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Adapted and edited from: How To Turn A Good Wine Bad
“The Misadventures of Fred and Irma Gormand”
by Richard Scheer,
Owner of the Village Corner, Ann Arbor
It’s a special day at the Gormand household: Fred and Irma’s 13th wedding anniversary. That afternoon, Fred gets a call at the office. “Fred, let’s celebrate tonight! I found a great recipe for Tuna-Stuffed Artichokes in Vinegar-ette. It says artichokes are for lovers, Fred. Honey, pick me up some tuna fish and artichokes at the supermarket on the way home, will ya?”
Sounds good to Fred. He stops off at the market and on his way to the produce section he spots a big display of Colorado wines. “It’s Colorado Wine Month!” the banner proclaims. The wheels start to turn. “Hey, tonight’s the night,” thinks Fred. “Let’s have wine.” He spots a pretty label. “Hey, this one’s got a French name. And a year, too! Must be good! Probably can’t say it right. Hmmm. 1995 Chambourcin. Special price, too. Better grab three bottles.”
Fred gets home and throws a bottle in the fridge. Maybe another one too...for the weekend. He puts the third bottle away in the cupboard. Come dinnertime, Fred retrieves the first bottle and tries to twist the cap off. His brawny hands pull the capsule free. “Oh, boy! A cork! This must be fancy stuff!” Fred gets out his Swiss-Army knife, twists its tiny spiral into the cork and manages to yank out the top half. His Lilliputian tool won’t reach the rest of the cork, so Fred takes a spoon and pushes the rest of the cork into the bottle with the handle. Squirt! Splash! Fred goes to change his shirt, his ardor dampened.
Soon Fred and Irma repair to dinner by candlelight. Holding the floating cork remnant down with the spoon handle, Fred pours generous tumblers full of the brilliant red wine for him and his bride. The bride first, of course. Fred is such a gentleman. Fred takes a big quaff. “Hey, this stuff is really bitter!” He takes a mouthful of tuna. “Tastes like tin cans too! Ugh!”
Meanwhile, Irma is chewing away at the spiny artichoke leaves. She tastes the wine. “Bitter? Are you crazy?” “Tastes sweet to me,” she observes. Fred scoops up some sauce. “Well, I say bitter! Sour, too. This wine is just plain bad. No wonder it was on sale. They probably couldn’t get rid of it! I’m kissing’ this dog goodbye and grabbin’ me a brew. Wait ‘til I tell the guys at the office about Colorado wine.”
Oh, boy! A family spat over a Colorado wine...just what our winemaker’s need! Looks like Fred and Irma’s 13th anniversary was an unlucky one. Unlucky? Better to call it ‘unlearned’. Because there was absolutely nothing wrong with the wine. Somehow, Fred managed to turn one of Colorado’s Finest into an unpleasant experience for both he and Irma. What happened? What went wrong? Well, there are several lessons here.
LESSON ONE:
If you don’t know what you’re buying,
ask for advice.
Fred’s wine knowledge seems pretty rudimentary. Still, he went ahead and bought on impulse a wine he knew nothing about. His instincts weren’t bad. Pretty label = good wine? Well, actually, the label is part of the total wine experience, so a pretty label can’t hurt. French name = good wine? Why not? American winemakers and wine lovers alike respect the centuries-old quality tradition of winemaking. Vintage date = good wine? It’s true that winemakers are inclined to vintage-date their finer products. Helpful to consumers, this is a statement both of age and of the uniqueness of each growing season.
So, without advice Fred selected a darn good bottle of Colorado wine. He couldn’t help it. Stores aren’t dumping grounds for distressed
products. It is not in the interest of anyone in the industry—winery, wholesaler, retailer—to offer flawed wines. The primary point of features, specials and displays is to make that extra sale, not to get rid of “dogs.” This particular feature was effective; instead of one bottle, Fred bought three.
Where Fred really needed advice was in wine use, and wine service. This is where he really flubbed. If he’d gotten advice from a wine merchant specialist, he would have ended up with a different Colorado wine to accompany Tuna-Stuffed Artichokes in “vinegar-ette” and with instructions pertaining to its proper service. Buying wine in stores is natural and convenient. It works best when you know what you’re buying, because advice is scarce in a self-service type of shopping environment.
LESSON TWO:
Temperature matters.
Fred made a big mistake chilling down his 1995 Tambourine. A young wine from one of our state’s finest red grape varieties, this wine contains a measure of tannin, extracted from grape skins during fermentation and from oak barrels during aging. To the taste, tannin gives senses of astringency and dryness at the back of the tongue and upper palate, like strong tea.
Tannin can be good. Mildly tannic red wines have a pleasant cut and cleansing effect when served with beef, lamb and game. Also, tannin acts as one of red wine’s preservatives, allowing them to develop complex bouquets as the tannin melts away over years of cellaring. However, chilling red wine with tannin accentuates tannin’s aggressiveness, just as strong iced tea seems more astringent than strong hot tea. Fred brought out the ugly side of tannin. No wonder he found the wine “bitter.”
LESSON THREE:
Use a good corkscrew.
A good corkscrew has a long spiral -a helix, not an auger. Through one ingenious design or another, it eases the work of removing the cork and ensures success. A wine merchant’s salesperson could have shown Fred many good corkscrews that guarantee years of service, yet cost less than the average price of a bottle of wine. And a cork extractor, too...just in case something still goes wrong.
LESSON FOUR:
Use good stemware.
There are wines and times for tumblers: for carefree quaffing, gulping for refreshment. A candle-lit anniversary dinner is hardly the proper scenario though. This is a quiet time for sniffing, sipping and appreciating all the joys of the wine experience. Fred and Irma never even mentioned their Chambourcin's aroma. Chilled down and in wide-mouth tumblers, the wine hardly had a chance to express itself.
Glasses matter. Stemware is essential. Thin glass makes the wine experience seem more elegant. Clear, unfaceted glass enhances wine’s visual appeal. Large bowls tapered toward the top amplify aroma and bouquet appreciation. Austrian glassmaker Riedel has perfected over 60 glasses specific to individual wine types. Try the same wine in three different Riedel glasses, and you’d swear you tasted three different wines. Yet even Riedel glasses cost as little as $7 a stem, and there are many other handsome wine glasses on the wine merchant’s shelves for even less.
LESSON FIVE:
Wine and food matching counts.
Oh, it’s not a precise science; just a pleasant, life-long pursuit that pays dividends. True, most wines and most foods march across the palate together in amiable enough fashion. With a little advice and planning though, you can achieve a state of wine-and-food Nirvana, where each brings out new facets of the other and the whole experience becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
With no advice, sometimes you’ll end up in Fred and Irma’s shoes. Irma cooked up certain disaster for Fred’s Chambourcin. The tannin in this red wine interacted with the halogens in the tuna to produce a metallic aftertaste Fred called “tin cans.” Match only low-tannin red wines with fish; be especially careful with rather strong, oily types like tuna.
Paradoxically, Irma found sweetness in a wine Fred pronounced “bitter.” That’s because she was wrestling with artichoke leaves. A natural chemical in artichokes makes accompanying beverages taste sweeter. Then Fred got a tart, “sour” impression of his Chambourcin after he tasted the vinegary sauce. Vinegar is a wine killer; vinegar-laced courses require very careful wine planning.
Now, what lessons await Fred and Irma when they open their second and third bottles of Chambourcin? |