A Dance to the Music of Wine

If you think tasting wine is fun, read the following instructions (from Wijnproeven voor beginner en gevorderde [Wine Tasting for Beginners and Advanced] by Robert Leenaers and Albert Holtzappel (2000)—silly title, by the way, it’s either or):

‘One tastes better with an empty stomach (…) a serious tasting should preferably start in the morning, before lunch. (…) Coffee before the tasting is not recommended. (…) Eating during the session is out of the question. (…) Bread is less dangerous due to its lighter taste, but remains undesirable.’

And on they go about the right place (kitchen), light (daylight), colours (white, walls too), odour (none whatsoever) and sound (talking is allowed during ‘designated moments’ only, no music, no other noises). Needless to say swallowing is prohibited and the spittoon should not contain sawdust (odour!).

Not an event to invite one’s friends to.

Some of these prohibitions are quite understandable. One cannot taste next to someone smoking a cigar or exuding whiffs of Chanel No. 5. Not to swallow the wine is good advice and not only because of that empty stomach. And people talking can be a nuisance (‘Have you tasted that red one, nr. 7, no, nr. 8, yet? Oh, you’re still doing the whites? Well, I thought this one to have way more tannins than the last one and that’s odd, as…’). One needs to concentrate.

Music not only undermines your ability to concentrate but also interferes with other sensory perceptions. It may even cause irritation and lead to a negative judgement, Leenaers and Holtzappel argue.

Prof. Adrian C. North goes one step further. In his ‘The Effect of Background Music on the Taste of Wine’ (2011, on which I stumbled via an article in the WSJ) he shows that students rated a wine more Zingy/Fresh while listening to Zingy/Fresh music and more Mellow/Soft if listening to Mellow/Soft music.

So a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau with Nirvana in my ears would taste like an oak-barrelled Australian monster, I guess. But would it to everyone? You may want to be careful if you think you have just found a way to upgrade your lesser-quality wines. According to North ‘music can only be an effective influence on perception to the extent that its communicative intent is understood by participants’. That means that an average, OK wine tasted to the sound of Byrd’s ‘Mass for Five Voices’ would be rated ‘rather dull’ by someone who is more into symphonic music and ‘subtle, refined’ by an admirer of so-called early music.

But then it is not just music that influences one’s appreciation of a wine. In March this year I was offered a Pinot Grigio with a Vitello Tonato (see my A Perfect Wine List). Though it paired all right with the Vitello, I thought not much of it. Last month I was poured the same wine. Same restaurant, same company, same ‘after a day of hard work’, but this time it was a gorgeous summer evening and we were sitting outside. The Pinot Grigio turned out to be an almost frivolous, zesty wine with a fresh-fruity nose.

Leenaers and Holtzappel do have a point—for the professional taster, that is.

Bordeaux Tasting

Bordeaux tastings have magic around them. And why shouldn’t they? The ‘fine fleur’ of wine journalism and wine trade from around the world gather in this château-studded area to taste and judge new vintages. Being the world’s most famous wine region, its blends imitated by many a New World wine maker, where the best wines are only affordable to the (nowadays increasingly Chinese) rich and famous, pension funds, and insurance companies—a bit of magic comes natural. Even more so as the wines are tasted (and sold—this is not a charity event) ‘en primeur,’ as cask samples, i.e., as unfinished wines. A true surprise party.

I am not easily scared off, so I boldly accepted an invitation for a Bordeaux tasting last November. Of course it did help that the tasting didn’t take place in Bordeaux, that it wasn’t ‘en primeur’ and that the invitation came from Gommers, a trusted, sympathetic wine retailer. No Pétrus here, nor a Haut Brion, but then the wines didn’t cost one a month’s income (per bottle, that is).

 

Magic was there all the same: 42 red Bordeaux wines of sometimes lesser, sometimes better known châteaux, elegantly presented in a renovated coach house. That was more Bordeaux than I had ever seen in my life. What to choose, where to start, especially if one is fairly unfamiliar with Bordeaux wines? Spouse and I had done some homework, thought it better to skip the wines under € 8 and kicked-off. We tasted lots of blackcurrant, leather, vanilla, remnants of cigar box, a dash of stable, harsh and soft tannins. Each wine, each vintage different from the other (with 2009 acknowledgedly sticking out as pretty near-perfect).

Here are a few of our favourites.

2009 Château Croix de Rambeau, Lussac Saint-Emilion, a 90/10% Merlot/Cabernet Franc blend. Though I noted a floral nose, lots of fruit and soft tannins, the tasting comments of the French cellar master—and who am I to think differently—tells me that, I quote, ‘the mouth is very pleasant from the attack.’ For sale at € 15,50, and well worth it’s price.

2009 Château Saransot-Dupré, Listrac Cru Bourgois, a classic Bordeaux blend of Merlot (56%), Cabernet Sauvignon (24%), Cabernet Franc (15%), Petit Verdot (3%), and Carmenere (2%). Dark fruit, cigar box, leather, laurel. Friendlier and fresher than the 2006. At € 16,25.

The 2009 Château de Pez, Saint-Estèphe Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel was the most expensive, selling for € 45 a bottle, and to my taste also the finest. Blackcurrant, vanilla and leather in the nose; soft, full-bodied, fresh; balanced. Yummy indeed, but three times as yummy as the Croix de Rambeau or the Saransot-Dupré? I didn’t think so.

Red

Picture an artist’s work place. Some paintings hanging, some standing against the walls. There is one right in front, the artist sitting next to it. A young man comes in and almost fearfully approaches the huge painting.

‘What do you see? Wait. Stand closer. You’ve got to get close. Let it pulsate. Let it work on you. Closer. Too close. There. Let it spread out. Let it wrap its arms around you; let it embrace you, filling even your peripheral vision so nothing else exists or has ever existed or will ever exist. Let the picture do its work – But work with it. Meet it halfway for God’s sake! Lean forward, lean into it. Engage with it! … Now, what do you see?’

This is the opening scene of Red, a play by John Logan about Mark Rothko. A marvellous play that I saw in Berlin, November 2011, performed by two brilliant actors who completely knocked me out in one and a half hours of verbal combat.

Now, what did the young man see? He, who wants to become a painter, an artist, who is at the threshold of a new phase in his career, who has made it so far that he will be assisting one of the famous painters of his days – challenged to give it his utmost he says: ‘Red.’

I do sympathize. I often feel the same way when tasting wine. I look at the colours in my glass, swirl the wine, sniff at it several times (deep breaths, short breaths), what do I smell?, take a sip, let some air in, chew on the wine, what do I taste? Red wine. Positively: red wine. And in my mind’s eye I see my teacher despair, in a similar way as Rothko did in Logan’s words:

‘I don’t even know what that means! What does “red” mean to me? You mean scarlet? You mean crimson? You mean plum-mulberry-magenta-burgundy-salmon-carmine-carnelian-coral? Anything but “red!” What is “RED?!”’

Good question. What is ‘red’? Or, more in line with this blog, what is ‘red wine’? Well, that’s a bit much for a first posting. Let’s rephrase it Fish-called-Wanda style. What would Plato think? What would Plato think of if he thought of red wine (ignoring the fact that in his days wine tasted differently)? My answer would be: Domaine de la Roche Bussière’s Petit Jo, a Vin de Table from the Southern Rhone. An authentic wine. Grenache and a little Syrah. No sulphites (only a minimum when bottling). Fruity, farmy, herby. A wine that made me sigh: This is how red wine is meant.