One of the hardest things about taking a wine class is not letting the wine dull your senses. Well, that and learning how to recall a certain taste or smell from a previous class. What I’ve definitely learned is that to be able to do the second, you must do the first.
In the second class of Wine Essentials, we further explored the senses of the tongue and how different wines appear to those senses. We tasted how acidity can be present in red wines and not just in whites (in which I’d only been able to identify acidity previously), like in a young Beaujolais hinting at sour strawberries. We also discovered how you can dip the very tip of your tongue in wine to check for residual sugars.
We also looked at the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions in France and drilled down into how wines are classified in those regions and presented on a label. Because the French have such pride of terroir, and thus tie quality in wine to a sense of place, it’s often the case that the more specific a label is, the higher the quality of wine. For example, a Vin de Table or Vin de France is typically a cheap wine made from grapes from no particular region. The label doesn’t specify anything but country of origin. However, a Burgundy wine that is believed to be worth bragging about will likely indicate the country, then region, sub-region, village, vineyard, and finally maker.
Among my favorite wines we tasted this class were Lillet Blond (a fortified wine I plan to revisit here), Louis Jadot Meursault Genevrières Premier Cru 2007, Pierre Gelin Fixin 1er Cru Clos Napoleon 2008, Rustenberg ‘John X Merriman’ Stellenbosch 2007, and Chateau Guiraud 1er Grand Cru Classé Sauternes 2005. I thought the Stellenbosch wine was particularly interesting. Maybe I’ve just never had the opportunity to sit down with red wines and compare their virtues under the guidance of an expert, but I’ve never noticed tasting a wine that so clearly tasted of green peppers and jalapeno. And a red wine at that!
