Author: lgsjr

Tasting Safely

Let’s say a few things right up front: Wine contains alcohol.  Alcohol is not a good thing to consume when driving.  Going wine tasting means drinking alcohol and usually requires some driving.

That’s a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it?  Here are some of our tips for wine tasting safely.

  • Know your limit. Even the most stringent state laws allow a little bit of alcohol in your blood, so it’s important for you to know how much you can sip before you hit that limit.  You can’t wait until you feel the alcohol; by then it’s already too late.
  • If you don’t know your limit, be the first driver. For one thing, don’t go wine tasting alone.  If you know you can’t take a lot, do your share of the driving before the sipping begins.

Photo courtesy of Cal Limo.

  • Or hire someone to drive. There are cabs, limo services and Lyft/Uber.  Yes, it adds to the cost.  But it ensures your safety from being pulled over and surely reduces your vulnerability to accidents.
  • Sip, don’t drink. That should be the motto for all wine tasting.  The idea is to taste the wines so you know what to buy later on.  If you’re finishing every glass put in front of you, you’re drinking too much to be safe on the road.
  • Share a tasting. If you and your companion share a tasting and only sip; and if you taste, say, five wines at any given winery, you’re likely to consume around a half a glass of wine each.  If you figure in the time for looking around the winery, talking with the server, maybe buying some wine, it will take up an hour.  Thus, if you visit six wineries and take an hour for lunch, you’ll consume three glasses in seven hours.  Is that within your limit?  If so, you have a plan for a fine day of tasting in Wine Country.  If not, see the advice above.

Photo courtesy of Texas Lone Star Valet.

  • Deal with the exceptions. There are some wineries that only have seated tastings and don’t permit sharing.  Often these are the makers of some of the finest wines in their region and you don’t want to restrict yourself to a sip or two.  It is not for us to discourage you from some of the best experiences in wine tasting.  But if you particularly want to taste the Cabernet Sauvignon, go light on the Chardonnay.  And maybe avoid seeing the bottom of the glass of the Merlot and the Malbec.  These tastings tend to be longer, so perhaps they will account for half your day.  And if you find you have consumed more wine than you expected to, cut the day short.
  • If you’re going to consume alcohol, put some food in your belly too.  Always have breakfast before going wine tasting.  Keep some crackers, chips or pretzels in the car to have something to nibble on, along with a bottle of water.  Always stop for lunch.  In fact, you should generally make lunch a part of your wine tasting experience.  As a rule, areas where people appreciate wine have good restaurants, too.  And picnicking at a winery is a treat.

 

 

Robert Mondavi Winery

Power Tasting began publication at the beginning of 2015 and have been reviewing wineries ever since.  So how come we are just getting around to writing about Robert Mondavi (www.robertmondaviwinery.com) now?  It’s because Mondavi feels like it has always been there and always will be.  It’s as much as part of Napa Valley as Howell Mountain or the Napa River.

Robert Mondavi, the man, was synonymous with Napa Valley during his lifetime and has achieved legendary status since his death in 2008.  Robert Mondavi, the winery, has turned out wines of the highest quality for so long that it’s easy to forget that the rating organizations accord them high 90’s every year.  Robert Mondavi is wonderful, but being wonderful for so long robs it of trendiness.

For those of us who enjoy going wine tasting, the same can be said about visiting the Robert Mondavi winery in Oakville.  We’ve been visiting there for so long we tend to understate how special it is.  Mr. Mondavi himself dedicated himself to what he called the good life, which included art and food, as well as wine.  All these are in evidence from the moment you pull up to the winery.  The emblematic arch at the entrance combines respect for California’s Spanish past with an understated elegance that is still contemporary after more than 50 years.

Also in evidence at the entrance and around the grounds are statuary and other artworks from the Mondavi family’s collection.  Of course, it is possible to taste wine without works of art, but it is so much more enjoyable to combine them.

The winery is laid out in the form of a V, opening to vistas of vineyards and the Mayacamas mountains.  On the left is the wing for those who are interested in tours and tastings of Mondavi’s widely available wines.  On the right are a tasting room for their wine club members, the gift shop and the To Kalon Room, where Mondavi’s most exclusive wines are available for tasting.  [To Kalon is the name of Mondavi’s top vineyard, where the grapes for their finest Cabernet Sauvignon and Fumé Blanc are grown.]  Tastings in this latter room are not inexpensive, but there is a lot to be said for being offered a vertical of the Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, as we were recently.

