Pinkies out

No food discussion this time, but rather one about fermented grapes. Now I’m legally bound to state that I’m a beer man, not a wine aficionado, but I’m glad that I get six free wine appreciation classes as part of my tuition. That’s because I know virtually nothing about wine, except I can tell halfway decent wine from bile.

Oh sure, I knew a little about tannins, the element in wine grapes that imparts a bitter, astringent aftertaste. I knew how to to swirl and sniff a wine, even though I managed to accidentally snort some wine during the class. But precious little else.

A good chef should know about wine pairings, even if he or she prefers the true nectar of the gods, beer. A good chef probably should know that every state in the Union now houses its own wineries, not just New York and California. And a good chef might want to know how to determine an older wine from a fresher wine.

Here are a few tips I learned in our class for what to look for in a wine. The class was mainly an introduction to wine basics, and we tasted mainly whites and sparkling wines, so some of these “rules of thumb” probably don’t apply to other reds.

Color. You can usually determine a white’s age by its color, by holding the wine glass at an angle and looking with a white background. They typically progress from greenish-tinged to yellow to gold and finally to brown. The younger the white, the more likely it is to have a fruity fresh taste. For champagne, older vintages should be easier to uncork, because the pressure of the bubbles forces the cork into a more cylindrical shape, rather than tapering off inside the bottle.

Smell. If you smell an oak-like scent, it’s most likely been aged a while. Again, younger wines will smell more fruity and acidic.

Taste. This all depends, but older wines traditionally have more “complex” flavor. There are several definitions to what a complex wine constitutes, but the one I’ll use is that when you swish it around, it has a beginning, middle and end to its flavor. It can start out tasting like apples, then seem a little oaklike in flavor, and then finish with a little bitterness. Or it could taste like several citrus fruits blended together. Or it could taste like fancy vinegar. Taste is more in the eye of the beholder than beauty when it comes to wine.