Category: Wine Tasting Tips

With thousands of Champagnes to choose from, wine tasting in that region may feel overwhelming.  Where do you start?  How many can you taste?  Should you stick with Champagnes that you know or be adventurous and try a few glasses from producers unknown to you?  Can you really tell one from another, especially by the end of the day?

Let’s start with the best news: there are better Champagnes but there are no bad ones.  To paraphrase Mae West, when Champagne is good it’s great and when it’s bad it’s still good.  There is so much to learn when wine tasting in Champagne, and we’d like to start you off with a few tips.

• Don’t try to do too much at one time. Champagne is a pretty big place so don’t try to drive all over in an attempt to see it all.  You will fail and you’ll lose a lot of time driving around.  It’s best to focus on one place at a time.  So a day in Reims can include Taittinger, Mumms and Veuve Cliquot, plus time for lunch and the cathedral.  A day in Épernay (Moët & Chandon, Perrier-Jouët and lots of less well-known houses) must include a stroll down the Avenue de Champagne.  And it’s a good idea to devote a day to visiting some Champagne houses out in the countryside.
• Take a tour. Very few Champagne houses offer you the chance to watch their wines being made.  They do tour you around their cellars, where they store and age their wines.  There they will explain the wine making process that makes sparkling wines unique.  But quite honestly, if you’ve seen one cave, you’ve seen them all: long holes in the ground with a lot of bottles in them.  It’s a good experience to see a Champagne cellar.
• Take advantage of the smaller Champagne houses. The big ones often aren’t open to the public at all and if they are, a tour plus tasting can be expensive.  And you rarely get to taste their top wines.  Especially in the larger towns, you can walk in, order a glass of Champagne (even their best) for 10 euros or less and sit in a pleasant courtyard enjoying it.  Out in the country, you can do the same thing but you’ll look at the vineyards while you sip.
• Do some comparison tasting. There are many bars where you can order a variety of Champagnes.  In general, they tend to have the smaller producers although we have tasted Moët & Chandon and Pol Roger side by side.  There are so many comparisons to be made that you can, for instance hone your appreciation of Blanc de Noirs or contrast those with Blanc de Blancs.  And you don’t have to get behind a wheel to try several different Champagnes, you just walk around.
• All the rules for managing alcohol apply in Champagne as much as anywhere else.  (However, the alcohol levels in Champagne tend to be lower, so you can have a bit more freedom.)  You need to put some food in your stomach.  In almost every restaurant, you can get champagne by the glass with your meal.

The popular American view of European wine lovers is that they are all snobs.  Equally, many Europeans think that Americans, wine lovers or not, are hicks.  Of course, neither typification is true, but there are just enough people who fit either category to give life to the stereotypes.  It does no one any good to show a European that Americans can be wine snobs also.

In our experience, those Americans who try to show themselves as superior in their wine knowledge compared with their friends are a bit more restrained when they are in European sectors of Wine Country.  For one thing, many don’t speak the languages and so are somewhat intimidated themselves.  (English-speaking countries in Europe don’t have wine worth discussion.  Beer they do have and the folks there can be pretty snobbish about their bitters.)

Cartoon courtesy of the drinksbusiness.com

For another thing, most Americans probably don’t have the familiarity with the wines of Italy, France or Spain than they do with those of Napa Valley.  So there’s only so much lording it over others that they can get away with.  Nonetheless, you don’t want to be one of those people who gives Americans a bad name overseas.

• Don’t try to speak like a local. Unless you are truly multi-lingual, don’t fake it.  Most of the servers speak English, as do a great many Europeans today.  It’s okay to use terms like bianco and rosso, or blanc (don’t pronounce the “c”) and rouge but full sentences aren’t required.
• But do learn a little of the local language. Contrary to the previous tip, it’s still a good idea to be polite and ask if the server speaks English before launching into a request for a tasting.  It’s not that difficult to learn “Parla inglese?” or “Parlez-vous anglais?”  Imagine if a foreigner came up to you and started spouting away in Italian or French.  You would probably just walk away.  So if they reply that they don’t know English, you’ve at least established the ground rules for some pidgin communications abetted by hand signals.
• Don’t compare what you’re tasting with American wines you’re familiar with. Even in France, where the grapes are the same as in California, Washington and New York they just don’t taste the same.  And in Italy, Spain or Germany you may be tasting wines from totally unfamiliar grapes.  You can’t win.  If you say that the wines you’re tasting aren’t as good as he ones back home, you will have instantly proven that you ARE a snob.  And if you say that the American wines are worse, they’ll wonder why you’re comparing at all.  After all, they had all those grapes first.
• Be appreciative. In the States, if you don’t like a wine, you (should) pour it out quietly and move on.  In Italy, for example, you may be tasting very unfamiliar wine.  It might take you a little while to become accustomed enough to a wine to know if you like it or not.  So even if you don’t immediately like what’s you’re sipping, show that you appreciate the opportunity to taste it.

