Chapter 6: Cruising at the Wine Show

Synopsis Chapter 1: Christian meets the new next-door neighbour, William, who happens to be a renowned wine writer and educator. Chapter 2: Christian and his wife, Aimee, arrive at William’s home for their first wine lesson. They learn how to taste, and examine the four basic wine styles: Sparkling, White, Red, and Dessert. Chapter 3: William lays out his master plan: a simple system that groups all wine into six basic styles --three for whites and three for red wines -- and explains how this knowledge takes much of the mystery out of table wine. Chapter 4: As guests at a winery opening, the three friends go on a winery tour, learn how wine is grown and made, and enjoy a luncheon prepared by a gourmet chef with wines selected by the winemaker. Chapter 5: To strengthen their sense memory and ability to recognize aromas, William leads the couple through a series of “nose training” exercises.

Aimee and Christian arrived at the wine show location shortly before 3:00 p.m., found a parking spot, and made their way into the convention centre. The show occupied the entire building, making it easy for them to find the entrance and the ticket booths. They handed over their Guest passes and received two of the now-familiar sampling glasses. However, they were unprepared for what they saw when they stepped onto the grand display floor. They had expected to see clusters of sedate wine merchants deep in discussion of the merits of various wines and vintages. Instead their senses received an onslaught of bright lights, loud and sometimes conflicting music, wine personnel touting and pouring their wares, and an enthusiastic crowd of tasters making their way through the corridors of the massive exhibit area. They stopped dead in their tracks to assess the situation.

“This is not at all what I expected,” Christian said.

“I know what you mean,” Aimee agreed. “How are we supposed to make sense of all this?”

“I guess our host is going to give us some sort of plan or technique,” Christian suggested. “Let’s get some tasting tickets and then go find William.”

William had been signing books at his publisher’s booth most of the day, and Aimee and Christian had no trouble finding him. He was just finishing for the day and was all set to give them their assignments before he had to go and put on his seminar, “The Classic Wines of Austria.”

“Congratulations on making it through the gauntlet.”

“I had no idea wine was this big a deal.” Christian replied.

“Yes, it’s a very popular show, and every year they have a record attendance,” William explained. “There’s even some talk of relocating to a larger facility. I see you have your tasting glasses.”

“And tickets,” Aimee said, enthusiastically. “But I think we’re going to need more. We only have 20 apiece, and some of the wines I saw were 8 or 10 tickets for a sample!”

“Yes, I see,” William said. “Although, if you want the thrill of tasting a wine that costs $200, this is a good way to do it. But there are plenty of good wines for just a few tickets. You just have to keep your eyes open. Now, let me explain the situation. You will find, on this floor, the widest selection of wines from around the globe that you are ever likely to encounter. And you can sample most of those wines for a dollar or two. What I want you to do today is sample as many wines as possible that you haven’t had a chance to try before.”

“And still remember our names!” Aimee broke in.

“Good point,” William continued. “So here’s the plan. I want you to take my ‘road map’ and find two wines from each style category. They must be wines that you haven’t had before or from a region that you know nothing about.”

“That’s twelve wines in total between now and dinner,” Christian observed. “Isn’t that going to be a bit rough?”

“It is indeed,” William confirmed, “although you’ve done as many as eight in one sitting before. Even so, you must master the difficult art of tossing it out. Find a wine, give it a good taste, and then dump, and you must dump ruthlessly. It doesn’t matter how much you like the wine – it has to go! Otherwise you become a liability to yourself and everyone around you. Plus the wineries won’t respect you in the morning.”

“What about spitting?” Christian asked.

“That would be a good idea,” William agreed, “but I find it’s usually impossible to get anywhere near the spit buckets at these shows. People tend to crowd around them most of the time, though I’ve never figured out why. It’s a major nuisance.”

“We didn’t bring our lists with us,” Aimee pointed out.

“No problem,” William said. “I have copies for you. Plus I have these handy note booklets that the show makes available at the tutored tasting sessions. I even have pencils.” He gave each of them his Wine Styles handout, a couple of note booklets and souvenir show pencils.

