What's Going On in the World of French Wines

A few weeks ago I had a really interesting conversation with a fellow wine educator about coffee. Last spring, as part of our CSA/farm-share program, Bill and I started getting a one pound bag of whole bean single-origin coffee every other week, thanks to a local roasting company. This, naturally, led us to start thinking a bit more about what kinds of coffee we prefer. We were able to see (taste) that there was one type of roast we favored over the others, but because we got the coffee every other week, it was hard to compare countries or regions and so we just weren’t able to keep track of our favorites. But after my conversation with my friend, who has done some rather extensive tastings of coffee and really zeroed in on what she liked and didn’t like, I was inspired to try again.

So, luckily for me, last week one of our local gourmet stores was having a pretty big sale on coffee and tea (we’ll have to save the tea discussion for another post). So since we were actually pretty low on coffee beans anyway, I decided to use the opportunity to stock up on a few different coffees from around the world to see if I could make any conclusions about our tastes in coffee.

Just to give a little background, Bill and I have coffee every morning (most mornings it is the only thing that gets me to open my eyes willingly). We are pretty much at the opposite ends of the coffee spectrum – he drinks his black and I take mine with a good deal of milk (according to Bill, who usually makes my coffee, the mix is 55% milk (which has to be heated so it doesn’t make the coffee cold), 45% coffee and just a little bit of sugar (not that I’m high maintenance or anything…). But oddly enough, even though we take our coffee very differently, we both seem to like the same kinds. Which, it turns out, tend to be beans sourced mainly from Central and South America. For some reason, and believe you me, I’m still trying to work out my tasting notes for coffee, we both find the lighter flavors of these regions coupled with the higher acidity, slight floral and chocolaty notes to be pretty appealing. And, in addition to the Nicaraguan and Peruvian coffees we’ve taken a shine to, we both love one flavored coffee we’ve found – a Cinnamon-Hazelnut blend. I know some people would say that drinking flavored coffee is, well, maybe indicative of unsophisticated coffee palates, but I say it is a bit like people looking down on sweet wines…if YOU like it and enjoy it (and trust me, I do really enjoy those mornings Bill makes the cinnamon-hazelnut coffee) then who cares what other people think!

And of course all of our discussions about coffee beans got me thinking about the concept of terroir, or the taste of a place. In the past this term has been used primarily in reference to wine, but increasingly it is a word that is being applied to coffee, chocolate, cheese and any number of different vegetables and fruits sold at local markets. The French are particularly fascinated with terroir and it is this idea, that each place has a different taste, that was used as the basis for developing the Appellation Controlee system years ago.

I was really interested in looking at the single-origin coffee beans because I felt that it would be an interesting palate exercise to see if I could find big differences in coffees from different growing spots around the world. We also threw in one twist to our experiment by buying some beans from a certain location in both a “regular” style and then a “pasa” style. The “pasa” beans had been left on the plant to shrivel like raisins, which naturally reminded me of the grapes affected by noble rot that are used to make Sauternes in Bordeaux. Although the two styles were very distinctive (and delicious), there was definitely a taste that was common to both.

Overall, I would say that like wine, we felt that the coffee beans we tried did show some regional differences. I don’t know about you, but I find this idea of tasting a place so interesting and exciting. I thought it was pretty neat that like wine, we were able to taste so many different nuances in the different coffees we tried and also that each location seemed to have a unique taste. It reminded me of how much fun it is to drink broadly – that drinking wines from all over really allows you to realize the special characteristics that make each grape variety and each region interesting.

Why should you care about terroir? Well, just like each of us is a unique individual (with a unique palate), terroir is something that can make wines distinctive. Unfortunately, terroir is one of those really hard taste concepts to put into words – it sort of comes down to a particular taste or feeling you get from something. I’ve always found that the smaller the location from which you are sourcing a product, the more intense the sense of place, but I do find that even wines made with grapes that are grown in multiple regions and then blended can still have some kind of identity (although this does also depend on the skill of the winemaker). But perhaps if we can start identifying differences in food products, maybe it will help us to understand wines better, and in turn, this will encourage us to do what we can to preserve these differences and embrace them. After all, one of the other things our coffee terroir experiment taught us was that there were a number of different coffee terroirs that we really liked and that the best week of coffee involved rotating through several different types.
Be sure to let me know if you’ve ever done a “terroir” experiment with your food or beverages and what the outcome was. I’d love to hear about it!

