10 Things, and a Celebration

10 things I learned about wine this week from Kevin Zraly:
1. 2005 was a great year for wine production everywhere.
2. Smell is more important than taste; you can taste only four things (hush, you umami people), but the average person can smell 2,000 different aromas.
3. To get a great whiff of your wine, hold your hand over the glass and swirl, then remove your hand and inhale deeply.
4. Keep the first sip of wine in your mouth for 5 seconds before swallowing; wait 60 seconds and see how it develops.
5. Your sense of smell starts to diminish after age 30.
6. 90 percent of the good whites are made from riesling, sauvignon blanc or chardonnay grapes.
7. When it comes to the "weight" and the feel of the whites, think of skim milk, whole milk and heavy cream; riesling = skim, sauvignon blanc = whole, chardonnay = cream.
8. As wine ages, whites gain color and reds lose it.
9. French alsace is much different than German: higher alcohol, and the Germans tend to add juice back into the wine, which is what makes it sweet.
10. Bitterness comes from high alcohol content or high tannin level.

Today is the 10th edition of Open That Bottle Night, a "holiday" created by the wine writers of the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher. (Check it out at wsj.com/OTBN.) For anyone who has been saving a special bottle for perhaps too long, it's time to seize the moment and get out the corkscrew.

Gym, Then Wine

I hit the gym for more than an hour after work, so of course I deserve a big fat glass of wine now. It's TuttoBene Toscano Rosso IGT 2006, a chianti from my sister who crashed with us after her building on 18th Street was out of commission because of a carbon monoxide leak. (Thanks, Jude!) The tannin kind of smacks you in the mouth right off, but quickly mellows out. It's yummy. And according to my guru KZ, 2006 was an "extraordinary vintage" for Tuscan wine.

French Whites

At my class on Monday, I tasted 10 white wines from France. Here are a few notes:

1. Riesling, Trimbach 2006 (Alsace): light, semi-dry, very pale yellow, rather character-free; about $18/bottle retail.
2. Muscadet, Marquis de Goulaine 2006 (Loire): creamy, earthy, low sweetness, would go with clams or oysters; $10.
3. Pouilly Fume, Jolivet 2007 (Loire): tangy, subtle, a slight rubber smell; this wine (sauv-blanc grape) is described as "the ultimate food wine" because it would pair with so many dishes; $20.
4. Domaine de Chevalier 1989 (Pessac-Leognan): aroma of honey, dark gold in color, a puckery-tannin feel (aged in oak), and dried out my mouth. KZ calls this "one of the great Bordeaux" wines and ponied it up from his cellar to our semester's students because we took the recession plunge and enrolled! About $120 (if you can find it -- very rare).
-- We took a short break from tasting after this wine; KZ says it takes some time for the high tannin level to dissipate. Then we moved on to the chardonnay grape for wines #5-9.
5. Macon-Villages, Louis Jadot 2006 (Burgundy): apple scent, aged in steel, so no tannins, a tingly feel on the tongue with a slight pear flavor; $12, a great value, according to KZ.
6. Chablis Premier Cru Vaillon, Moreau 2006 (Burgundy): aroma of hay/subtle fruit, sweetish tasting, aged in steel; $35.
7. Meursault, Chanson 2005 (Burgundy): an oaky aroma, with a tingly sensation on first taste, a combination of woody/fruity later; KZ said, to him, it tilted toward the tannins (too dry) and therefore could use more time to age, but this was my favorite of the night; $63.
8. Puligny-Montrachet "Les Champs Gains" Olivier Leflaive 2005 (Burgundy): toasted oak aroma, very fruity, would pair with shrimp or risotto; $75.
9. Corton Charlemagne, Bonneau du Martray 2005 (Burgundy): a smoky, oaky, strong rubbery smell, with a lot of acidity followed by drymouth; the tannin overwhelms the fruit; $145.
10. Chateau Coutet 1996 (Bordeaux, Sauternes-Barsac): raisin scent, dark gold in color, honey/very sweet/nectar-like, KZ says these semillon grapes are left to dry out or "raisin-ize" on the vine, so it's an expensive, difficult wine to produce; would go with or *be* dessert, blue cheese; $90, and rare.

