DOES WINE REALLY "BREATHE"?
Does wine really inhale and exhale, sipping the air with long, deep, yogic breaths? If so, when it ages, will it puff and pant, as if challenged by climbing stairs? If wine possesses a “backbone”, and a “nose”, not to mention “legs”, surely it has “lungs”!
What’s with wine breathing – leave alone having to be decanted?
Imagine you’ve just met someone new. After the initial formalities, it would probably take you time to process the layers of multi-sensory information you’re absorbing, before you come to be your true self.
Like you, wine needs to inhale the air and mingle with it before it can let go of its “closed fist” and express its true aromas and attributes without inhibition. And those characteristics, in younger wines, take after their specific grape variety (bell peppers in Cabernet Sauvignon, for example). As the wine evolves with fermentation, exposure to oak, and age, other nuances start to come through, along with a marked complexity (think cigar, earth, leather).
A 1945 Mouton sitting on an old leather chair in an exclusive club, puffing away pompously at a Davidoff torpedo. What a picture!
How much air should you let a wine breathe? is the Question.
In full-bodied reds such as Cabernet, Shiraz, Merlot, Barolo, Barbaresco, and Amarone younger than four years, exposure to air “rounds off” the harsh tannins, making them silkier and softer. A tannic mouthfeel is hard to miss; it’s a coarse, drying, adhesive texture, followed by a bitter astringency that has you make a face. So pour that Cab into a decanter, slosh and wait an hour. Voila! Goodbye Sandpaper, hello Suede. (Or so they say.)
As reds age, the reason for decanting shifts. After years of being bottled up, wine develops a unique character – from forced rumination, no doubt. A gradual, gentle oxidation has already taken place within the bottle, softening the wine as chemical changes occur within, throwing off a residue. Which, dear Drinker, is precisely why you decant: to separate this sediment from the wine. So yes, wine does need to reorient itself to the new surroundings and the new timeline, but over-decanting would only “fade” the wine’s palate. (Oho, now it has a palate, too?)
Traditional wine tasters in France define a “first nose” as one where the wine is lightly breathed in as soon as it’s poured, without so much as a swirl. The “second nose” follows the ritualistic swish-and-swirl, when new aromas released are inhaled deeply, and flavor receptacles discern the distinctions. I’ll never forget the way Jean Baptiste at La Cave du Verger des Papes in Châteauneuf-du-Pape said, “Ah, ze wine, ’ee ’as opened!”.
A sommelier I once met in a beautiful Château in Provence would pour the wine with great delicacy into a decanter, and then (alarmingly) jostle it around with all the vigor he had in his elbow. Oh, Monsieur Phillipe, do be careful, you will bruise this old wine!
Bruise a wine? The next time you meet a wine with a black eye or a purple nose, you’ll know exactly what happened.
Showing posts with label SPACE IN WINE GLASSES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SPACE IN WINE GLASSES. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Saturday, August 01, 2009
RO ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY – 3
“RED SLATE. BLUE SLATE.”
“Man's relations to his environment are infinitely more numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized plant or animal.” Said Ellen Churchill Semple (with a Kentucky accent, perhaps?). In less enlightened ages, environmental determinism held that geographical influences such as altitude, fertility of the soil, and proximity to an ocean were closely related to the personality – and even looks – of a culture.
A bit narrowed, that thinking, but certainly true for Wine.
“Terroir” – the combination of geographical location, soil, weather conditions, aspect (or the angle of the slope) and the grapes themselves – is manifest in the specific personality of the wine.
The Riesling from Austria’s Kamptal displays different characteristics from the Riesling cultivated in Germany’s Middle Mösel, or the one from Australia’s Clare Valley. Even the same two Rieslings cultivated in the same estate with the same philosophy and vinified with the same methods, reveal different characteristics depending on whether they grew in Red Devonian Slate – or Blue. The Red Slate wines tend to be very mineral-driven even when young and dominated by primary fruit; whereas with the Blue Slate, citrus and white peach flavors predominate in the wine’s youth, turning to a pure expression of the mineral soil as they mature.
