May 2025 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Teaching Young Tasters

It doesn’t happen often, but there are times when we have served wine to someone who has recently gained majority and is eager to learn about wine. There are laws against pouring for anyone under 21 years of age, but we remember that our parents let us have a few sips when we were not quite at that age. We might do the same at home today, but of course that cannot happen at a winery (or any other public place).

Photo courtesy of Willows Lodge.

If you are open to teaching a young taster, you’ll find some challenges. Here are some tips we’ve picked up over time.

Sip, don’t slurp. For the most part, children are raised drinking milk, water and Coca-Cola. They don’t understand sipping. If they had a few drinks at college, they probably chugged beer or cheap wine. (Most students can’t afford anything more.) So the first step is to get them to slow down.
“They all taste the same”. It is probably true that whatever wines they have tasted are undistinguished. It’s a good idea to remember what you were drinking at their age. It is also a good idea to give them the chance to try some wine that interests you. It’s likely to have more character than what comes out of a bottle that costs less than five dollars.
“It still tastes the same”. Tasting one wine, by itself, is not enough to educate them away from what they already know. So serve two rather contrasting wines. Maybe a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Pinot Noir or a buttery California Chardonnay and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Then ask the young person to describe the difference. First, they immediately recognize that all wines aren’t the same. Second, they begin to find the vocabulary to describe taste experiences.
The wine tasting procedure. At this point, you can explain some of the basics of tasting wine. Don’t fill the glass too much. Swirl it before smelling it. Smell it before you taste it. At that point, say, “Don’t think about it, just tell us what the aroma reminds you of”. Try to get your guest to differentiate the tastes in the attack (the first sip), from mid-mouth (what’s it like on your tongue?) and the finish (what do you still taste after you’ve swallowed it?)
Wine and food. If you can, serve some appropriate food with the wine. This is easy if you’re serving wine with dinner, but it’s harder at a winery. The primary point is to teach that fine wine is meant to be an accompaniment to good food. Moreover, you can demonstrate that what you eat affects what you taste in a wine glass and vice versa.
Avoid excess. If young people already have some experience with alcohol, it probably came from something like a kegger at the frat. They need to learn that wine – at least quality wine – is meant to be an extension to other good things in life, not a way to get drunk. Of course, too much wine – of any quality – can get you drunk. Try to get across that that’s not why you are a wine afficionado.

Viader Vineyards and Winery

We have been visiting Napa Valley wineries for some years – decades, in fact – before we even heard of Viader. A colleague at work who also enjoys wine tasting put us on to it, with the warnings that it was difficult to find and difficult to get a reservation. Perhaps we hadn’t heard of Viader because we had never passed it on Route 29, the Silverado Trail or the roads between them. That’s because Viader is perched 1,400 feet above the valley floor on Howell Mountain. You have to want to go there to go there; you won’t just be passing by.

The view from Viader Winery.

As to the difficulty of finding the winery, our colleague overstated the case. You simply have to turn off the Silverado Trail at Deer Park Road and then keep climbing until you’re there. It’s a bit tricky recognizing that you are there, as the winery tells you to “look for the rust-iron gate before the sharp, 15 MPH, hairpin turn”. It’s worth the journey.

Power Tasting doesn’t review wines but rather the experience of visiting wineries. So suffice it to say that Viader makes excellent wines from red grapes. They don’t make a lot, so their wines are rather exclusive. If you are a lover of big California reds, you’ll be happy with what you get to taste there.

However, what we remember most from visiting Viader is the ambiance and in particular the view. For your tasting, you sit on a terrace overlooking the valley below, with vines in front of you and forest on the sides. A server appears from time to time with another wine for you to try but you are left pretty much alone to soak it all in, feeling very happy to be left alone sipping the wine and admiring the view. The prospect before you doesn’t overwhelm the wines. Rather, the wine only enhances the experience.

Viader has an interesting back story. Delia Viader founded the winery in the 1980’s, when female winemakers were virtually unheard of. She saw the potential for wines made from grapes grown on Howell Mountain and took advantage of it. She is still very much involved in the winery, but today her son Alan is the winemaker. They suffered a tragedy in 2005 when an arsonist destroyed their entire 2003 production. Fortunately, Viader bounced back and are very much in business today.

Viader doesn’t make very many wines. Their annual production is around 4,000 cases and it consists of red wines made from Bordeaux grapes, in particular Cabernet Sauvignon. (It is Napa Valley, after all.) Cabernet Franc is also included in their flagship wine, known simply as Viader Proprietary Blend. Other wines also feature blends of those grapes with Syrah and Malbec.

It is true that reservations are needed for a visit, as is the case these days at nearly every Napa Valley winery. However, we have found that a same-day phone call can result in a tour of the vineyards, a tasting and that marvelous view.