This is the first in what will be an irregular series on wine snobbery and how to avoid it.

There is a difference between being a wine snob and being a wine lover.  Many people enjoy just a glass wine or two with dinner.  Some of them (and you are one if you are reading Power Tasting) get pleasure from reading about wine, travelling to Wine Country to taste wine and talk about wine with their friends.  Wine snobs do all those things too but the essence of their snobbery is that they want to be and be seen to be superior in their wine knowledge compared with their friends.  Worse yet, for those of us who appreciate wine tasting, is that they also like to lord it over total strangers standing next to them in winery’s tasting room.  You don’t want to be one of those people.

Courtesy of theguardian.com

Before we can talk about how NOT to be a wine snob, we ought to have an understanding of what typifies such a person.  This becomes problematic, because there are certain things that all wine lovers do that might be considered snobbery by those who only occasionally get involved with wine.  So it makes sense to consider the things that might be seen as snobbish by some people, but which we think are acceptable.

• The way you handle your glass. It’s all right to hold your glass by the stem, not the bowl.  In fact it’s the correct way and you should do so.  Let’s go a few steps further: You should swirl the wine in your glass and you should smell before you sip.  If the uninitiated think you’re being snobbish by doing these things, they’ll just have to live with it.  Give them time; they’ll learn.
• Showing tempered enthusiasm for wines you like. You can say, “Gee, I really liked that Pinot.  It’s powerful but not overwhelming”.  Going on and on is just rudeness.  Snobbery is to say, “Ah yes, it reminds me of the ’05 Pommard I tasted last season when I was in Burgundy”.
• Pouring out wine. There are two reasons you might discard some wine.  The first and most obvious is that you don’t like it.  The other is that you’re being conscious of the alcohol you’re taking on.  Either way, if you’re discreet and just move on to the next, that’s acceptable.  Some folks who are new to wine tasting think it’s incumbent on them to finish every drop.  It’s not.  Snobs make a show of their displeasure.
• Asking to compare two similar wines side by side. At a winery renowned, say, for their Cabernet Sauvignons, it’s not only acceptable but downright sensible to taste them in parallel rather than serially.  The server doesn’t care and you get a better sense of what that winery is doing.  Even – no, especially – a wine tasting beginner will benefit from tasting wine this way.  As long as the wine is sipped and not guzzled, it gives anyone a chance to become a knowledgeable taster, not a snob.

Worldwide terrorism has changed our lives in many ways, none of them good.  There are many losses greater than the difficulty in bringing wine home with you from your European vacation.  It used to be easy: get a case that would fit in the overhead rack and tote it along with you on the plane.  Needless to say, that won’t work these days, especially if your destination is in the United States.  So what can you do if you want to bring back home some of the wines you tasted?

• Ship them. This way works but is in general a bad idea.  It costs a lot to ship a case of wine across the Atlantic and it can’t be sent directly to your home.  It goes to the airport into customs.  You have to go deal with the functionaries there, pick it up and pay the duties.  This is a lot of money and a lot of work just to be able to say you bought it at the vineyard.
• Put some in your luggage. This works but the technique is limited and risky.  Each person coming into the US is able to bring two bottles, so a couple can carry four.  If – some if – you have room in your valise for four bottles, you are trusting the gentle handlers out on the tarmac not to toss, drop or otherwise maul your bags.  Good luck.  If you are going to stash a few bottles this way, you can buy resealable padded plastic bags that protect your clothes but also take up more space.  We often pack some bubble wrap and enclose the bottles ourselves.  Place them between layers of soft clothing if you carry them this way.