The personality of a Wine is not only the result of a “terroir” harnessed, but of winemaking savoir-faire as well. For instance, a wine matured in French oak from the forests of Limousin expresses different nuances from one barreled in white American oak from, say, Missouri. Several other factors such as cellar conditions and length of aging are also major influencers. Winemaker Stéphane Tissot in the Jura region of France goes so far as to believe that “… you can find in a wine the personality and the character of those who made it because each gesture, each operation, each decision has its importance”.
Consider the influence of Religion on Wine. It was monasteries that preserved viticulture in the Dark Ages of Europe. It was the Cistercian monks of Cîteaux who lovingly nurtured the vines at Clos de Vougeut in Burgundy since the Twelfth Century. And it was the sparkle in Dom Perignon’s eyes, which facilitated the fermentation process in the Champagne Method and contributed to his bubbly advocacy of organic winemaking.
What if we were to even touch upon the impact of Politics on Wine? Does the Roman Emperor forbidding the import of French wines to eliminate competition have a faint resonance with Parker's softness for Sonoma?
Let’s continue this discussion over a glass of complexity.
“Man's relations to his environment are infinitely more numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized plant or animal.” Said Ellen Churchill Semple (with a Kentucky accent, perhaps?). In less enlightened ages, environmental determinism held that geographical influences such as altitude, fertility of the soil, and proximity to an ocean were closely related to the personality – and even looks – of a culture.
A bit narrowed, that thinking, but certainly true for Wine.
“Terroir” – the combination of geographical location, soil, weather conditions, aspect (or the angle of the slope) and the grapes themselves – is manifest in the specific personality of the wine.
The Riesling from Austria’s Kamptal displays different characteristics from the Riesling cultivated in Germany’s Middle Mösel, or the one from Australia’s Clare Valley. Even the same two Rieslings cultivated in the same estate with the same philosophy and vinified with the same methods, reveal different characteristics depending on whether they grew in Red Devonian Slate – or Blue. The Red Slate wines tend to be very mineral-driven even when young and dominated by primary fruit; whereas with the Blue Slate, citrus and white peach flavors predominate in the wine’s youth, turning to a pure expression of the mineral soil as they mature.
The personality of a Wine is not only the result of a “terroir” harnessed, but of winemaking savoir-faire as well. For instance, a wine matured in French oak from the forests of Limousin expresses different nuances from one barreled in white American oak from, say, Missouri. Several other factors such as cellar conditions and length of aging are also major influencers. Winemaker Stéphane Tissot in the Jura region of France goes so far as to believe that “… you can find in a wine the personality and the character of those who made it because each gesture, each operation, each decision has its importance”.
Consider the influence of Religion on Wine. It was monasteries that preserved viticulture in the Dark Ages of Europe. It was the Cistercian monks of Cîteaux who lovingly nurtured the vines at Clos de Vougeut in Burgundy since the Twelfth Century. And it was the sparkle in Dom Perignon’s eyes, which facilitated the fermentation process in the Champagne Method and contributed to his bubbly advocacy of organic winemaking.
What if we were to even touch upon the impact of Politics on Wine? Does the Roman Emperor forbidding the import of French wines to eliminate competition have a faint resonance with Parker's softness for Sonoma?
Let’s continue this discussion over a glass of complexity.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
RO ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY – 2
THE WORLD THROUGH A WINE GLASS
A glass of wine has the ethereal, magical quality of calling to mind the “somewhereness” of a certain place on earth. If you were sipping a Sangiovese and you let your imagination wander away, it could evoke the green curves of Tuscany’s hills, the sun’s gold glinting off the wires to which tendrils of vines cling.