In the years at the beginning of Northern California’s rise to wine-making eminence, Mondavi’s Fumé Blanc was the benchmark for California white wines.  While the quality has not diminished, it is probably Cabernet Sauvignon for which they are best known today.  Less well renowned are their Merlot, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  Not every wine is available at all times in each tasting room, but we have found that a polite request often results in finding a bottle beneath the bar.

Finally, a few words about the gift shop.  Normally, we avoid shopping at wineries; there are only so many coasters and refrigerator magnets anyone needs.  But the items at this winery reinforce Mr. Mondavi’s maxims about the good life.  Simply put, they sell lovely things, from pottery to tableware to books.  And wine, of course.  The shop is especially pretty at Christmastime, when the decorations and holiday goods only add to the pleasure of a visit to this winery, a gem in Wine Country’s diadem.

 

 

Choucroute in Alsace

If you are going wine tasting in the easternmost part of France, you’ll be in Alsace, where they grow white wine grapes, mostly Riesling and Gewürztraminer.  Now, those are German grapes, which is fitting because over the centuries Alsace has gone back and forth from being a part of Germany to being a part of France.  It’s been French since the end of the First World War, but was German for 50 years before that.

The principal city of Alsace is Strasbourg.  It looks very German in its architecture, but the feeling there is joie de vivre, not gemütlichkeit.  Alsace generally and Strasbourg in particular feel like Germany with French people.  And the food is a blend of the two as well.  There is the expression “to be stuffed like a Strasbourg goose”, perhaps because that’s how you get fois gras, the emperor of all patés.  The dish that Alsace is best known for, though, is a mixture of sauerkraut and smoked meats called choucroute.

Photo courtesy of Food and Wine.

Chou is French for cabbage.  Put that together with the “kraut” in sauerkraut and you get choucroute.  Today you can find this dish on menus all over France, especially in the cooler months and there are places in Paris and Lyon that make it very well.  But the best is in Alsace, where it was born, and the best of the best is to be found in Strasbourg.  Which restaurant?  That’s like asking where’s the best pizza in Brooklyn: Everywhere!

It’s made of sauerkraut that’s baked for hours and towards the end adding the meats. At one time or another, we’ve experienced smoked ham, pork chops, frankfurters, Alsatian sausage, Toulouse sausage, Polish kielbasa, knockwurst, bratwurst, weisswurst, thickly sliced bacon, ham hocks and other meats we weren’t exactly sure about.  Some people consider juniper berries to be an essential ingredient but we don’t agree with those people.  There are always a few boiled potatoes and lots of Dijon mustard on the side.

On Alsatian menus you’ll also find choucroute fruit de mer, or sauerkraut with seafood, a combination that never really appealed to us.  Salmon, haddock, mussels, shrimp, lobster and langoustines replace the smoked meats.  It’s something to try once.

Our experiences with choucroute in France all involve overeating.  It’s impossible not to.  First of all, any respectable restaurant will pile up the sauerkraut on your plate.  Figure a pound per person and you’re just getting started.  Then all those meats!  Each one is so delicious but cumulatively they’re way too much to finish.  Of course, the chef could just serve you less, but instead they tempt you with Choucroute Royale, which just means the basic dish, with more of everything.  It’s enough for a family of four and you’re supposed to finish it yourself!

Because of its place of origin, most people drink Alsatian wines with choucroute or a beer.   Our opinion as wine lovers is that a hearty red wine goes best.

 

France: A Place to Visit

Despite the headline, you can’t visit France, because France isn’t just one place.  (These days, you actually can’t visit France at all because of the pandemic.)  The country is so varied that you can’t take it all in, either as a visitor or even as a resident.  It’s cities and countryside and mountains and beaches and, of course, vineyards.

For a wine lover, visiting France is to have a little time in paradise, and almost every sector of the country grows grapes for wine.  But the grapes in those vineyards differ tremendously, even those a short distance from each other.  For example, if you start in the city of Lyons and drive just a half hour northwards, the vines hang heavy with Gamay and the wines are Beaujolais.  The whites are Chardonnay, as they are just a bit north of Beaujolais but the red grapes are Pinot Noir.

The terraced vineyards of the Côte Rôtie.

If you leave Lyons in the other direction, again just a half hour away, you’re in the Northern Rhône and the red grapes are mostly Syrah and the whites Roussanne and Marsanne.  By comparison with America, the Northern Rhône and Beaujolais are as far apart as Carneros and Calistoga; imagine totally different production between one end of Napa Valley and the other.

