glass by its stem. If you hold it by the “fatty” part, the wine gets warm from your hand and you don’t want to change its temperature, which may change the taste as well. There is another way or swirling it, without splashing it over your clothes – and I, the queen of klutzes – do it like this: set the glass on the table, hold the stem wherever is convenient for you, keep it pressed on the table and make a few round circles with the glass, for 10-15 seconds. After you swirl, you can stick your nose inside the glass, any way you feel comfortable to do it. Make sure to close your eyes for a few seconds – to suppress sight and enhance the other senses. Then, smell the wine. Let your nose and mind recognize the scents. Don’t worry if you cannot identify them all, as the specialists do. That part does not matter. What matters is your experience, what the smell makes you feel. And, trust me: you will be able to make the difference between a good wine and a bad one.

What to smell: There are specialists who recommend sniffing only the reds – because those are “big wines”. I’d say – bollocks. You should smell whites, reds, sparkling and spirits. I’ve recently had a spirits tasting at a distillery and while the alcohol stung my nose, I could identify the cherry and smoked flavors of the single malt. And this was pretty big for someone who knew nothing to zero about wines, just a few months ago.

 

Red and Blanc and Purple Wines

As everything else that touches your senses, drinking wine is connected with pleasure. Wine appeals to your eyes, taste and smell. Whether is red, rose or white, all wines are made to please you, the wine lover. Here are a few ideas about how you can improve your wine tasting experience, step by step.

A professional wine taster or critic would do like this: pour a bit (three or four small sips or a quarter glass), look at the color, swirl the glass, smell the aroma, taste the wine and spit – because he is not supposed to get “happy” but to evaluate wines. The order of a tasting would be whites before red, dryer before sweeter, lighter wines before big and powerful ones, and young wines before older wines. But there is no order or rule you, the wine lover, have to respect. The only good wine is the one you like and the only rule is the one you want to make. However, the following suggestions are meant to help you get more pleasure from a glass.

The Glass: Back in Europe, at home, we use simple wine glasses for everyday drinking. Here in the States everybody makes a big fuss about the shape of the proper wine glass. Blah-blah. The only thing I would highly recommend is to use a clean glass recipient – and not a plastic one. The shape really does not matter or make you any smarter (I know, snobs would eat me for this). A clean glass would allow you to see the color. The visual aspect of a wine is important – because you can distinguish the age and the defects (if any).

The Color: The wine should be clear of any insertions. You don’t drink dirty water, dirty soda, and dirty wine means that it was not crafted carefully or it had some problems after bottling. You deserve a clear, clean wine – it is a form of respect for you as a customer. White wines are usually light yellow, even pale (if too pale, they have too much sulfite), going toward pleasant golden. An orange wine has too many additions and there was definitely something wrong with it, in order to get stabilized to that color. As they age, they get darker, brownish they oxidize. A red young wine looks purple when it is young, and it gets dark deep red, then brown, as they age. Again, oxidation takes place in the bottle, during years.

Next blog I will be pointing to a few things about aromas, and explain why you should smell the wine, before tasting it.

 

In the Name of the Mother

How many times did you write down your thoughts, because you consider them valuable? From journals to books, people write to be recognized or because they have something to say. I write because I want my mother to know. This primary lesson I got starting my journalist career: “you have to explain the news simply and effectively – so your mother can understand.”

My mom often asks me how it is where I live and what things I am going through. She is 63 years old and was not exposed to as many foreign things as I was (and still am). I have to detail things simply and carefully – as she lives in Eastern Europe, where culture and laws are entirely different. I want her to be part of my life and experiences.

Talking about the wine industry and agriculture is the same (at least as much as I have learned so far). I just heard in class: less than 2% of the Americans are involved in any form of agriculture. A speaker from the Farm Bureau of Sonoma County (California) explained most kids have never touched any animal other than a cat, dog or guinea pig. How will they know that meat comes from a chicken, a pig or a cow, if they have never been around one? Do we want to raise a generation of ignorance? Can you wrap your mind around the fact that 98% of a population of 313,232,044 people* has little to no idea where exactly the egg comes from?

Coming back to another segment of agriculture – grapes and wine, I must say that I was terrified of the topic, before I started taking classes about it, three months ago. Then I was revolted to learn that wine is considered a luxury product, and the sophistication well maintained in explaining about wine keeps people away from enjoying and consuming it. How then, would winemakers explain their existence and work if they want to share the product with only a selective circle? If the lack of information prevents my mother discovering and enjoying wine, then I have to write about it; my mother deserves to know as well.

*That is the population estimate in July 2011, according to the CIA’s World Factbook (you can look it up online, it is a US government source)