A Grenache-Mourvedre-Syrah blend would no doubt conjure up a village in the South of France – Roussillon, perhaps? Poised precariously upon a hillside in layers of terrace, it would be daubed with hues of chalky ocher, sun-tanned saffron, smoky sienna, mustard yellow and burnt brick. Your nose would scent the wispy wafting of lavender set against a startlingly blue Provençal sky, which, at sunset, would change its garb again and again like a fickle woman. Now, a filmy wrap of Lilac-Blue, then an iridescent stole of Peachy-Gold; now a chiffony wrap of Fuschia, then a flimsy veil of Flame-Red georgette! Next, a translucent mantle, the color of bruised blueberries. And then – running a little late for its sexy nocturnal tryst – a velvety cape of the deepest shade of Midnight, speckled with glittering diamanté.
Put your glass to your ear, and you might even hear the faint howl of the icy-fingered Le Mistral, sometimes blessing the land, sometimes threatening to flatten the vines with its mean gusts – but always challenging them to struggle and stress, so the result might only be character of unquestionable integrity.
Could one really discern the distinctive taste of the Missoula floods in a glass of Washington Red, and be transported to the Ice Age, as Northwest vintners loftily claim? Or sip the misty beauty of Sonoma’s winding wine trails, peppered with a multitude of wayside flowers, its creeks giggling to the gossip of birds? I am going too far, you think.
Apparently not. A journeyed palate could scan the geographical characteristics of a wine within the space of a wineglass. That palate would guess the grape variety, based on the typicity of the grape (the bell pepper notes of a cool-climate Cabernet Sauvignon, or the herbaceous leafy character of a Cabernet Franc, if you’ll pardon my viticultural racism), and also its origin (Tempranillo, usually from Spain). Not to mention its vintage amongst other things (it was a warm summer).
It’s an educated guess that often employs the process of elimination. To put it in broad terms, “It isn’t a Pinot Noir, because it’s too pale and thin a red, too muscular in body and too tannic on the tongue”. Or, “It’s reminiscent of coconut, so it will likely be a New World wine from Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas.” And then, “It can’t be from Australia because it’s too rustic and chewy with dark berries and spices… (and so on and so forth) so it must be a Petite Sirah from California.”
So the next time you raise a glass of wine, think of all that travel that lies ahead – at the very least, in your own imagination.
A glass of wine has the ethereal, magical quality of calling to mind the “somewhereness” of a certain place on earth. If you were sipping a Sangiovese and you let your imagination wander away, it could evoke the green curves of Tuscany’s hills, the sun’s gold glinting off the wires to which tendrils of vines cling.
A Grenache-Mourvedre-Syrah blend would no doubt conjure up a village in the South of France – Roussillon, perhaps? Poised precariously upon a hillside in layers of terrace, it would be daubed with hues of chalky ocher, sun-tanned saffron, smoky sienna, mustard yellow and burnt brick. Your nose would scent the wispy wafting of lavender set against a startlingly blue Provençal sky, which, at sunset, would change its garb again and again like a fickle woman. Now, a filmy wrap of Lilac-Blue, then an iridescent stole of Peachy-Gold; now a chiffony wrap of Fuschia, then a flimsy veil of Flame-Red georgette! Next, a translucent mantle, the color of bruised blueberries. And then – running a little late for its sexy nocturnal tryst – a velvety cape of the deepest shade of Midnight, speckled with glittering diamanté.
Put your glass to your ear, and you might even hear the faint howl of the icy-fingered Le Mistral, sometimes blessing the land, sometimes threatening to flatten the vines with its mean gusts – but always challenging them to struggle and stress, so the result might only be character of unquestionable integrity.
Could one really discern the distinctive taste of the Missoula floods in a glass of Washington Red, and be transported to the Ice Age, as Northwest vintners loftily claim? Or sip the misty beauty of Sonoma’s winding wine trails, peppered with a multitude of wayside flowers, its creeks giggling to the gossip of birds? I am going too far, you think.
Apparently not. A journeyed palate could scan the geographical characteristics of a wine within the space of a wineglass. That palate would guess the grape variety, based on the typicity of the grape (the bell pepper notes of a cool-climate Cabernet Sauvignon, or the herbaceous leafy character of a Cabernet Franc, if you’ll pardon my viticultural racism), and also its origin (Tempranillo, usually from Spain). Not to mention its vintage amongst other things (it was a warm summer).
