Ron Edwards, Master Sommelier

Romance, embodied in the removal of the beloved cork from  a favorite wine with that pleasantly soft pop is rampant.  So many wine drinkers sincerely  express feelings of anticipation and excitement in this ritual and are completely shocked by my expressed hatred of cork.

Indeed I understand, even empathize with the emotions that surround the opening of a hopefully great bottle of wine.  In the distant past I have even beat the drum to keep cork as the premier closure for wine bottles, but the more bottles I opened the more disillusioned I became.  You see in any given year I find 1 out of every 10 bottles with a cork flawed by cork taint.  The flaw is trichloroanisole or TCA, or the newly derived bromine based compound.  Often described by the wine geeks of the world as “corky” or “corked”.

Just this week a very excited sommelier at Epic Roadhouse in San Francisco brought over a wine she hoped would intrigue us.  Joining me were Master Sommeliers Tim Gaiser and Peter Granoff and she wished to treat us.  Well much to the dismay of all the treat of an older bottle of Château Musar Blanc from Lebanon was just another reason to hate cork.  Then the 1978 Boal Madeira for dessert was tainted as well.  Yes that is two wines out of four!

In 2009 I was hosting a CRUSH Michigan charity dinner at a collectors home where the two central courses were luxuriously  joined to 1986 Château Mouton, 1986 Château Lafite, 1996 Château Petrus, and 1995 Masseto.  A killer line up of other worldly wines except all but the Masseto had one corky bottle out of the 3 for dinner.  Thousands of dollars in wine ruined, and completely unlike what the winemaker lovingly placed in the bottle many years before.  Then similarly a magnum of Petrus 1985 was opened in 2011 for our honorary chefs as a treat, it was corked as well,$10,000 down the drain.  Sadly these are only two examples of the now tens of thousands of dollars of once great wine that I have thrown away because of the cork.

In short the tragic nature of great wines being ruined by the bottle closure is ridiculous.  What other industry will tolerate a 10% or more loss in product and still be in business?  The answer is only the wine industry and it is simply, because the wineries do not get these flawed bottles dropped off at their doorstep.  Sadly, a great majority of wine drinkers are just unhappy with the wine not realizing the flaw.  They may not return the bottle but they likely will not buy it again.

Another eye-opening reality is that on average a bottle of wine lives two hours after purchase.  If you are going to open the wine in two hours then what difference does it make how they sealed it!  This being reality let’s move to a better concept.  Think back to a time before glass bottles and we find amphorae sealed with beeswax, pine resin, and straw.  That was the standard closure of the day but we would not even consider that now.  Cork is the standard closure now but we have better options.

On any given retail shelf one can now find bag in the box, tetra pak, stelvin (twist off), glass stoppers , plastic cork, composite cork, and traditional cork.  I assure you that twist off and the glass stopper method far exceed cork, and composite cork, in guaranteeing that what the wine maker worked so hard to create is exactly what you are getting.

As a follow up to the article Taste Like a Pro, I am offering another method for tasting.  In order to taste well, and describe even better, you have to develop language that explains wine.  Most importantly the language has to communicate wine to others in a concise way that is common to both parties.  I have found that using everyday food experiences is the best solution.

The first step to getting your wine vocabulary functional is to actually notice nuances in wine and that is where most wine drinkers stumble.  What I would like to have each of you do is to start using a check off list for aroma and taste.  I have included an example of a simple check off list for white and red wine.  While you smell the wine ask yourself if the items on the list mimic the actual wine.  When you hit one that correlates use that as a descriptor.  For instance a glass of white wine is front of me and so I ask does it smell like lime, yes or no.  Does it smell like lemon, apple, peach, and so on.

My hope is that you will find what thousands of my students have discovered, your perception just needs to access your memory.  Go ahead depend on your 10,000 distinct aroma memories.  They will not let you down.

White Wines Cheat Sheet

Wine was never meant to be, well, mysterious. Wine is after all just a beverage to be enjoyed, and appreciation is really quite simple, just look, smell and taste.