Do you want your wine to be in this pile?

• Buy a case and take it home as luggage. You can buy a case (meant for shipping with styrofoam or cardboard) in a store or at a winery and fill it up as you go.  Then, on your return trip, check them in.  You will definitely have to pay duty on the number of bottles over your limit when you get to the US, but that may not be onerous.  You still have to contend with the aforementioned baggage handlers, so definitely mark the case as fragile.  But you have to lug the case with you in your travels and then carry it through the airports on your trip.  And some airlines or airports won’t accept cases of wine, because of the fear of terrorists.
• Buy it back home. If you’re at a winery and you particularly like a wine, ask the person serving you about the name of their American distributor(s).  The bigger and better known the winery, the more likely they are to have one.  You can call them on your return and find out where you can buy the wine in question in the States.  Unfortunately, that great little find you found in an unknown little village may not have an American representative.  Worse yet, if they do export, these wineries are more likely to sell only their higher volume, lower quality wines on the world market because they don’t press enough of their top wines to attract a distributor.  You won’t find that special gem at home.

There is one other alternative.  Appreciate the wines you taste in Europe while you’re there.  Savor the tastes and the aromas and the memories.  That’s one of the beauties of travelling through Wine Country in the first place.

Wine tasting, at least in California’s prime winemaking regions, has become an expensive pastime.  What winemakers once – a long time ago – considered a form of marketing has become a profitable sideline for the wineries themselves.  We’ve heard that Napa Valley is America’s number one adult tourist destination (we can’t vouch for that) but we can say that the roads and tasting rooms in Napa Valley and Sonoma County are more crowded than ever.

Photo courtesy of Cal Alumni Association

Along with these trends, the cost of tasting wines at the wineries has risen dramatically.  For some of the more renowned wines, a charge of $40 or more is no longer unusual.  It is commonplace to find a $25 fee for tasting from a winery’s reserve list.  There are people who neither want nor can afford to pay those prices.  Perhaps they are just looking for a pleasant day in the country, with a picnic and a little wine tasting to add zest to the day.  For them, paying top dollar for a few sips just doesn’t make sense.

We have long advocated tasting the best wines when visiting Wine Country, because they provide the maximum pleasure.  But for those who would also like to have the maximum value without paying the maximum price, here are some ideas for attaining that double goal.

• Look for wineries that offer free tastings. Yes, there are still some.  The most famous and by far the best is Heitz Cellars.  Joe Heitz, one of Napa Valley’s pioneers, never wavered from his goal of making great wine accessible and his winery still offers tastings without charge.  Don’t miss this one.  A few others, such as Buehler, Sutter Home and Vincent Arroyo are also still free of fees.
• Do a little homework in advance. Figure out what sector you would like to visit, keeping thoughts of where you can picnic in mind.  For a variety of legal reasons, picnicking is much easier to do in Sonoma County than in Napa County.  Check web sites to learn if you can bring food.  And then check the cost of tastings.  There are still some bargains around.
• Buy a bottle. In many cases, if you buy a bottle of wine, the winery will waive the tasting fee.  So a bottle of wine to accompany that picnic may make for a free tasting.  And of course, you can take a bottle home with you for another time.
• Share your tastings. If your objective is tasting, not drinking, two people can share a single tasting, thereby bringing down the cost.  We do it all the time, not so much for money reasons as to manage our intake of alcohol.  That way you might be able to splurge a bit on a pricier winery.
• Try the less costly list. There’s no rule that says you only have to try only the reserve list.  And in fact we have found that in some cases, there’s no particular advantage to a winery’s most expensive wines. You’ll find some pretty nice wines at places like Beaulieu Vineyards and Chateau St. Jean in their regular tasting rooms, as opposed to their reserve rooms.

There are some wineries that don’t offer you a lot of choice.  In Bordeaux, for example, custom, pride and winemaking laws mean that there are only one or two wines to try, the second label and the grand vin.  On the other hand, there are many (too many, in our opinion) vineyards that are raising all sorts of grapes, whether they are well accommodated to the terroir or not.  While there are some exceptions, wineries that grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc all on their 20 acres can’t possibly make them all into good wines.  And many wineries that are more restrained in the types of wine they make have two or more tasting lists at different levels of price and quality.

