Big Fat Wine

In September 2007  Joel  and I had the opportunity to spend 10 days in Paris.

We arrived in the afternoon after almost a full day of travel so it was time for food and a nap.  We ate in a cafe around the corner from the hotel, fell into bed and slept.  The time difference really does mess with you.  Once we came out of hibernation it was time to explore.  We didn’t get a car because driving in Paris is way more of an adventure than I was ready for plus the metro system can get you anywhere in the city easy, cheap and fast… okay so it’s a bit crowded and there are some pretty interesting smells down some of the dark corridors but I still felt safer down there than I would have in a car considering the driving style.

We were warned, before we left, that the French were not exactly friendly to Americans and if we don’t speak French (which we don’t) people would be down right rude.  That wasn’t the experience we had.  The French people that we encountered were wonderful and very helpful.  We had a few interesting experiences when we tried to order but thank goodness everyone knew what we were saying when we ordered “house red.”

We never had a bad glass of wine or a bad cup of coffee while we were there.  Not once.

We did all the regular stuff, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Jim Morrison’s grave, but I think the best thing we did was hang out in the shadow of Sacré Coeur in the little community of Montmartre.  We just walked and ate and drank cheap wine and absorbed the local color.

This trip was amazing and I would go back today if I could.

By the way, Paris truly is the most romantic city on the planet.

As Always,

Love, Laugh, Learn… LIVE!

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Six tastes later and I do believe we discovered a brand new hangout and it’s only ten minutes away from home. The Auburn Wine and Caviar Company is truly a place worth spending some time. We had planned on going last night but our plans were deterred. It was a special Robert Mondavi tasting and celebrating the Mondavi’s 100 year anniversary. Thankfully, they had some left for us to enjoy.

I did some reading up on caviar before we left. The only caviar I have experienced was on a business flight to Sweden a few years ago and at the time I found it very inviting. If you have a “texture” plate, it’s definitely a treat. Expecting to sit down and learn about wine and caviar pairings, I asked our server, Linda, a few questions and found that guests merely order the caviar from their shop. I think I have a lot to learn before I order up a few ounces. I am looking forward to it though. It’s one of those decadent foods that seems to bring mystery and intrigue to life.

Linda was very helpful and friendly and when we found out Auburn Wine and Caviar is a popular hang out for her as well, it even had more of a draw for us. Their website says they have daily tastings from 4pm – 7pm and live music Friday’s and Sunday’s. If we don’t make it this Sunday (Father’s Day) we will definitely be back! By the way, we met a nice couple that hopefully we run into again. Jona talked to them at length (imagine that) and they seemed to enjoy wine and life.

The Auburn Wine and Caviar Company carries an extensive collection of both domestic and international wines and champagnes, as well as some really interesting beers. The wine we especially enjoyed tonight was Olympic Cellars “My Sweet Syrah” 2008.  A blend of 80% Syrah and 20% Riesling, and four-percent residual sugar, it packed a surprise with its mild sweet berries and cream flavors with a touch of pepper. We brought a bottle home and it’s surely one for a special occasion.  This might be a good wine for those who don’t normally drink red wine.   I can think of a few friends who would love this one.  We’ll be back!

As Always,

Love, Laugh, Learn… LIVE!

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Color    -    Swirl    -    Smell    - Taste    -    Savor

Now that you have taken a good look and admired the colors of the wine, the next step is the swirl it. There are those that believe swirling is unnecessary partly because wine lovers tend to perform wine swirling habits – swirling whatever they happen to be drinking at the time including iced-tea and coffee. It is important to feel comfortable swirling.

It seems almost natural to start rotating your wrist and swirling your glass of wine. You’ve seen it done in movies where the person doing it usually ends up with an unbelievably beautiful woman at the end of the night. Is that enough of a reason for you? Everybody’s doing it. We’ve been watching people do it all around us. There really is a purpose, however, to swirling: aerating a glass of wine.

Big Fat Swirl

There is a term that applies to what is happening when you are swirling a glass of wine. It is called “volatizing the esters” and it is what produces the many aromas and bouquets in the wine that are so appealing to our nose. The wine hasn’t had much contact with oxygen (hopefully) since it was put into the bottle. Just opening the bottle and letting it sit for a few minutes isn’t going to allow enough air into the wine to let it breathe. It’d be like giving a straw to someone who was drowning to help them breathe.