Monopoli

So you’re going to Italy on vacation. You surely want to do some wine tasting while you’re there. If you go to Tuscany, you’ll likely be sipping Chianti or Brunello and you’ll want to visit Florence and Siena. If your plan is to visit Valpolicella, you’ll also want to stop in Verona. In Puglia, you’ll taste Primitivo and you’ll also see… Well, there are no obvious destinations in Puglia. So let us recommend Monopoli, on the east coast of the heel of the boot.

No, Monopoli has nothing to do with the board game. In ancient times, Monopoli was a province of the Greeks, and the town’s name means something like “singular people”. Over time, the town has been ruled by Spain, the Saracens and the city of Venice, which had the most lasting cultural influence.

Today, Monopoli has a split personality. It is an industrial city of 50,000 people with a well preserved old town, or Centro Storico in Italian. It’s that part of Monopoli that you’ll want to explore.

For starters, we suggest that you just walk around to get the feel of the place. Located on the Adriatic Sea, there’s plenty of waterfront. A stroll along the lungomare, atop the old seawall, is very pleasant. (Lungomare means “along the sea”. You’ll see the pleasure craft in the harbor alongside commercial fishing boats. If you keep walking, you’ll reach the lighthouse guarding the harbor. Turn around and take in the excellent view of Monopoli.

Lunch in Monopoli’s Piazza Garibaldi.

At that point you may be ready for a meal. As in any Italian city, there are caffes and enotecas all around town. The main gathering spot, with restaurants all around it, is the Piazza Garibaldi, the general who led the fight to reunite Italy. (Be careful when you talk about him; some of the southerners still think the Italian north conquered the southern part of the country.) In good weather, which is most of the year, you can sit there sipping a variety of local wines. We especially enjoy a Fiano to accompany the abundant seafood, with Negroamaro or Primitivo to go along with the pizza.

The cathedral in Monopoli.

Not to be missed is the Cathedral of Maria Santissima della Madia. In its way it encapsulates Monopoli’s history. The front of the cathedral was built in the plateresque style typical of Renaissance Spain. The interior is decorated in the ebullient manner that you can see in Venice. But here and there are bits of evidence of the town’s Greek past, particularly in the iconography.

If you have the chance, take a boat ride outside the harbor. There are many boatmen who are only too happy to accommodate you. It’s especially pleasant at the end of the day, when the sun goes down and the lights come up. If you know Fellini’s movies, you’ll feel like you’re in one.

Monopoli at sunset.

Florence and Verona, as mentioned, are cities that have plenty of touristic interest. Monopoli’s Centro Storico comes very close to everyone’s idealized vision of an Italian village.

Bars, Wine Bars and Restaurants

Let’s say you’re going out with some friends for a few drinks. Wine lover that you are, you tell your friends that you’d like to go somewhere where they have some nice wines by the glass, rather than to one of the cocktail bars that seem to be springing up everywhere. So where should you go?

Photo courtesy of Time Out New York.

For the most part, neighborhood bars have two kinds of wine: red and white. These wines come in large bottles or jugs and are often the cheapest of the cheap, although the bartender will still charge a premium price. Fortunately, there are some bars – even some old-time Irish saloons like the ones we have around our home – that are adding a few interesting wines by the glass. This may be because they have come to realize that there is customer demand for better wines or because they can get an even higher premium price for them.

If you want a broad selection of wines to try, a wine bar is the place for you. For you, yes, but maybe some of your friends would prefer a beer or a glass of whiskey. They would be left out at a spot that only serves wine.

But let’s assume that they’re okay with a wine bar as the destination for the evening, or one of them. Instead of having too few choices at your local tavern, you can find yourself with too many at a wine bar. There are many that offer flights of several small pours of a variety of wines, usually stylistically similar. That turns a drinking evening into a wine tasting one. If four people, say, choose four different flights and you don’t mind sharing glasses, you will have quite the wine tasting experience.

Some restaurants have a good selection of wines by the glass. If it’s a restaurant with an extensive wine list, there should be quite a few to choose among. “Should be” is the operative term. Restaurants make their money selling bottles of wine to accompany meals. It’s rare that the wines you’d really like to have just a glass of is available. All too often, the wines that can be bought a glass at a time are limited in number and are taken from the bottom of the restaurant’s list.

There are some exceptions to this pattern. The bars at steak houses, for example, often feature big red wines that go well with the food they serve. They often sell good-quality Cabernet Sauvignons or Merlots by the glass. If you’re in the mood for some delicate Chablis, you’ll probably be out of luck. Of course, the reverse is true at a seafood restaurant. The point is that you can experience an interesting selection of wines at a variety of locations…if you know what they serve. This is where the internet comes into play. Take a look at the wines they offer before you go out for the evening and you’re less likely to be dis