The heart of Champagne is only a few hours’ drive from the heart of the Côte d’Or in Burgundy.  Yes, they both grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but the wines they make are totally different.  So are the foods, the castles and the history of the two regions.  It is not hard to envelope yourself in either place but there is a wrenching disconnect if you travel between them.

Further west, the Loire Valley, also known as the Touraine (for the city of Tours) is best known for Sauvignon Blanc.  The best-known red wine is Chinon, made from Cabernet Franc, although there is plenty of Gamay grown as well.  These wines, for the most part, are not as grand as those of Burgundy and Bordeaux, but they do make pleasant drinking.

The broad expanse of vineyards in the Languedoc.

Speaking of Bordeaux, the majestic red wines grown there are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, with Sémillon the major grape for white wines.  For the travelling wine taster, Bordeaux is the most difficult to visit and surely the snobbiest part of France.  By contrast, head either east from Bordeaux to the Southern Rhône Valley or south to Languedoc and the red grapes are Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre and the whites are Viognier and Picpoul, among others.  (Actually, in Languedoc, you’ll find a little of everything.)

And so, our advice to our wine tasting friends is not to try to visit France all at once.  Instead, focus on one or at most two regions at a time.  Get to know the people, the villages, the roads, the markets, the foods and of course the wines.  Historically, France was stitched together from many distinct regions.  To this day, a Breton and a Provençal have accents as different as a Brooklynite and a Texan.  Yes, they talk the same language, but with very different accents.   But the US is a very big country and France is relatively small.  Going a short distance in France can change everything, from the wine to the architecture to the cuisine.  But it’s all France.

Champagne de Venoge

The Champagne region of France has two principal cities: Reims and Épernay.  The former is of greater interest to tourists, with its grand cathedral and quite a few top-quality Champagne houses.  But Épernay is a wonderland for wine tasters.  There are so many producers, great names and small, all over the town.  And the center of it all is the Avenue de Champagne, a mile of mansions and industrial buildings dedicated to the production, sale and consumption of the world’s best bubbly, made from grapes grown in the chalky soil of Champagne.

You can walk along the Avenue de Champagne, stopping here and there for a dégustation (tasting).  These aren’t the sips we Americans are used to when we go wine tasting.  Oh no, you get a whole flute of Champagne, usually for around ten euros or so.  When you do take that walk, we recommend that you stop at the Venoge Mansion (www.champagnedevenoge.com/en).  This elegant building is representative of both the grandeur and the pretentiousness of Champagne.

The grandeur is easy to see…it’s all around you in Épernay.  You’re supposed to be impressed by the ancient lineages of these winemaking establishments, but most only go back to the entrepreneurs of the 19th century.  De Venoge was founded by a Swiss immigrant who started his company in 1837.  That’s pretty ancient for Americans but its Johnny-come-lately for the French.  And although the “de” in the name sounds like nobility, it isn’t in this case.  The mansion was built in 1900, but de Venoge only acquired it in 2015.

None of this history matters to you as a wine-tasting visitor.  You want elegance, both in your surroundings and in your glass.  And this is where de Venoge lives up to your hopes and expectations.  The setting is a mansion inside high wrought iron fences.  The building is in a park, most of which is behind it.  But there’s a courtyard in front with a bit of lawn and on the grass there are comfortable lawn chairs and umbrellas.  In one of the outbuildings, there’s a bar where you order the Champagne you want to drink and a server brings it to you as you stretch out on your lounger.  Turn your back on the street and you’re out in the country, sipping Champagne at a château on a sunny afternoon.  This is why you became a wine taster and this is why you went to Épernay to taste wine.

The wines themselves are quite enjoyable.  We found we preferred the blanc de noirs in de Venoge’s better tier of wines, which they call Princes.  (They also have a top of the line they call Louis XV, but we didn’t taste those wines.)

For the overall experience of wine tasting, de Venoge offers one of the best opportunities we have encountered in Champagne.  The wines are good but no better than many others available nearby.  Of course, that’s the genius of wine tasting in Champagne. They’re all good; some are just better.  But you feel like you’re luxuriating at de Venoge and that’s worth a lot when you’re in this famous corner of Wine Country.

A Guide to Pronouncing French Wines

We know many Americans who are dedicated wine lovers and who enjoy going wine tasting.  They love French wines but can’t pronounce them properly. Here’s a little guide by Power Tasting to help American wine tasters through the thickets of pronouncing French wines.