It’s an educated guess that often employs the process of elimination. To put it in broad terms, “It isn’t a Pinot Noir, because it’s too pale and thin a red, too muscular in body and too tannic on the tongue”. Or, “It’s reminiscent of coconut, so it will likely be a New World wine from Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas.” And then, “It can’t be from Australia because it’s too rustic and chewy with dark berries and spices… (and so on and so forth) so it must be a Petite Sirah from California.”
So the next time you raise a glass of wine, think of all that travel that lies ahead – at the very least, in your own imagination.
Friday, July 24, 2009
RO ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY – 1
“THE SUN IS A VERY MAGIC FELLOW”
“November has tied me
to an old dead tree,
get word to April
to rescue me.”
How do the Spaces of Geography affect the cultures that live within them?
Perhaps we should ask the Grapes.
In spaces of increasing geographical latitude, grapes look to natural sources of light and warmth to ripen – just as people do for their happiness. The angle of the sun (also called “aspect”) is everything. If a certain slope is more exposed to sunlight and warmth than another, it is likely to produce far more vigorous vines – and far more qualitative wines.
When vines grow on South-facing slopes, the quality of the grape is said to be exemplary. Not too dissimilar to South-facing apartments in Manhattan, New York, where quality of life is also enhanced by this rather dear orientation.
In the Rhone region of France, the outstanding wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape are outstanding because of the characteristic terrior; Pudding Stones or “Galets” soak up the Provencal sunshine during the day and hold on to the heat, to reflect it onto the grapes, long after the sun has left for an assignation with the other side of the earth. This helps the grapes ripen and the wines get concentrated in a peculiarly delicious way, accounting for the "outstandingness". In Germany’s prized Mosel-Saar-Ruwer wine region, the Riesling grape grows in Devonian Slate, which locks in the moisture and heat to radiate warmth to it at nightfall. In Bordeaux, it’s the gravel that does it.
In a manner alike, Northern Scandinavians resort to natural sources of light and warmth with an abundant use of candles – in their offices and during meetings as well – to fight Winter Seasonal Affective Disorder, an inexplicable “sadness” that creeps in with the onset of winter darkness.
Serotonin brain chemistry has long been known to change with changing seasons, suggesting why people tend to be less happy, with lower energy levels during winter’s bleaker days. Social, scientific and economic researchers have found that even stock returns are significantly related to the amount of daylight through the fall and winter – the shorter the day, the higher the aversion to risk, it seems. The influence of climate upon happiness, with climate variables such as rain, hours of sunshine, average temperature, and windiness are strongly linked to household costs, financial satisfaction, and general satisfaction.
It’s just as well, then, that Wine makes us so happy.
“November has tied me
to an old dead tree,
get word to April
to rescue me.”
How do the Spaces of Geography affect the cultures that live within them?
Perhaps we should ask the Grapes.
In spaces of increasing geographical latitude, grapes look to natural sources of light and warmth to ripen – just as people do for their happiness. The angle of the sun (also called “aspect”) is everything. If a certain slope is more exposed to sunlight and warmth than another, it is likely to produce far more vigorous vines – and far more qualitative wines.
When vines grow on South-facing slopes, the quality of the grape is said to be exemplary. Not too dissimilar to South-facing apartments in Manhattan, New York, where quality of life is also enhanced by this rather dear orientation.
In the Rhone region of France, the outstanding wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape are outstanding because of the characteristic terrior; Pudding Stones or “Galets” soak up the Provencal sunshine during the day and hold on to the heat, to reflect it onto the grapes, long after the sun has left for an assignation with the other side of the earth. This helps the grapes ripen and the wines get concentrated in a peculiarly delicious way, accounting for the "outstandingness". In Germany’s prized Mosel-Saar-Ruwer wine region, the Riesling grape grows in Devonian Slate, which locks in the moisture and heat to radiate warmth to it at nightfall. In Bordeaux, it’s the gravel that does it.
