Some Other Factors to Consider
Aging - As a wine ages, it will lose some of its fruity characteristics and color. In addition, its tannins will subside, but its acidity will remain intact. Tannins, acid and alcohol are all preservatives and play an important role in the aging of wine. When evaluating ageability of a wine, it is either ready to drink, in need of more time, or past its prime.
A wine is usually considered "ready to drink" when all its major tasting components are in balance, according to your individual preferences. It often needs more time when its tannins overpower its fruity characteristics. And it can be past its prime if it has lost a meaningful amount of color and fruit, leaving the taste of alcohol as its most dominant characteristic.
Cost - This is another attribute that's important to consider. The good news - there are lots of really great wines out there, from all regions of the world, that retail for less than $30 a bottle. Once you know what characteristics you prefer, you can begin to build a go-to list of affordable wines. More good news...many North Fork wines are at that price point as well!
Food & Wine Pairing - When considering which wines to consume with food, the cardinal rule is that the wine should never clash with or overpower your food. Zraly's general rule: "The sturdier or fuller in flavor the food, the more full-bodied the wine should be. For foods that are milder the best wines to use would be medium or light bodied". For example, think about a fillet of white fish and a NY strip steak. Would the same wine bring out the best in these foods? Probably not.
My Two Cents
Since a lot that I've just shared with you is just some basic facts, I wanted to put my own personal spin on it all...
The range in climate, soil, grape varieties, aging style and production techniques give way to an endless assortment of wines, each creating a different sensory experience for you the consumer. Moreover, since wine is a living substance that continues to develop in its bottle, your experience with it on one day will be different from your experience with that very same wine if it were to be opened at any other time.
What I find so neat is that in today's world of mass production and standardization, where else can you find so many options at such an accessible price? With that in mind, it's helpful for you to go through your own self-discovery process to identify which wines you enjoy most. As my clever friend Ellyn said recently "Life's too short to be drinking wines you don't like". I couldn't agree more.
As you start to determine what characteristics you seek in a wine, it's fun to share your thoughts with other wine drinkers. To that end, I give you a glimpse into my own evolving list of preferences that have come from my tasting experiences.
Whites: I have a high tolerance for acid, and enjoy the vibrant "activity" it creates in my mouth. I prefer very little or no residual sugar, and I typically seek crisp, refreshing fruits such as citrus, green apple and pineapple.
Reds: I also seek reds with a little acid to add some complexity, and enjoy red fruits such as strawberry and cherry. My tolerance for tannins is somewhat low, so I typically stay away from young, big red wines. I enjoy a lot of length, and have a particular weakness for wines with a creamy tasting finish.
How does this translate into varietal/regional preferences? I tend to go for dry Rieslings, New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, un-oaked Chardonnays, Zinfandels, North Fork and Washington Merlots, and rather uncharacteristically, French Rhone Valley Syrahs (where I tend to find those creamy finishes). And, when I can get lucky, a powerful red that's been aged properly, making it much lighter on tannins.
Meanwhile, my boyfriend, and tasting partner in crime, typically chooses the same type of whites that I do. But with reds, he has a higher tolerance for tannins and tends to favor wines with dark "stewed fruits" (think raisins and plums), as well as wines with a peppery or earthy profile. Accordingly, he often leans towards big California Cabernets, earthy Pinot Noirs, and Cabernet Francs from regions like the North Fork.
Next Steps for You
As you drink a wine, think about all the elements I discussed. And if you've never done so, don't be afraid to jot down some tasting notes. To get a better sense of what tasting notes look like, use a resource like the website Cellar Tracker, where oenophiles share their thoughts on a broad spectrum of wines.
Now that you're equipped with all of this wine knowledge, I leave you with this Mark Twain quote from Kevin Zraly's book. "There are no standards of taste in wine...each man's own taste is the standard, and a majority vote cannot decide for him or in any slightest degree affect the supremacy of his own standard".
The fun thing about wine is that there's no right answer, because it's so subjective. Everyone experiences nuances in the color, bouquet and palate differently. Only you can work to identify what you like, and once you do so, you'll have lots of fun selecting the varietals and regions that suit your taste. Cheers to that!