Photo courtesy of DrinkPreneur

The best idea is to restrict yourself to drinking the best wines available.  But maybe you don’t know what’s the best, or you don’t feel like spending a small fortune for a small pour, no matter how great the wine.  Here’s a few tips on dealing with overwhelming choices.

• Don’t try to taste everything. For one thing, you’re almost guaranteed to get a lot of wine you don’t like.  For another, it’s not legal for a winery to pour you that much wine.  Especially if you’ve been elsewhere beforehand, no matter how much you think you can handle, you probably can’t.  And even if you can, you shouldn’t.  Have a nice day in the country, not in a police station or worse, a hospital.
• Don’t ask what’s most popular. There are a lot of factors that determine popularity.  In many case it’s price without regard to quality.  Or you may be in Wine Country in hot summer weather and the most popular is an ice-cold quaff, which is no help to you if you are in the mood for a subtle Pinot Noir.
• Look at the prices. There is often – but not always – a correlation between the highest priced bottles and the best wines.  If you don’t know much about the production of a particular winery, it’s not a bad idea to limit your tastes to the bottom of the list.  (The most expensive are always on the bottom.  ) But you might also find yourself with a highly alcoholic, over-the-top wine that the winemaker was just experimenting with.
• Ask what’s the best on the list. In many cases, they server can’t or won’t answer directly.  If he or she is part of the ownership family, it may be like asking “which is your favorite child?”  But if your server is an educator, he or she will answer you by asking, “tell me about what kinds of wine you like”.  So if you say, for example, you like big, fruity wines with a long finish, the server may reach for the Cab and the Zin and leave the other wines below the bar.  Or you could do it the other way round.  Describe what you’d like to taste and let the server find it for you.
• Build your own tasting list. Maybe you like the whites on the less expensive list and the reds on the reserve list.  Tell your server that.  If that person has any sense at all, he or she will seek to have a happy customer and give you what you want.  You may pay a little more than you would otherwise for the cheaper wines, but you’re more likely to go away happy.

One of the great things about wine tasting is the diversity.  There are so many wines, from so many countries and regions, that it’s pretty clear that no one will ever taste them all.  But don’t let us deter you from trying.

There are almost as many brands and shapes of wine glasses as there are wines.  The basic model is a bowl shaped somewhat like a tulip, with a stem and a foot, so you can put it down without the wine all spilling out.  The better manufacturers make different glasses for reds, whites, Bordeaux, Pinot, Port, etc.  Among the better-known manufacturers are Spiegelau, Schott Zwiesel, Waterford, Riedel and so many more brands.  While most of the wine glasses are stemmed, Riedel has introduced some stemless ones; some bistros use tumblers.  Whatever shape or color, they all can hold wine. Besides the wine glasses, there are the balloon glasses or snifters for Cognac, whisky tumblers, goblets and highballs, Champagne flutes and dessert wine glasses.  Some shapes ask for holding them in the palm of the hand, such as for warming Cognac, as an example, and for whiskey when one prefers it straight than on the rocks. Besides the beauty and diversity of each of them, the shape helps concentrate the bouquet and intensifies the flavor.  While it may seem like snobbism to have all those different shapes in glasses, but there are reasons, not just a snobbish thing

There was once a time when winery tasting rooms used the smallest, cheapest glassware they could find, undoubtedly to cut cost.  They didn’t charge for a tasting and they gave away the glasses, which were just one step above a jelly jar and made it difficult to hold it by the stem.  But as time and tastes have improved, better wineries are now offering their tastings in fine stemware.

Almost all American wineries, to say nothing of most restaurants and bars, use stemmed wine glasses.  Of course, a stemmed wine glass is elegant but besides that, the stem is meant to hold the bowl away from the heat of your hand, so that it doesn’t warm the wine in your glass.  Too often we see people holding their glass of wine the same way they hold a glass of water, grabbing it by the bottom of the bowl.  Talking about elegance: this isn’t it.  This is something that gives us shivers when we see people, unfortunately, grabbing their wine glass with the hand around the bowl, instead of holding it by the stem.  All they are doing is detracting from the wine tasting experience.  Especially in winery tasting rooms, where the pours are necessarily small, the relative impact on the wine can be significant.