In a manner alike, Northern Scandinavians resort to natural sources of light and warmth with an abundant use of candles – in their offices and during meetings as well – to fight Winter Seasonal Affective Disorder, an inexplicable “sadness” that creeps in with the onset of winter darkness.
Serotonin brain chemistry has long been known to change with changing seasons, suggesting why people tend to be less happy, with lower energy levels during winter’s bleaker days. Social, scientific and economic researchers have found that even stock returns are significantly related to the amount of daylight through the fall and winter – the shorter the day, the higher the aversion to risk, it seems. The influence of climate upon happiness, with climate variables such as rain, hours of sunshine, average temperature, and windiness are strongly linked to household costs, financial satisfaction, and general satisfaction.
It’s just as well, then, that Wine makes us so happy.
Friday, January 30, 2009
RO ON RUPTURED SPACE – 4
MÉTHODE CHAMPENOISE
The Drink of Kings, the King of Drink
Ruptured Space?! How does Champagne link?
Sediments formed over the passage of time
Float like muddled aspirations through the pale-gold wine
They coast along the curves of an upside-down bottle
Bursting with effervescence at full throttle
They settle at the neck and freeze into a plug
Which is then disgorged with an explosive tug
The tiniest of bubbles start rising up
When this golden liquid fills the cup
As we hold the stem and lift the flute
To joie de vivre, with this refined brut
’tis Rupture’s hand that makes this wine
So unbelievably divine
The Drink of Kings, the King of Drink
Ruptured Space?! How does Champagne link?
Sediments formed over the passage of time
Float like muddled aspirations through the pale-gold wine
They coast along the curves of an upside-down bottle
Bursting with effervescence at full throttle
They settle at the neck and freeze into a plug
Which is then disgorged with an explosive tug
The tiniest of bubbles start rising up
When this golden liquid fills the cup
As we hold the stem and lift the flute
To joie de vivre, with this refined brut
’tis Rupture’s hand that makes this wine
So unbelievably divine
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
RO ON SPACE & SOUND – 1
“THE TOAST”
I have a favorite toast.
I’ll fill your glass quarter-ways from the brim and ask you to raise it. I’ll ask you to close your eyes; then, I’ll touch my glass to yours. Just when the resounding ring fades away, I’ll touch it again, yet again, and again. I’ll ask if you see a little stone village called “Saint Paul de Vince” hugging the hillside, and whether you hear distant church bells peal as evening birds flutter away into lavender skies.
Chances are, you will.
Then we’ll open our eyes and sip a blend of Grenache, Carignan and Cinsault, and swallow the breathtaking Manhattan citiscape, as our ears fill with the sounds of “Out of Nowhere” by Art Tatum. Touched with hints of honky-tonk, the keys on the piano will cascade like drops of water, each note chasing the other in a complex and coordinated dance of footwork.
We'll take another sip, and start a conversation about this:
How does sound define your space, create it, conjure it up, leave it?
How many pockets of sound does your space encounter on a given day?
And how do you deal with them?
I have a favorite toast.
I’ll fill your glass quarter-ways from the brim and ask you to raise it. I’ll ask you to close your eyes; then, I’ll touch my glass to yours. Just when the resounding ring fades away, I’ll touch it again, yet again, and again. I’ll ask if you see a little stone village called “Saint Paul de Vince” hugging the hillside, and whether you hear distant church bells peal as evening birds flutter away into lavender skies.
Chances are, you will.
Then we’ll open our eyes and sip a blend of Grenache, Carignan and Cinsault, and swallow the breathtaking Manhattan citiscape, as our ears fill with the sounds of “Out of Nowhere” by Art Tatum. Touched with hints of honky-tonk, the keys on the piano will cascade like drops of water, each note chasing the other in a complex and coordinated dance of footwork.
We'll take another sip, and start a conversation about this:
How does sound define your space, create it, conjure it up, leave it?
How many pockets of sound does your space encounter on a given day?