Recently I had the pleasure of spending some time with Wine Internet Superstar Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV. I have to admit, I really had no idea how the interview was going to go – but when it was all said and done, this interview definitely ranks at the top of my list. I hope you enjoy listening to our chat and be sure to check out what happens at the end of the interview when I challenge Gary to a cork drop game!

To watch the interview, click here or press the play button on the video at the top right corner

I subscribe to a lot of news services for the wine industry. Every day I get tons of headlines that pertain to wine delivered to my inbox. Usually these emails contain the headlines of various articles written about different wine regions or wines, but occasionally something a bit different will pop up. The other day two headlines definitely caught my eye. One was from Decanter (a British wine magazine) and read: “Electronic tongue set to beat human wine tasters”. And the other was from ScienceDaily.com and said: “Electronic Tongue Tastes Wine Variety, Vintage.”

Essentially, the tongue was invented by Cecilia Jiménez-Jorquera and her colleagues at the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics in Spain. According to Decanter, “Using tiny synthetic membranes, each sensitive to different chemical components in a wine, the e-tongue can already distinguish the differences between the Chardonnay, Malvasia, Macabeu and Airen grape varieties. It can also tell whether the same wine is from the 2005 or 2004 vintage.”

I thought this was pretty fantastic, but also a tiny bit scary. The possibilities for this are quite interesting. I could definitely see a use for the e-tongue in detecting fraud. That is something that has always been a problem (and was one reason the Master of Wine credential was started); this could play an important role in reliably detecting fraudulent wines. But there are some aspects to creating something that could be used as a standardizing tool that worry me a bit. After all, if the e-tongue can tell the difference between the 2004 and 2005 vintages, couldn’t it be used to create a wine where vintage variation might be almost undetectable to the human tongue?

There are a few things that keep me up late at night (besides my non-sleeping 2 yr old). One of them is how worrisome it is to me that we try to measure and quantify wine to the point of taking the pleasure out of it. Part of what I find really interesting about some wines is that there IS variation. While some wines do taste similarly from vintage to vintage, wine isn’t ever a straight line. Sometimes it zigs a little to the left and in the next year it might zag a little to the right. And wines can vary not only by vintage, but by place, grape variety and what techniques the winemaker might use in the vinification process.

While sometimes all of these differences might seem to create overwhelming choices, really, it isn’t much different than many food products. I think of it sort of like tomatoes…the tomatoes I used to buy up in NY at the Union Square Greenmarket were out of this world. They had a certain taste that I loved. I buy tomatoes down here at the local greenmarket, but most of the time I don’t find them quite as good as the ones grown in the soils found up East. Soil variation, weather differences, the types of tomatoes – all of these things create differences. I still like the tomatoes I buy down South and I think the little sungold cherry tomatoes are outstanding here in NC, but overall, I do find differences.

Sometimes we seek to equalize all of the differences by rating wines, and I have to say that I’m not such a big fan of ratings. I suppose they can make it easy for some people, but really, I can’t tell you how many people have said to me that they don’t buy wines rated 90 to 100 points because they enjoy drinking them, but because they think they are supposed to buy them. In our world of gotta have the best, is just being good ever enough? If someone rates a wine a 75 or 80 but you love it, whose palate should win out – yours or that of a stranger?

I’m training right now for a half-marathon and sometimes I will get asked as to why I (who was never very athletic) put myself through the race. Besides the fact that I run so I can eat M&Ms guilt free, I do it because I actually do enjoy it – even when I am running hills and sprints. I know I will never win a race – but I don’t run to win – I run for the fun of it (and again for the M&Ms). I don’t drink highly rated wines every night because frankly, I’m just not that interested in keeping up with those things. I’d rather use my own palate to decide whether or not I like a wine – or better yet – whether or not I ENJOY a wine. And, not to mention, no wine critic or expert can POSSIBLY taste every wine that is out there (maybe the e-tongue could though – just a thought). So not every wine can have a rating. This means that sometimes you are going to have to go at it on your own – and TRUST your palate.