“Now, I want you to go out onto the floor, taste two wines from each group, and then make a few notes on the wine, at least one sentence of your observations. Taking notes is difficult at these affairs, but it’s important to make some effort to keep track.”

“Doesn’t sound too hard,” Christian said. “I even have a list of wines I want to look out for.”

“Good, then you’re all set,” William said. “Now, I’m doing a seminar upstairs from 3:30 until 5:00, so let’s meet back here around 5:15. Any questions?”

“Is that 12 wines each?” Aimee asked.

“If you can manage it,” William answered. “If not, don’t worry about it. You can always double up, just as long as you try something new from each category. OK? Then let’s get to it!”

With that, Aimee and Christian headed out onto the show floor while William disappeared into the crowd.

As Aimee and Christian walked toward the nearest wine booth they discussed their plan.

“There are a couple of wines I really want to try,” Christian said. “Mostly the big reds – with the big price tags, like Barolo and Amarone. Those are usually about 60 bucks a bottle.”

“I’m thinking more in terms of Auxerrois and Grüner-Veltliner,” Aimee countered. “And I want to try some of the more standard ones but from countries we’re not familiar with. I also want to find Carménere. I’ve heard that it’s terrific.”

“I guess we’d better get started then,” Christian noted. “By my calculations we have only a few minutes per wine!”

William was already at the publisher’s booth when Aimee and Christian returned from their tasting foray.

“Christian won a prize,” Aimee announced. “He named all the aromas and he got the grand prize!”

“Congratulations,” William said. “Better tell me the whole story.”

“Well we were working our way down this one aisle and we came to this booth where they were showing a wine aroma kit,” Christian began. “The woman at the booth said that if we could name all the aromas in the samples, that we could win a prize. We both gave it a try and I managed to name all ten of them.”

“She said that most people only get about three or four,” Aimee added. “She said even wine professionals don’t do that well.”

“So it looks like Christian is going to be our superstar in the aroma area,” William kidded. “And what was the prize?”

“She called it a ‘Wine Survival Kit’,” Christian said. He began to unpack the contents of the bag. “Here’s a see-through plastic wine cooler. That’s clever. We’ll be able to see whatever bottle we put in it. And this looks like a freezer pack, except it looks like it fits around the bottle. And I guess this is a foil cutter.”

“It’s nice and deep, I see,” William noted. “I really like that style. Sometimes dirt and mould get stuck under the capsule and a deep foil cutter helps makes sure none of it gets into the wine.”

“And here’s a corkscrew, a waiter style,” Christian said, pulling a corkscrew from the bag. “These are my favourite, with the hinged lever. And here are those pouring spouts you use, the round silver ones. These will come in handy.”

“Add a couple of glasses and you have everything you need. Well done! Now, how about we get a bite to eat and you can tell me about the rest of your adventure.” With that, William led them over to the show’s main food area, which was every bit as crowded and busy as the wine-displays.

“Once you’ve found something to eat, we can find a table here or we can go to the Exhibitors Lounge. It’s much quieter there, and we have a rather well stocked bar.”

“That sounds like an invitation,” Aimee replied. “I vote for the VIP lounge.”

“Then I’ll meet you at that grey door just over there in 10 or 15 minutes.”

A few minutes later they were comfortably seated in the exhibitors’ area with their meals on the table. “So, how did the tasting go?” William asked.

“We ended up tasting more than the required twelve wines,” Aimee said. “Good thing we were dumping, too. But it was hard to find a lot of variety at the bigger booths. It was all Chardonnay, Cabernet and Shiraz. We had to go to the smaller places to find the really interesting wines.”

“I found fighting the crowds at some of the boothes a real turn-off,” Christian added. “Are wine shows always like this?”

“They are getting pretty popular,” William confirmed. “Some are hardly worth going to, but most are really quite good. I think it has to do with the maturity of the crowd and how committed the organizers are to keeping everyone in line. I’ll admit that there are a couple of shows I won’t work with because they’ve become little more than huge pubs. But there are many excellent shows. It’s also a good idea to arrive and leave somewhat early, as I’ve suggested you do today. Now, I think we need something to drink with our dinner and then we’ll discuss your assignment. Aimee, what do you have there?”