Getting maximum information from a glass of wine is about using simple but very effective tasting techniques and having the wine at the right temperature. Temperature is critical to the flavor profile of any wine. The cooler the wine the more pronounced the tart flavors. Conversely the warmer the wine is the more you taste the alcohol. White wines that have not been aged in oak barrels should be served around 45ºF to accentuate the fresh fruit, while oak aged whites should be served around 50º F to show their richness. Red wines should be served around 65º F. Any cooler and the wine will seem bitter, but much warmer and it will seem overly alcoholic. In other words “room temperature” and “refrigerator temperature” are not right for either.

Once your wine of the day is at the correct temperature follow this method.

Look: Expectations of a wine’s flavor and intensity are found in the appearance. Lightly colored wines are generally more crisp and refreshing. Darkly colored wines are generally richer and more thickly textured. White wines with green twinges will be refreshingly tart. Whites with a gold overtones are from very ripe grapes, or have been aged in oak barrels, and will  have fruits that are less tart. A translucent ruby colored red will be dominated by red fruits and a lighter texture, while Opaque, inky reds will generally taste of jam and be richly textured. Legs, or tears, on a well polished glass indicate the relative thickness, or viscosity. Slow moving, closely spaced tears show the wine to have higher alcoholic content. Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover?

Smell: You have a wonderful aroma memory bank, 10,000 items for the average person. Without aroma taste is nearly helpless as aroma holds the nuances, so invest triple the amount of time with it. Swirl the wine around the glass and then slowly bring it to and from your nose while taking very slight sniffs. This “trombone” method will expose aromas that exist inside and outside of the glass. Wine is made from fruit so look for those flavors first. You will need to reference your aroma library by using a progressive check off list of fruits that move from tart to rich.

When smelling a white start with tart citrus like lemon and lime, move to tree fruits like apple and pear, then look for stone fruits like peach and nectarine, then look for melon, then look for tropical fruit like pineapple and mango and finally look for cooked, stewed or dried fruits like dried apricot. Red wines have a different list of fruits but use the same idea of progression. Begin the search with red currant or cranberry, move to forest berries like raspberry, then to richer berries like blackberry and blueberry, then look for black fruits like black currant and black plum, lastly search for dried fruits, jammed fruits and cooked fruits.

Once you have found lots of fruit, at least three, you want to look for the things that are not fruit. Inspect the wine for things that remind you of flowers, cooking spices, herbs that are fresh or dried, notes of honey and most certainly creative things like tanned leather. An earthy note can indicate origin of the wine so invest some energy in the search for organic or inorganic aromas. Organic aromas fall into categories like tilled soil, mushroom and wet forest floor. Inorganic smells are related to wet stones, wet slate or chalkiness. Finally check for aromas indicating barrel aging. See if you can find notes of vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, cinnamon, clove, dill or even crème brulée.

Taste: Taste combines the perception of 4 basic tastes (sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, and tartness) and the aromas already found to create flavor. Swish the wine around your mouth a bit, think about all the aromas you just found and ask yourself if you taste all of them. After thinking about the way the wine mimics aroma judge the structure.

First judge the dryness. Dryness is the presence, or lack, of sugar in the wine and should not be confused with ripeness. Sugar is detected primarily on the tip of your tongue, therefore a lack of sensation at that spot means the wine is dry.

Assess acidity, or tartness, on the sides of your tongue next to your molars. Acidity makes your mouth water. The more your mouth waters the higher the acidity in the wine. Traditionally New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is high in acid while New World reds are moderate to low.

Tannin is tasted as bitterness and perceived as a drying sensation that makes your gums fuzzy. High levels of tannin are exceptionally drying to your mouth and may temporarily numb your taste buds. High tannin wines are Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Italian Nebbiolo.

Alcohol is the last structural component to judge and is assessed by the warming effect on the back of the throat. High levels of alcohol warm your throat significantly. Alcohol also dries out your mouth and may be perceived as “cotton mouth”. Calibrate yourself by looking at the published alcohol percentage on the bottle. In the world of wine 14% and up is considered high alcohol, 12.5% is moderate and 10.5% and under is low.

Now ask yourself an honest question or two. Is the structure of the wine in harmony with the flavor? Does one of the structural or flavor elements dominate? If elements are working together to form a sum greater than the parts then the wine is high quality. If not, try a different producer next time.