What fun! I wanted to keep my wits about me and take good notes, so I made frequent use of my classy styrofoam spit cup. Next week: White Wines of California and New York. Stay tuned...

First Impressions

My first class was yesterday, and it was a blast. I will write about the wines I tasted soon, but I just had to express my surprise about the teacher, Kevin Zraly. I pictured a wine teacher as someone calm, professorial, maybe tending toward British, waxing poetic about wine. Not Kevin. He was quite a shock to the system: loud, excitable, hyperkinetic -- he seemed to hop around the room like a Muppet. But he is funny, entertaining and extremely passionate about his subject.
I sat next to Olga on my right and Gabriella on my left, both veterans of the restaurant industry. They were so helpful to me during my sensory overloaded first session!

Matriculation

It's official. I got a letter yesterday confirming my enrollment in the eight-week winter session of the Windows on the World Wine School beginning next Monday, Feb. 23. (The restaurant was destroyed on 9/11, but the wine course carries on...) I kind of figured out I was accepted when they cashed my check last week.
The first class is White Wines of France. This may be the most fun I will have in school since the History of Rock 'n' Roll at good old Indiana U. Stay tuned!

Eat Wine

I can't lay claim to that title; it's the slogan for a company called Wine Cellar Sorbet, based in Brooklyn. I had a sample of the cabernet sauvignon (they also make Champagne, riesling, rose, sangria and pinot noir). The sorbet is sensational -- I can't wait to buy a whole carton!
The company says one of the founders, David Zablocki, is the world's first "sorbet sommelier." Nice hook. I must say I am eager to try a recipe he recommends: Croissant French Toast With Carmelized Apples and Riesling Sorbet. Sounds decadent.

Just a Sip

I had lunch at the marvelous Gramercy Tavern on East 20th Street on Monday. Cauliflower soup with lobster -- delicious -- and an earthy butternut squash risotto. The elegant dining room has great acoustics, soft lighting and amusing people-watching (the woman next to us had her injured arm in an Hermès-scarf sling. This is not my regular lunch crowd). Since I'm not consuming alcohol at the moment, I had just a wee taste of my lunch date's pinot noir. The menu listed it as a 2006 AP Vin Keefer Ranch Vineyard Calif. Russian River Valley ($13 a glass). At first I found notes of cherry and found it quite mouth-watering; later after it had aerated a bit, there was a hint of pepper.
The restaurant also offered pinor noir juice ... which is what I drank. A pretty decent lunch beverage, and the zero alcohol helped me stay awake for a very long matinee of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Champagne and French Oscar Bait

Last night I saw The Class, which is up for best foreign film at the Oscars this year. It's about a teacher of French at a working-class school in Paris and the challenges he faces trying to get the kids (about 13-15 years old and several cultures and races) to learn. It's pretty compelling; maybe a little too long. Anyway, there's a scene in the teachers' lounge where one of the staff members announces she's pregnant. Naturally there is a bottle of Champagne popped open, and proper flutes passed around among the dozen or so teachers in the scene. The pregnant woman holds about a half-glass and gives a toast.
Can you imagine such a scene in an American school, or film, for that matter? Champagne chilling in the lounge, stemware at the ready. The teachers would be fired for having alcohol on school premises, and the expectant mother would be hounded for touching so much as a drop.
Lighten up, America.

The Beginning

Wow, I'm doing it! Well, almost. I am starting a wine blog in the middle of my annual one-month vacation from alcohol, ending Feb. 22 (Oscar Night!).
I hope to treat this as a kind of diary as I learn more about ... my favorite drink. I wanted to sign up for a 21-week course on how to become a sommelier, but the class was full. So I hope to enroll in the Windows on the World wine school, which conveniently begins on Feb. 23. We'll see. If I don't get in, I will just have to do a lot of freelance tasting.