Holding your wine glass by the stem will also make it easier to swirl the wine in order to aerate it.  So get the most out of your wine when you sip it by holding the glass the way it was meant to be held.

Enjoy your wine.  Cheers!

Last month’s issue of Power Tasting contained an article on planning for a trip to Napa Valley.  We owe the same to the other half of Napa/Noma, Sonoma County.  Many aspects of the planning are the same but there are some very distinct differences as well.  For one thing, Sonoma County is a lot more relaxed than Napa Valley.  For another, Sonoma’s Wine Country is quite a lot bigger than Napa Valley’s, so there’s more travelling to do if you want to see – and taste – it all.

• Figure out what you want to taste. Different AVAs of Sonoma Wine Country are associated with different grapes.  Russian River is renowned for its Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays (although Chardonnay is grown just about everywhere).  Alexander Valley is known for Cabernet Sauvignon.  Dry Creek Valley is famous for its Zinfandels.  You’ll find some of everything everywhere and some other AVAs make a little of everything, but you really ought to focus your tasting on the local specialties.

Alexander Valley.  Photo courtesy of The Wine Country.

• Avoid a lot of driving. You will need at least a day to go wine tasting in any one region (and of course you won’t be able to taste everything in a day), so don’t plan to do a little bit in the Sonoma side of Carneros in the morning and then Dry Creek after lunch.  The main route in Sonoma County is Route 101 and even at highway speeds, it’s an hour’s drive between those two ends of Sonoma’s Wine Country.

Traveling through Russian River. Photo courtesy of Ride with GPS.

• But enjoy the drive. Unlike Napa Valley, which is laid out in fairly straight lines, Sonoma County’s Wine Country is full of rustic, windy roads many of which are especially beautiful.  Take some time to open your eyes and look around.
• Choose a hotel that’s close to where you want to taste wine. The principal towns with large hotels are Sonoma to the south, Santa Rosa in the middle and Healdsburg up north.  Each has a mix of chain hotels, inns, resorts and bed-and-breakfasts.  It’s probably a good idea to figure out where you want to taste, then ask Google how long it would take to get there from each town.  That should make it easier to narrow your hotel search.
• Think about food, too. For the most part, Sonoma County restaurants are more casual than their counterparts in Napa Valley.  Healdsburg has a few rather elegant eateries (Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen and Valette) but you’ll usually find both the food and the diners to be easy-going in the rest of the county.  That’s not a put-down; there are lots of places to eat with great food.  Like anywhere else, reservations are a good idea on weekend evenings in warm weather, but in general you won’t need them.
• Enjoy lunch, too. If you’re going to be sipping wine all day, you’d better eat.  There are iconic delis (the Jimtown Store in Alexander Valley, the Dry Creek General Store, the Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg).  Many wineries in Sonoma County have picnic facilities, unlike those in Napa Valley.  And having a bite on the town squares in Healdsburg or Sonoma, followed by a casual stroll, should be a part of your vacation plans, too.

You’ve decided you’re going to go wine tasting in Napa Valley.  Maybe you’ve never been or it’s been a while.  We’d like to offer some tips on getting the most out of your vacation by investing some time planning before you go.  Believe us, it will pay dividends.

• How much time do you have? It makes a big difference if you’re going for just a few days (and if those days are a weekend) or more time, including weekdays.  Don’t try to pack in too much in a short time.  For one thing, you’re dealing with alcohol, so you’d better know your limits and not even get close to them.
• Which part(s) of the valley do you want to visit? There are 17 appellations in Napa Valley, and while a few such as Atlas Peak and Wild Horse Valley don’t have wineries to visit, most of the rest have plenty.  There are more than 400 tasting rooms in Napa Valley.  You’re not going to get to them all in one vacation, so it makes sense to choose a sector (like Oakville or Calistoga) and focus on just one per day.  You want to avoid driving from one end of the valley to the other, potentially in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The view from Viader winery on Howell Mountain.