  • For some reason, we Americans find the red wines of France easier to pronounce. We have no problems with Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Merlot and Malbec.  If there’s one that needs a little help, it’s Petit Verdot, the blending grape of Bordeaux.  It’s pronounced peh-TEE VAIR-doe.
  • Sauvignon Blanc – The legend, perhaps apocryphal, is that Robert Mondavi decided not to call his Sauvignon Blanc by its proper name because he thought Americans couldn’t pronounce Sauvignon. He called it Fumé Blanc instead.  The irony is that we all do very well with Sauvignon but get the Blanc part wrong.  Most Americans say “blonk”.  The right way is “blah” with your voice going down at the end.  The “c” doesn’t get mentioned at all.
  • Chardonnay – We’ve got that one right.

Photo courtesy of the Wine Scholar Guild.

  • Sémillon – This is the primary white grape of Bordeaux and as such deserves respect. Saying “seh-MILL-un” is not right.  It’s pronounced “say-MEE-yon” and it’s even sweeter when it’s made into Sauternes, which, by the way, is pronounced “SO-turn”.  Do not pronounce the “s” at the end.
  • Champagne – This is a tough one. Americans know how to say “SHAM-pain”.  But the French say “shahm-PAH-nya”.   This is one case where Americans are better off with the American pronunciation.
  • Loire whites – We’ll let Americans off the hook with the “r” in Vouvray, since that back-of-the-throat thing isn’t even universal among French speakers. But Sancerre is “SAHN-sair” and Muscadet is “MOS-ca-day”.  And there’s Chenin Blanc.  We’ve already covered the Blanc part; the first word is sheh-NAN and you never pronounce the “c” at the end of Blanc.
  • Rhône whites – Marsanne and Roussanne are pieces of cake, as long as you pronounce the “a” in each of them as “ah”. Viognier is “VEE-on-yay”.  We think Americans had these down anyway.
  • Alsatian whites – No problem with Riesling, but Gewürztraminer needs work. For one thing, it’s a German grape, not a French one.  For another, that umlaut over the “u” causes no end of trouble.  Finally, there are several acceptable variations on how to pronounce it.  So here goes: ge-VOORTZ-tram-un-er.  Except for that pesky umlaut, which makes you try to say OO and EE at the same time.  Americans, stick with OO.  Now, there’s a family of German grapes called Traminer, pronounced the way you’d think it should be, TRAM-in-er.  Gewürz means spicy, so Gewürztraminer means spicy Traminer.  But that confuses the pronunciation for some people, who would prefer to say ge-VOORTZ-tra-MEE-ner.  Both pronunciations are correct, which is why most Americans just say “ge-WURTZ” and get on with it.  You really can’t blame them.

 

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars

It gets a little confusing writing about Stag’s Leap (https://www.stagsleapwinecellars.com/).  It’s all about the apostrophe.  The district or AVA it’s in is Stags Leap (no apostrophe), a simple statement that stags do leap. Stags’ Leap (with a trailing apostrophe) refers to the leap used by many stags and is also a different winery nearby, best known for its Petite Sirah.  And the leap used by a single stag – Stag’s Leap – is the one we’re talking about here.

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars is a winery of almost mythical importance in Napa Valley.  Started by Warren Winiarski in 1972, his Cabernet Sauvignon was the winner of the famous Judgement of Paris contest in 1976 that put Napa Valley solidly on the map of Wine Country.  In 2007, Mr. Winiarski sold Stag’s Leap to an international consortium and it hasn’t been the same since.

That last sentence might be interpreted negatively, but it was only intended to say that for the visiting wine taster, the experience is totally different from what it once was.  We make no secret about our nostalgia for the old Stag’s Leap and have written about it in the past.  It was the House that Winiarski built, made of wood and redolent of history.

Today’s visitor will find a modern, architecturally interesting building made of stone and glass.  After you park your car, you approach the building through a garden of desert shrubs.  If that seems a bit strange for Napa Valley, we think it’s just to set you up for the lushness of the vineyards on display behind the building.  As soon as you enter into the building, you’ll be welcomed by a concierge, as they call their greeters, who will first check if you have a reservation and then direct you to an server whoa will introduce you to their wines.  Through a vast glass window, you see some of the most storied vineyards in California: S.L.V. and Fay.  These have been producing top tier Cabernet Sauvignons for decades and each produces single vineyard wines.  (It was the S.L.V. that was the victor in Paris.)  They also make a wine called Cask 23, which combines the grapes from the two vineyards.  There is another nearby vineyard where they raise grapes for Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, but it’s the reds that make Stag’s Leap famous.