And how do you deal with them?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
RO ON EYESPACE – 2
SPACE IN THANKSGIVING WINE GLASSES
Guy holds up a lens that makes me see my glass this way:
http://www.rohini.com/thanksgiving/
Guy holds up a lens that makes me see my glass this way:
http://www.rohini.com/thanksgiving/
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
RO ON EYESPACE – 1
COMFORT OR CLUTTER?
So. I decided to study visual space in locker rooms. I started somewhat inadvertently in the Men’s by wandering into it by accident. Dazed, I watched men grapple with modest shock for their invisible fig leaves, protesting with accusatory, wounded glances – poor deer in the headlights.
Not a little embarrassed, I fled to the Women’s locker room, where shared space is a silent, seething bugbear on everyone’s mind. Who is really the encroacher – the stripper or the "strippee"? Why should I avert my gaze and limit what is my rightful visual territory when someone flaunts her unsolicited nakedness? If I looked, wouldn’t their space be just as violated? To this, American comedian and writer Rich Hall has a solution: The “P Spot”, a place on the wall which men in washrooms meditate upon, fearing that a glance in any other direction might arouse suspicion.
On the eye, space is as much a comfort to some as clutter is to others. The Japanese worship minimalism, treating space itself as an object. Perhaps this also explains the white plate rage in restaurants, used to display the art of food. My own obsessive-compulsive preferences demand sitting away from the clutter of cutlery and the crowdedness of corridors – God forbid washrooms – when I dine at a restaurant. "Princess", they call me, but why doesn’t it sound like a compliment?
"Princess" wears block colors, never prints - no matter how pretty. Princess also has mirrors on her walls in place of pictures; with space reflecting space. Compare that to a fridge crowded with magnets and attempts at art by children of proud glowing parents. Who’s to say what’s right?
My pet peeve is space in wine glasses. Nothing offends my sensibilities more than a glass of wine filled to the unsightly brim. If anything needs to breathe, it’s Wine. In addition to "Breathability", there needs to be room for "Swirlability". How will you perceive the rim, and read its difference from the core? How will you allow it to tell its story of Viscosity through its tears?
This is where I bow gracefully out of your visual space and ask you to fill mine with your thoughts.
So. I decided to study visual space in locker rooms. I started somewhat inadvertently in the Men’s by wandering into it by accident. Dazed, I watched men grapple with modest shock for their invisible fig leaves, protesting with accusatory, wounded glances – poor deer in the headlights.
Not a little embarrassed, I fled to the Women’s locker room, where shared space is a silent, seething bugbear on everyone’s mind. Who is really the encroacher – the stripper or the "strippee"? Why should I avert my gaze and limit what is my rightful visual territory when someone flaunts her unsolicited nakedness? If I looked, wouldn’t their space be just as violated? To this, American comedian and writer Rich Hall has a solution: The “P Spot”, a place on the wall which men in washrooms meditate upon, fearing that a glance in any other direction might arouse suspicion.
On the eye, space is as much a comfort to some as clutter is to others. The Japanese worship minimalism, treating space itself as an object. Perhaps this also explains the white plate rage in restaurants, used to display the art of food. My own obsessive-compulsive preferences demand sitting away from the clutter of cutlery and the crowdedness of corridors – God forbid washrooms – when I dine at a restaurant. "Princess", they call me, but why doesn’t it sound like a compliment?
"Princess" wears block colors, never prints - no matter how pretty. Princess also has mirrors on her walls in place of pictures; with space reflecting space. Compare that to a fridge crowded with magnets and attempts at art by children of proud glowing parents. Who’s to say what’s right?
My pet peeve is space in wine glasses. Nothing offends my sensibilities more than a glass of wine filled to the unsightly brim. If anything needs to breathe, it’s Wine. In addition to "Breathability", there needs to be room for "Swirlability". How will you perceive the rim, and read its difference from the core? How will you allow it to tell its story of Viscosity through its tears?
This is where I bow gracefully out of your visual space and ask you to fill mine with your thoughts.
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