• Choose a hotel that’s convenient to the places you want to go. The chain hotels are clustered to the south end of the valley, in Napa Town and environs.  Carneros and Yountville have many spas and resorts these days and tend to be pretty pricy.  There are bed and breakfasts scattered everywhere.  In general, the further north you go, the fewer hotels and inns there are to choose among.  Napa Valley is a very popular tourist destination these days, so don’t rely on finding a place when you get there.  Reserve in advance.
• Plan out your days. When do you usually get out of bed?  It’s your vacation, so don’t plan on getting up with the roosters unless that’s what you usually do.  Eat breakfast!  You’re going to be sipping alcohol all day, so have something in your stomach before your first wine tasting stop.  Figure you’ll taste at, say, four wineries in a day.  Leave time for a nice lunch; dining in Napa Valley is almost as much a part of your vacation as wine tasting.  Think about what you’ll do between the closing of the wineries and dinner.  Your usual vacation plan of a pre-prandial cocktail may not make sense if you’ve been sipping wine all day and will probably have some more with your evening meal.

Bistro Jeanty.  Photo courtesy of Sonoma Magazine.

• Make dinner reservations. It is hard to get a table at some Napa Valley restaurants.  Some are just impossible (e.g., French Laundry).  Others are very popular and fill up their reservations well in advance (e.g. Bottega).  There are quite a few that are local favorites, like Bouchon, Mustards Grill or Bistro Jeanty where it’s difficult to get in on weekends without a reservation.  So it’s a good idea to reserve before you travel; you can always cancel if you change yourmind.  And if you don’t mind waiting, the Bounty Hunter and Ciccio don’t even take reservations.

Have a great vacation and drop us a note while you’re there.

With rare exception, no one goes wine tasting with the exclusive purpose of sipping dessert wines.  Sure, that’s the idea if you’re going to Sauternes in France, and maybe in the Canada’s Niagara region, but that’s about it.  On the other hand, almost everywhere in Wine Country, there will be winemakers who make a bit of sweet wine as a little extra.

In Australia, they call them “stickies”, and with good reason.  In Italy, they make Vin Santo in Tuscany, Reciotto in Valpolicella and Passito in Sicily.  Canada and upstate New York have their ice wines.  Of course, there’s Port in Portugal.  And in California, as you might expect, many wineries have a dessert wine available and they’re all very different.  Among our favorites are Grgich Hills’ Violetta, Dry Creek Vineyards’ Soleil, and Beringer’s Nightingale.

There are a lot of different types of dessert wines.  The best, in many people’s opinion, are the wines affected by the botrytis fungus that sucks almost all the moisture out of the grapes.  The resulting shriveled fruit is very sweet and very concentrated.  In Sauternes, it happens almost every year, but elsewhere it happens sometimes and sometimes not.  Ice wines are made in climates where the grapes can freeze in late autumn.  In warmer places, they just leave the grapes on the vines and produce late harvest wines.  In our opinion, Port only comes from the Douro Valley in Portugal, but many others make a wine they call Port, made from Zinfandel and other white grapes.

Photo courtesy of Royal Design.

So wherever you travel, if you want to tickle your sweet tooth after drinking dry wine, here are some tips.

• Most of the time, you’ll have to ask. Many wineries don’t make dessert wines and of those that do, many keep them below the bar.  After you’ve completed your allotted tastes of table wines, you can politely mention, “Do you make a dessert wine?”.  Some visitors are shy about asking, especially if they have paid for, say, four tastes and they’ve had them all.  Don’t worry about it.  The mere fact that you knew enough to ask is enough to show a server that you care.
• Sip it like it’s the nectar of the gods. You’re often getting something extra so show your appreciation.  They don’t call it dessert for nothing.  Unless you buy some, you may never taste this wine again, so make every drop count.
• Drink these wines differently than you would a table wine. You’ll probably get a small glass with a small lip.  Take just a little liquid in your mouth and roll each sip over your tongue.  Let your sweet sensors do the work.  Then remember you’re drinking wine and look for the complexities.  It’s that complexity that makes the botrysized wines like Sauternes stand out from the others.
• Remember you’re drinking it young. Most wineries sell out their “stickies” very rapidly, usually to their club members.  It is rare to find an older library dessert wine.  Many change character as they age and some (not all) people like them better when they’ve gotten brown and mellow.  You’ll be sipping honey and fruit juices and sugar.  Enjoy it while you can.