Creative Writing | Guide to Wine | Genealogy

Wine Guide

A wine bore is someone whose head is full of other people's ideas. A free-thinking drinker is one whose head is full of his own. This is how this book will allow you to achieve vinous nirvana.

You can never really hope to learn anything simply by reading. That is the reason that the best books are those that equip you with the skills to make your own discoveries, develop opinions and deepen understanding. For the uninitiated there are few things quite as subjective as wine; if you are told that a wine is grassy then the chances are that grassiness is what you will find. If you are told that it is fruity, then you will always make it conform to some stereotype in your head. Unlike every book ever written on wine this one won't tell you what you should think about a wine - instead it will simply provide you with the skills you need to make up your own mind.

To become a free thinking drinker you don't need fancy equipment and a small library of reference books just:

some very large, deep tulip shaped wine glasses with fine rims
a knowledgeable, friendly wine merchant with whom you can develop a meaningful, life-long relationship
self adhesive labels to mark the identity of wines
water biscuits to purge the palate
a spittoon - a champagne bucket is ideal
a notebook to write your observations
a good wine atlas
an open mind

TASTE YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

Extensive tasting is the only way you'll ever deepen your understanding about wine. Great tasters are not necessarily people who are born with a special gift; they are simply people who are lucky enough to have had the opportunity to taste a great many wines at the same time. Anyone who spent an afternoon in a room full of chardonnays would be amazed at how quickly they were able to identify different characters in the wine and to have some idea about where they come from.

However tasting in a random way has only a limited use. Whenever we feel it necessary, you will find a suggestion for a Taste Test that allows you compare one style of wine with another in a focused way. It is these differences - sometimes elusive, sometimes obvious, that will over time help you define the character of a wine and build up a data base of flavours and aromas in your head.

What is crucial to these tests is anonymity. Only once you have thoroughly examined every conceivable shade of difference between the wines should you reveal their identity. This second stage will offer yet another layer of interest.

Ideally, all the wines should be tasted in one sitting. However, if the wines are quite expensive it makes financial sense to share the tasting with another curious wine enthusiast. But remember you don't need to drink the wines at one sitting - most wines will keep for up to 3 days (and even longer if sealed under pressure in a preserving system.)

Conducting the test before and during a meal will allow you to taste wine as part of a greater gastronomic experience - which in most cases is just as the winemaker intended and has a significant impact on the flavour of a wine.

Because the availability of some wines is so patchy - and because they change from one year to the next - the suggestions are kept deliberately vague - i.e. cheap Australian Cabernet, good quality white Burgundy. This is where a good wine merchant will come in; you need to identify one who you can describe what you are looking for and will then come up with a wine that is typical.

What you won't find in this book is any discussion of how one wine tasted against another; the wines, rather than the pages, are intended to speak for themselves.


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