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.