Ok, now we're getting to the good stuff! It's natural to think that when you drink wine, you're only using your sense of taste. However, we actually use three senses: sight, smell and taste. When pouring a glass of wine, it is tempting to jump right in and drink; but there are a few preliminary steps you should take to assess it and record your thoughts.
Sight: Clarity & Color
The first thing you should do once you've poured a glass of wine is evaluate its appearance. Hold the glass at an angle against a white background. Does the wine appear cloudy or clear? Generally speaking, if you can see through a wine, then it's ready to drink.
Next, you should note the color of the wine, and the consistency or concentration of that color. What is the color? Is it all the same hue, or does it fade at the edges? Color can tell you a lot about the age or condition of a wine, and even the varietal.
As seen below, white wines can range from pale yellow green to gold to brown, while reds can range from purple to ruby red to brown. As whites age, they generally get darker. Conversely, as reds age, they generally lose color.
Source: Windows on the World Complete Wine Course
Smell: Aroma & Bouquet
Contrary to popular belief, smell is likely the most important part of appreciating a wine. As Kevin Zraly notes, a person can only sense 4 tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty), but can identify 2,000+ different smells, with more than 200 of those commonly found in wine.
After you've evaluated the color and clarity of the wine, swirl it around in your glass. This motion "opens up" the wine by exposing it to oxygen to strengthen its smell. The aroma is the particular scent of the grapes, while the bouquet is the overall smell of the wine. Often, wine drinkers refer to the smell of the wine as its "nose".
Given the countless smells one can extract from a wine, it can be challenging to articulate many of them. Something that's been helpful for me is the scent wheel, seen below. This tool opens your mind to all the seemingly unconventional smells (stuff you seriously didn't think was possible) you can find in a wine. With it, the possibilities are endless!
After some smelling practice, you can begin to recognize patterns in common aromas associated with a certain grape, and even better anticipate what the wine may taste like once you actually drink it :)
Taste: The Major Components
Finally, on to the best part! Once you've noted the color and aroma/bouquet, it's time to drink. The first few times, let the wine sit on your tongue for 3-5 seconds before swallowing. This lets the wine warm up to your body temperature, sending the smells up through your nasal passage. Since 90% of taste is actually smell, doing this will actually enhance your tasting experience.
The major "tasting" components include: Residual Sugar, Acid, Tannins and Fruit. All of these elements can be recognized on a certain part of your tongue.
Residual sugar is any sugar from the grapes that wasn't converted to alcohol during fermentation. The sweetness from this can be felt immediately at the front tip of your tongue.
Acidity (sour or tart) can be felt on the sides of your tongue, cheek area and the back of your throat. White wines and many lighter red wines often have a noticeable level of acidity. Meanwhile, many fuller-bodied wines are lower in acidity. This occurs because grapes with more sugar - to be converted into alcohol - typically yield fuller-bodied wines. And as a grape's sugar level rises, its acidity falls.
Tannins are not a taste, but as Kevin Zraly says, a tactile sensation. They are a natural preservative that come from the skins, stems and pits of the grapes, as well as oak that may be used for barrel aging. Tannins tend to dry your palate. They are usually recognized first in the middle of the tongue, and if the wine has a lot of tannins, it can permeate your entire mouth.
Red wines are typically more tannic because the grape juice they come from is more frequently fermented with its skins, and they are aged in oak for longer periods of time. When wine, particularly powerful reds, is too young tannins can dry the palate too much, obstructing the fruity character of the wine. That said, as a wine ages, its tannins will fade while its fruit and color remain fairly intact, creating a "smoother" wine. This is why many robust wines are aged, and then consumed years later.
Fruit is also not a taste, it's actually a smell. However, the weight of the fruit (known as "body") can be felt down the middle of the tongue. Naturally, every drinkable wine will create that fruity sensation...since we know it's made from grapes!
Once you've swallowed the wine, pay attention to its aftertaste. Think about how long the overall taste and medley of components linger in your mouth. Typically a good wine will yield a considerable aftertaste, which wine drinkers call "length". The length of some really great wines can actually last for up to 3 minutes.