 

Visitors are presented with all of these wines.  We recommend that you ask your server to pour all three of the Cabs at the same time so you can go back and forth and compare them.  We also suggest that you ask if they have any of their Artemis Cabernet Sauvignon available.  This wine is a blend of sourced grapes from around Napa Valley.  Call us Philistines but we often like this wine as much as its more reputed big sisters.

On the basis of several visits, we find that the servers are quite friendly but not deeply knowledgeable about the wines they are pouring.  They’re more hosts than educators.  But they are well-versed in the history of the winery and seem eager to make certain that you enjoy your visit to the maximum.

No, Stag’s Leap isn’t what it once was, but what is?  It is only fair to rate the winery on the basis of the experience and the wines that you have today.  And on both scores, a visit to Stag’s Leap rates high.

 

Taking Wine Back Home

It happens so often.  You’re on vacation in Wine Country and you taste a wine that’s just so good.  You must buy some to have as a souvenir of your wonderful trip.  The bottle gets carefully packed in your checked luggage and stored in that special place you have for your best wines.  It’s being saved for a special occasion.  But when that day comes, you open the bottle and…meh.  “What was I thinking?” you ask yourself while you finish the bottle in disappointment.

You hear people say, “This wine just doesn’t travel”.  Malarkey!  That may be true for a well-aged Bordeaux that has accumulated a lot of sediment, but not for a new release that you try at most wineries.

What happened, and what can you do about it?

  • Everything is better on vacation. When you go wine tasting, you become enthralled with the beauty of the vineyards, the friendliness of the server, the elegance of the tasting room, the beautiful weather, some of the above, all of the above.  Your dining room table is very nice, but it can’t compare to the emotional pull of a long-remembered vacation.  The best advice is not to try to remember what the wine was like back then and to enjoy if for what it is now.  But if you must, try to recreate the memory of that special time.  Talk about it, especially with your Significant Other who shared that experience with you.  The memory won’t make the wine taste better but it might make you feel better about it.

Vinho verde.  Photo courtesy of visitportoandnorth.travel

  • It’s not the same wine anymore. When you tasted that wine, it was young.  If you’ve stored it for a couple of years, it has changed.  Some wines improve with age, but there are many that don’t.  Most Portuguese vinho verde shouldn’t see its second birthday.  A lot of Zinfandels are meant to be drunk when released.  If your save-for-a-special-occasion wine is like one of those, you might want to have that occasion shortly after you arrive back home.
  • You waited too long. Sometimes a bottle just seems to find a spot in the rack that you don’t notice.  Years go by, other purchases are made and then one day you find that special bottle, almost forgotten.  Did it bake in the summers gone by?  Has it reached and passed its peak?  It’s not a bad idea to let some wines age, but it’s a very good idea to remember that you have something special and not let it pass its time.
  • It may be even better than you remember. As noted above, with time it’s not the same as the wine you tasted. If you bought well and stored the wine well, time can often smooth out some roughness and give deep-seated flavors a chance to emerge and reach their peak.  When that happens, revel in the experience and remember the day you bought it.  It’s days like those that make wine tasting so special.

Jerome, Arizona

The State of Arizona is a wonderland for vacationers.  There are the thriving metropolis of Phoenix and its tony suburb, Scottsdale, where you can visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West.  Natural beauties abound.  There are the magnificent red rocks of Sedona, the Painted Desert and more stunning than any other natural wonder is the Grand Canyon.  We encourage you to avail yourself of all the best that Arizona has to offer.

And if you have one more day, we suggest you drive to the tiny village of Jerome.  Once a thriving mining town, Jerome once had 15,000 residents.  But then the mine closed, the people left and it became a veritable ghost town.  Today, Jerome has been revived as…well, there’s no other way to say it, Jerome is a tourist destination.  Not a trap, it’s too much for that.  But it exists only so that tourists can come look at it, eat a meal or two, buy souvenirs and leave.

Jerome as it once was… Photo courtesy of the Jerome Grand Hotel.

So why are we featuring it as a Place to Visit in Power Tasting?  Because there are local wines to taste in Jerome.

…And as it is today.  Photo courtesy of Experience Scottsdale.