“I got the grilled tuna,” she answered.

“Christian, what did you find?”

“I was thinking about the barbecued kangaroo, so I could have Shiraz, but then I saw this Cajun alligator,” he replied.

“And I have moussaka. Give me your glasses and I’ll find us something suitable.” William took the tasting glasses and went over to a table, heavy with open wine bottles of every sort, and chose three wines to pour.

“Aimee, for you I’ve selected a Pinot Noir,” William said, passing over her glass. “I think it’s a good choice for almost anything, but with tuna it’s particularly nice because of the wine’s mild tannins and broad brush-strokes of aromas.

“And for Christian I chose an off-dry Gewurztraminer. Alligator falls into the ‘white with fish’ category, but the most important thing is to deal with that Cajun sauce. Follow that with any kind of tannin and you’ll swear the skin is coming off your tongue. Gewurz has the heft to deal with the overall dish, and the sweetness will help put out the fire. And for me, a red wine from Naoussa – with Greek food, Greek wine. Now, how did you do with your tasting assignment?” William asked as he dug into his moussaka.

“We took your suggestion and doubled up,” Aimee began. “That way we were able to compare our impressions.”

“Without getting overwhelmed,” Christian added

“Exactly. So we tried about 20 wines in total, I think,” she continued. “We even began to spit toward the end.”

“Did that help?” William asked.

“I don’t think you get the same amount of information if you don’t swallow,” Christian said. “At least I didn’t seem to.”

“Don’t forget that there are taste receptors in the back of the throat,” William pointed out. “Some experts insist that you can’t get a complete picture if you don’t swallow at least a little bit.”

“I think I’d agree with that,” Christian said. “Anyway, we took pretty good notes and found some really good new wines – new to us, anyway”

“And which wines stood out for you then?” William asked, getting down to business.

“Well I was going after the big reds – the Cabernet Group,” Christian began, “and I have to say that Brunello and Barolo are something else, although I found the Rosso di Montalcino more approachable than the Brunello, and it’s a lot cheaper! I also really liked the Pinotage, but Aimee hated it.”

“Ugh,” Aimee declared. “That one reminded me of paint remover. One I particularly liked, though, was a Dolcetto … and also Barbera. I think they’re both from the same area.”

“Yes, ‘Piemonte’ in Northern Italy,” William confirmed.

“Well I would drink those every day. And I really liked an Australian wine called Semillon,” she continued. “But the one that really surprised me was something called Seyval Blanc that was made in England. I had no idea they grew wine grapes in England. It was pretty good too!”

“I think it’s something the Romans started,” Christian quipped.

“Indeed,” William confirmed. “And that’s one of those marginal regions where vine survival is a major issue. Hybrid grapes like Seyval do very well there. What I’d like to know, Christian, is whether you found any white wines you liked, or possibly a lighter red.”

“Actually I really liked something called Vernaccia. I think that’s from Tuscany. We tried some Viogner that was very interesting. Aimee steered me toward a Carménere from Chile and a Malbec from Argentina. They weren’t exactly light reds, but lighter than what I’m used to. And there was this other red from Austria with a really odd name. I wrote it down in my notes very carefully because of the spelling. Here it is – Blaufrankisch.”

“Aimee, how is the Pinot with your tuna?” William asked.

“Exactly right – so I guess you can have red wine with fish!” she replied.

“As long as you pay attention to the body, flavour profile and tannins. And Christian, how about the Gewurz? Is it a suitable partner for your Cajun alligator?”

“The Gewurztraminer is exactly what I needed. Thank you for introducing me to it.”

“My pleasure,” William replied. “Now, what I’d like to suggest is that you call it a day, but if you’d like to stay a while longer keep in mind that it’s just going to get more and more crowded and possibly a bit rowdy as well. You’ve learned a lot here today, and I congratulate you. And I have a bit of a treat for you. I have a friend who is a winemaker and he’s coming to town next week. How would you like to get together with him and give him a chance to show off his latest vintages?”

“A winemaker all to ourselves,” Aimee replied. “How could we say no?”

-TFO