Overall, when consuming a quality wine that's ready to drink, good balance between the fruit, acid and tannins should be expressed - creating a complex, yet smooth, sensation in your mouth.
Part III coming soon...
Ahead of my posts about North Fork tastings, I thought it would be helpful to do some Wine 101 for those who do not yet consider themselves wine connoisseurs :) Since it can be a lot of content to digest, I’ve split the entry into three parts. In Part I, I’ll cover the major wine regions and varietals. Part II includes the major components one can see, smell and taste in a wine. And Part III will be a quick wrap-up.
As we jump into the fundamentals of wine, this is a great time to mention Kevin Zraly, who runs the Windows on the World Wine School in New York City, an 8-session class I took last spring. In the class, I not only learned the basic facts of wine, but also discovered key characteristics and how I most prefer they be expressed in a wine. The many amusing anecdotes Kevin shared with us during class were quite helpful as well!
Since most of my fundamental wine knowledge came from Kevin, much of the content below can be traced in some way back to his book, Windows on the World Complete Wine Course and detailed tasting notes I took during his class. For anyone in the New York area who is curious about the subject, I highly recommend the course.
No matter what you glean from the information below, the best way to learn about wine is to accumulate lots of tasting experience. Through this, you begin to develop a basis for comparison, and gain a familiarity for common characteristics in particular varietals and regions. How about that adage? Less reading and studying...more drinking!
What is Wine?
I’m going to go with the bold assumption that everyone has a general understanding of what wine is. As Zraly mentions in his book, for the purposes of this lesson, the simplest definition of wine is fermented grape juice. Fermentation is the process in which grape juice is converted into wine. Essentially, the sugar in the grapes is mixed with yeast, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide. The CO2 is released into the air, unless you’re making sparkling wine, in which case it would be captured.
The three major types of wine are: table wine (8-15% alcohol), sparkling wine, and fortified wine (17-22% alcohol). Unless noted otherwise, my entries will be about table wine.
Wine Regions
Zraly notes that there are 70+ wine producing countries in the world today, and that more acres of grapes are planted than any other fruit crop in the world. Go grapes!
The top five wine producers in the world, in descending order are: France, Italy, Spain, United States and Argentina. Typically, the most important factors that make a region suitable for grape growing, and consequently wine production, are the right climate and ideal soil, or what the French call “terroir”. At the end of the day, a wine is only as good as the grapes used to make it, so these elements are very important.
Most grapes cannot thrive in just any climate or soil. To that end, familiarity with major wine regions can be very powerful, as it helps you learn what grapes will likely yield good wine, and which varietals to avoid from a particular region. For instance, the most venerable Rieslings (whose character is best expressed in wine when cultivated in cooler climates) often come from upstate New York, Washington State, Germany and Northern France, not California or Southern Europe.
In addition to the traditional wine superpowers, there has been a lot of growth in other regions around the globe, particularly in New Zealand, Chile, and South Africa. And, fun fact, there are now wine-producing regions in all 50 states here in the US! That said, after a recent visit to a winery in a remote part of North Carolina, I certainly cannot attest to the quality of wine produced outside of New York, California, Oregon and Washington.
Major Varietals
Below are the most popular grapes used to make wine. They are listed from light to full-bodied. The notion of “body”, or the weight of the fruit and level of alcohol, is very important. Body dictates the order in which one tastes a series of wines. When tasting multiple wines in one sitting, you start with the light-bodied ones. Body also helps you determine which wines will best complement a particular meal.
The best varietals on the North Fork, based on the region’s climate and terroir, are light-style Chardonnay and Merlot. A less common grape, Cabernet Franc, has also shown some success. There are a number of other varietals produced in the region, but I’ve found that the caliber of wine produced from them is less consistent, depending much more on the quality and style of the particular winemaker.
Meanwhile, it’s more challenging for the North Fork to produce robust “big reds” like Cabernet Sauvignon that are frequently found in California, as the region's growing season isn’t warm or long enough for those grapes to ripen to their full potential.
Stay tuned for Part II...
