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Wine School!

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Last night was my first time back in an official classroom as a student since I graduated college in the ‘90s. Earlier this year, I signed up for the WSET class with no expectations. It’s mostly for fun and for some intellectual stimulation, but I’m keeping an open mind, and eager to see if this leads anywhere.

The six-week class I’m taking at the Capital Wine School is all about preparing you for the exam. There’s an official study guide and workbook and I have a feeling there will be quite a bit of memorization in my near future. It’s also very focused on how to taste using the specific WSET method. I already know I need help in this area, and I was reminded of that with the very first wine we tasted (why did I pick up vanilla notes in a wine that never saw any oak? oy!). 

I don’t want to use this space to rehash each class, but I think it would be fun to leave behind some tidbits I found noteworthy. That includes answers to random questions asked in class, or little factoids our instructor decides to share. So let’s get started:

  • Food is the culprit for most negative interactions with wine.
  • Italy is having one of its worst vintages since the 1950s because they’ve had too much rain this year. Their yields are about 15 percent less than where they should be. 
  • Stones in the soil can help with heat retention.
  • Don’t confuse acidity with finish. Wait for the fruit and other flavors of the wine to appear after the sides of your tongue stops twitching from the acid.
  • Just because you might taste the residual sugars in a wine, does not mean it’s a sweet wine.
  • That feeling of warmth down your throat and into your chest when you drink a glass of wine is the alcohol. More warmth, the higher the alcohol content.
  • Super Tuscan wines were created in the 1960s when winemakers didn’t want to adhere to the rules of the Italian DOC. Those winemakers soon discovered their wines were far superior, and continued to make them. It allowed them to charge more for their wine, even without the official protected of designation status.
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The Price of Discovery

It’s always a little disheartening to discover the $10/glass of wine you’re enjoying at a neighborhood watering hole is in reality less than $10 a bottle retail. But spending $20 last night on this very purple wine was well worth the price. The combination of trying and enjoying something completely new (to me), a lively atmosphere and an evening with a close friend all added to the experience.

I wouldn’t have known to choose it, except it was listed on the restaurant’s rotating blackboard and when I asked what exactly it was, the bartender gave me a splash (as a side note: I absolutely adore bartenders who pour a splash for themselves to taste at the same time. There’s an odd reassurance in it). 

The wine, from Macedonia (and yes, I just looked its location up so you don’t have to: It’s about halfway between the heel of Italy’s boot and Turkey, just north of Greece.) is made from the Vranec grape. (Don’t ask – I’ve never heard of this until now and will Google appropriately before the end of this post). A rich purple color in the glass, with not a very distinguishable nose (at least to me). On the palate, it presented with deep (but not very sweet) fruit, yet it wasn’t jammy and provided a really nice medium-to-full-bodied mouthfeel. It ended slightly lighter with a combination of earth and chalk. Its finish isn’t too long or overly tannic, and wraps up the wine quite nicely.

So just what is Vranec? I’ll let you read the description on Wine-Searcher here.

Fortunately, I found a local retailer who sells this by the bottle. With tax, it will come to a penny less than my price per glass. I’ll always be frustrated with the three-tier wine buying system that not only jacks up the price of wines, but lets restaurants charge so much more. But for the fun discovery on its own, I won’t complain.

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It’s crazy how much people care about Prosecco and Sancerre. If you opened a wine distribution company and called it SanSecco you could retire to an island and just have them send you the checks.

Katell Plevin, former actress, turned successful wine importer, gives Wall Street Journal’s Lettie Teague an interesting interview on switching careers, handling rejection in both fields, and balancing the wines she loves with what will actually sell.
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So long as we have summertime weather, it’s still rosé season, so in honor of Brangelina, I’m giving Chateau Miraval a try. Why is it nearly impossible to criticize them? Lovely fruit, nice and dry, although a bit sour on the finish. 🍷

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Modern Love

I. Want. This. Room. Everything about it – the plain white walls, the gorgeous amount of natural light coming in from a gigantic floor-to ceiling square window, and that huge reclaimed wood dining table. Oh? And those wine bottle chandeliers? Beyond love. The folks over at Popsugar (h/t to @alawine on twitter), suggest a much smaller DIY version. But let’s face it, I’m not a DIY kind of gal, nor does my current 760-square-foot home have a proper place for it. Besides, it barely stands up to the grandeur of this. Maybe one day. Sitting at this table, in this room, with a bottle of red, and a friend or two (or five or six) would absolutely be divine. 