Red wine glasses have a much wider and deeper bowl than white wine glasses. That’s because it’s necessary for more surface area of the red wine to come in contact with the air. The process of decanting a wine follows along the same concept as swirling a glass of wine.

Take a few seconds to just look at your wine before you swirl your wine. You want to observe its colors, bits of sediment resting in the bottom of your wine glass and if the color changes from one spot in the glass to another. Next place your nose as closely to the glass and sniff the wine. Note: There will be a significant difference after you swirl.

Swirl your glass of wine. When swirling your wine it is important to be very careful to swirl gently. If you are too enthusiastic with your swirling the wine may slosh over the sides of the glass. Pinch your wine glass between your fingers; don’t grasp it so hard that you snap the delicate glass. I hate that!

Rotate your wrist gently in a counter-clockwise motion. Rotate with just enough speed that the wine starts to swirl along the sides of the glass. I read recently that it looks less cumbersome if you focus more on moving your elbow rather than your wrist.

Look for the wine trails on the sides of your wine glass. These trails indicate the wine’s alcohol content. The higher number of trails, which are called “ legs”, the more alcohol your wine contains.

Place your nose near the glass’ brim and inhale. Notice if the swirling changed the wine’s bouquet. Our next chapter is one of the most important aspects of tasting. (not drinking yet) “Smelling”.

Check out this video of Matt Skinner from www.chow.com;

In less than two decades the internet has gone from zero to hundreds of billions of pages (nobody knows how many), enabled everyone to become a publisher or broadcaster, brought the Louvre to your laptop and made it much, much harder to keep secrets. Ingenuity, creativity and out of the box thinking has resulted in technological advancements that have changed our lives and will continue to do so exponentially for years to come. While in the other lane of the highway, like a moped on the interstate, sits the 3- Tier System.

For those of you that are more informed than myself, please be patient with the rest of us wine lovers. Most states operate, by law, under a form of the 3- tier system. It refers to a system of alcohol distribution in which the producer of alcohol (the first tier) sells wine to a distributor (the second tier) who then sells wine to the restaurant or retailer (the third tier).

The cornerstone of the 3-Tier System is the 21^st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition and specifically gave the states the authority to regulate alcohol sales any way the states wanted to do it.

As a result of the state mandates that wine flow through the 3- tier system we have a point in the process where product delivery and access to products is controlled completely by the second tier, the wholesaler. Given that there are now 5000 wineries in the United States alone and thousands of imported wines, you can imagine why the wholesalers like that the state mandates the three tier system. They, by law, get a cut of nearly every bottle of wine that eventually gets into a wine lover’s hand. But there are consequences to this.

• If wholesalers won’t carry a brand, the consumer does not have ready access and the wine producer has no way to sell their wine in profitable quantities.
• The number of wholesalers has decreased to the point where only a few control the distribution of wine in the state.
• The wine producers are at the mercy of the wholesalers if they want to efficiently get their product to the consumers.
• Wholesalers are nearly immune to competition, which results in poor service, poor marketing (if any), and poor sales of the small less competitive brands.
• The power of the wholesalers leads to $$$$$$ and allows them to use huge amounts of political contributions to legislators to maintain their legal protection.
• Wine lovers only have ready access to the wines wholesalers want them to have access to.

The 3-Tier System is widely uses in business which is not inherently bad. The big difference with alcohol is that the state mandates it. This system is desperately in the need of a fix, especially if we respect the freedom of choice of the consumers. The problem does not stem from the 3-Tier System. Rather they flow from the STATE MANDATE that wine be moved through the three tier system.

There is a fix to this problem, assuming consumer access to different wines is valued.

De-mandate the three tier system.                                                                                     

This would result in a large increase the number of wines that were available to consumers because it would mean producers would have their choice to sell wine to the wholesaler, retailer or consumer without any impediments. It would mean more access to wine because presumably such a change would also lead to states allowing consumers to purchase wines from either producers or retailers located anywhere in the country. And perhaps most important, the de-mandating of the three tier system would lead to an increase in the number of wholesalers, leading to competition among them, leading to better service for the thousands of wine brands that would still choose to use a distributor.

The 3- Tier system is not bad. The STATE MANDATE of use of the 3-Tier System is bad. So, NO. The three tier system does not need to go away since using distributors is an efficient way to move large amounts of wine in far off markets. It just needs to not be mandated by the state.

(credit for exerpts from Jeff Siegel Palate Press)