When I write my reviews, I try to always keep in mind that while I have a certain reaction to a wine, your’s might be different. You might agree with me and there also might be an occasion you might disagree with what I have said. And either reaction is fine – I just want you to have a reaction to the wine. Because, unlike the e-tongue, that’s what we have the ability to do. While we might not be able to measure the chemical components like the e-tongue, we do have the ability to measure the personal pleasure that we derive from a wine – and that is something that no machine or wine rating will ever be able to do !

Today, after several visits to the store and countless hours surfing the web researching phones, I finally made a decision and bought a new phone. I hate making decisions about buying something like a new phone – there are so many different options out there and I find all of the different programs that are available on each different phone completely and totally confusing.

You would think that after all of that research and the multiple store visits, when I made my final decision today, it would be an informed and educated one. Ha! Not exactly. Instead, when it came time for me to make the purchase, it was actually almost a spur of the moment choice. There I was, looking around at all of my choices and I narrowed it down to two phones – a newer model similar to my old phone, and then a totally new phone that I had never seriously considered before. Five minutes later (of course this was 40 minutes after I had entered the store), I was the proud owner of a new phone with an operating system that is unlike any phone I have ever had before.

What was it that finally pushed me to make a decision? Well, there were two main things – the first was price and the second a desire to try something new and different.

And so this evening, as I was making dinner, this whole experience today got me to thinking about buying wine. (It’s amazing how much of life relates to wine, isn’t it?) I get asked quite frequently if I have a system that people can use for knowing which wine to buy when they walk into a wine store. Just as I wanted someone today to tell me which phone I would end up being happiest with, who hasn’t once wished they could tell just by looking at a wine label if the taste of the wine will be pleasing to the palate or not?

So when I am asked this question, I have two answers:

The first is that you can read and do your research. You can search out wine critics and taste through their recommendations until you figure out which critics’ palate best compliments your own. You can look at my Top French Wine Picks listed here on this website; hopefully, you will find that all of them are not only terrific values, but are well-made and delicious wines.

My second answer is a bit more risky. Instead of going by the research and the reviews, I recommend that you take a chance. Find a wine that catches your eye and try it. Maybe it is that the price is just right, maybe the label grabs your attention, or maybe it is that it is something you have never tried before. Whatever the reason, go ahead and take a chance, you never know when you are going to get rewarded.

Of course, I can’t promise that you’ll love every new wine you try, but I do know that you will definitely find many that will knock your socks off. And you’ll be learning and having fun in the process. If you balance your two approaches, you will find that buying wine doesn’t have to be so complicated and intimidating. And as for me, well, let’s just say I have 20 days to decide whether the chance I took on the new phone was a good one!

Today at the gym, a friend of mine was telling me about going to her first wine tasting.  She had really enjoyed the event and was excited about what she had learned.  The tasting took place at a restaurant that has a garden connected to it and so the first thing that everyone did was to go into the herb garden and smell the different herbs.  They were also encouraged to smell other plants and a few fruits and vegetables.  Then, the participants moved on to smelling and tasting the wines, but the focus wasn’t so much on whether a wine was “good” or “bad” or whether the taster liked the wine, but rather on the different aromas and flavors in the wines and how they related back to the smells from the garden.  Her story reminded me of how important it is for beginning wine enthusiasts, as well as more experienced wine drinkers, to work on developing their nose vocabulary.

One of the most popular questions I get when I conduct classes for wine enthusiasts is “how can I smell or taste more fruits/vegetables/herbs/etc in the wine?”  The first answer is that you really need to give your nose some serious exercise.  Have you ever sat somewhere and closed your eyes and smelled?  I mean, really smelled?  There are scents (both good and bad) all around us.  But how many of us actually stop to smell the proverbial roses?

We have a tendency in this country to buy a good deal of our produce out of season.  Produce that has spent many hours traveling to your local supermarket is not as fresh and aromatic as produce grown closer to your home.  So strawberries grown out of season and shipped half-way around the world are not going to be as “strawberry-ish” as those grown 20 miles down the road.  Smelling those local strawberries however, can give you a much better idea of that aroma and then it becomes easier to pick it out in your wine glass.  And the flavors you can taste in really ripe, in-season fruits are so much more intense.

So if you want to practice at home, do what my friend did at her tasting – take cuttings of different herbs, fruits, and vegetables and give your nose a little workout.  It is a good exercise for your brain too!  And you will be surprised at how quickly you get your tasting notes into better shape.