Every state in America has vineyards.  The three Pacific states make world renowned wines.  A few others are producing some creditable wines.  It is Power Tasting’s policy not to say bad things about any winery, but we aren’t urging you to make the journey to Jerome just for the wines.  But we do recommend that you make it if you are in the area.

Getting there is half the fun, if your idea of fun is driving up a long, steep road.  You are rewarded for that drive by magnificent views across the desert.  If you’re the one driving, keep your eyes on the road; if you’re a passenger, try not to let your knuckles get too white.

Once you get into town and find somewhere to park, the best thing to do is just walk around.  In some ways, Jerome is small-town America, with the emphasis on “small”.  In another, it’s a lovingly recreated (and somewhat embellished) corner of the now-lost West.  There are no gunfights on Main Street and probably never were, but there are saloons, cafes, galleries and restored buildings.

And there are winery tasting rooms.  Among them are Caduceus Cellars, Merkin Vineyards, Jerome Winery, Vina Zona, Echo Canyon and others.  Most of them offer a fairly wide selection of wines, starting with the expected varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel.  But many feature less common grapes like Aglianico, Nebbiolo, Garnacha and blends of just about anything they can grow.  We don’t think that any of these grapes were intended for production in the High Chaparral, but there are some hardy pioneers who are doing it.

A visit to Jerome may not reward the avid wine taster with a life-changing experience.  But you can have a fun day visiting a restored ghost town.  And when you get home, you can brag that you tasted wines made in Arizona.

Recognizing Bad Wine

When you go wine tasting, you don’t expect to like everything you try.  In most cases, that’s simply a matter of taste.  No winery is capable of appealing to everyone and no visitor is required to like everything he or she samples.  But here we’re not talking about a wine you just don’t enjoy.  It doesn’t happen often but in some rare cases, the wine that’s put in you glass is simply tainted.  Sadly, it happens with bottles that you bring home from the store, too.

Photo courtesy of Sentara Healthcare.

When it happens in a tasting room, it’s fairly important to recognize the flaw in what you’re tasting and report it to the server or the tasting room manager.  They want to know if there’s a problem and prevent shipment of wines that are simply bad.  Each of the following instances has happened to us at one time or another although, as we say, it’s been rare.

  • Brett This taint is caused by the presence of a yeast called Brettanomyces, or brett for short. It is a bit difficult to discuss, for two reasons.  The first is that brett is only described in euphemisms, most often as “barnyard smell”.  It’s easy to get the point: Brett makes wine smell and taste really bad.  But the other difficulty is that some people (including winemakers) actually like a little bit of that smell.  And who’s to say much is “a little bit”?  Brett seems more prevalent in Pinot Noir, especially French Burgundies and is much sought after by some connoisseurs.  But if brett shows up in your glass and it’s clearly too much, mention it to your server, but be prepared to be told, “It’s supposed to taste that way.”
  • Corked wine Winemakers are not responsible for corked wine, but cork manufacturers are. There are some fungi in cork trees which may appear when the bark of trees is turned into bottle closures.  It’s a chemical called TCA (2,4,6 – trichloroanisole) or simply TCA.  Once in contact with the wine, it imparts an aroma and taste that is often described as wet cardboard.  Once corked, the wine cannot recover, no matter how long it’s aged or left to air out.  We were once at a renowned winery that is famous for their attention to the science involved in winemaking.  After a tour, we were served in a pleasant tasting room.  And to our dismay, the first Chardonnay served was corked.  We immediately told the server, who was abashed to be sure and she quickly took the cork.  The manufacturer and batch were identified on it.  She took it to the lab people in the back so they could eliminate those corks from future production. That’s why servers should smell the wine before pouring from a new bottle, avoiding serving corked wine to visitors.  This one did not.
  • Wine fault There are some cases in which a wine has an off taste, such as rotten eggs, discarded motor oil or swamp. In our experience, this problem occurs rarely, most often following a below average harvest.  Some winemakers, rather than accepting the fact that they won’t get good wine that year, play with it, adding chemicals and using techniques to “boost’ the wine.  In a few cases, all that effort just makes a poor wine into a bad one.  We well remember tasting the poor 2011 vintage at one of Napa Valley’s most famous wineries.  One of the wines tasted…rotten.  Our server told us that the wine was still young and would improve with age.  We tried using a Clef du Vin to see if age would make a difference, but it didn’t.  We have since been back to that winery, but we’re always on our guard when we taste there.