(original source of this photo is Maison Estate in South Africa)

Wine, California Style

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Sometimes you just have to give in to the rabbit hole you fall down while surfing the Internet. And if it happens at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday after a holiday weekend and continues after lunch and into the afternoon, you just have to smile and be OK with that.

Today’s journey landed me at the website of WhitneyA  – a blogger, sommelier, online retailer, wine shop worker, educator, and I’m sure she wears several other hats that I haven’t discovered yet. She pairs a youthful California style with interesting wines in a very approachable and fun manner. Online it translates into some lovely eye candy.

As I try to figure out where I fit in the wine world (Is this just a hobby? Could it be something more? Am I on the cusp of a career change? Or is this just a passing fad?), she demonstrates the creativity I realize I’m lacking in my own discoveries.

I think that creativity shines best in this two-year-old short video series, she did in conjunction with food blogger Claire Thomas (I’ll have to explore her world another day). Here’s one of the dozen or so videos they created. Take note of her “tasting notes” prior to the written words that scrawl across the screen. It’s a subtle, yet very alluring way of capturing the flavors and properties of the wine. 

//player.vimeo.com/video/28024702?color=fedec7

(And if you’re curious on how I went down this particular rabbit hole – here’s the journey: It started with this tweet. That led me to this feature; and more specifically this profile. I can’t tell you the aha moment that told me explore further into her website or why 20 pages of the blog later I’m still clicking. But that eventually led to an online store and ultimately to the video series.) 

Napa Earthquake: What About the Soil?

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Since so many great wines are an expression of place, when I woke up last weekend to the news of a 6.0 earthquake in Napa Valley – after the immediate concerns that follow natural disasters – one of my first thoughts was this:

Is this going to change the soil? Will more interesting Napa wines be made in the future?

I’m not a scientist nor have I ever studied geology, but it would make sense to me, especially close to the fault line. 

While I haven’t seen this question answered yet, Smithsonian Magazine does start to examine Napa’s earth and how quakes have transformed the region into a spectacular place for growing grapes.

Fault activity, as well as erosion via wind and rain, continued to break apart the many types of rocks around the valley, depositing their riches on the valley floor. The end result is the Napa Valley’s spectacular diversity of soil: over 100 variations, or equal to half of the world’s soil orders. In wine growing, soil diversity is extremely advantageous, allowing numerous grape varieties to grow in a relatively small area. In the southern part of the Napa Valley, for instance, the calcium-rich soil favors pinot noir grapes. In the north, more volcanic soils help cabernet grapes thrive.

Take a read here: Why Earthquakes Make Napa Wine Taste So Good 

(photo by balaji shankar venkatachari via flickr.com)

Quote itswinebyme

The fruit is coming in for a record harvest. The weather is fantastic so far. The quality is fantastic so far. It’s almost as if this year was too good to be true. Instead of rain or hail, we had an earthquake to screw it up.

– Steve Matthiasson on Sunday’s 6.0 earthquake centered near Napa Valley. He puts the earthquake damage into perspective in this LA Times interview.

How Restaurant Wine Lists Are Sexist

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Just because you want an Old Fashioned, doesn’t mean you need to be old fashioned….

Bad headline, on an otherwise good column. The list itself is not sexist. This piece is really about how the wine list is given to a table. The crux of this chef’s frustrations mirror mine – there’s only one list that everyone has to share, which doesn’t give patrons enough time to decide before the server tries to take a drink order.

The sexism, of course, stems from its history, which I’m glad the author included:

The one-wine-list convention harkens back to before the 19th-century creation of the modern restaurant concept, and as mentioned has everything to do with patriarchy. At Spanish dinner tables, for example, the head of the table (read: the father) would be given a traditional Spanish carafe of wine called a Porrón, which sported a long, tapered spout that facilitated reach and aim as he poured wine, at his sole discretion, directly into the mouths of his sons.

You’ll note I said, “sons,” because the mother and any daughters were not at the table – they were serving the meal.

Later, as haute cuisine took hold in France and then in America, stuffy maître d’s in long white aprons would present the head of the table with a menu and a wine list, and the lady would receive a food menu with no prices listed (she presumably should not worry her pretty little head about such things). 

Now if there’s sexism in the way the actual list is created, then that’s a story I’d really find interesting. 

How Restaurant Wine Lists Are Sexist