My Wine Adventure at Moët & Chandon

A few years ago I visited the esteemed Moët & Chandon Champagne cellars in Epernay with a wine travel company called Wine Lovers Tours (a great company—check them out at http://www.vintagetours.com)/. Our group of about 20 people was in the middle of a fascinating private tour of the cellars. I was busily taking artsy-fartsy photos of the dusty bottles in the dark and deep vaulted chambers of this 33-mile labyrinth, when I turned around and realized that I was all alone.

I ran to a fro looking and listening or my group. I heard a sound and ran toward it. I came face to face with a cellar rat (the human kind) on a forklift. In my panic I couldn’t think of the right words in French to communicate my plight to the man. He looked amused and on his forklift began to chase me around a large stone pillar. As I tried to avoid being run over, I pleaded in English with the man to help me find my group. He just shrugged and motioned for me to go up a steep flight of stairs that I had not noticed before.
I ran up the stairs and found myself back in the reception area where we had begun our tour. It was only later, after I was reunited with my group and we completed the tour, that I realized what an amazing opportunity I had passed up. I could have stayed “lost” in the Moët & Chandon cellars with all of that wonderful Champagne until someone in the group noticed that I was missing. I doubt that the few bottles I could have consumed would have been missed!

Wine faults are subjective?

Earlier this week I attended a Burgundy tasting and dinner led by Allen Meadows, "Mr. Burghound." We tasted Burgundy wines all from the 2005 vintage, 8 wines before dinner and 3 with dinner. During the tasting portion of the program, Allen was talking about Brett, and how he enjoys some wines with "a little Brett," but that too much causes the wine to taste metallic, and he doesn't enjoy that. He went on to ask rhetorically, "Aren't all faults subjective?" This was part of his larger discussion about how wine tasting is subjective, and he tried to make the point that just as how we perceive the flavor of wine is subjective, so too is how we perceive wine faults.

I heartily disagree with this premise. While I do believe that so much of our perception of the flavors and aromas of wine is subjective, I think a faulty wine is faulty and there is nothing subjective about it. It is only the degree to which the fault is perceived from person to person that varies. For example, I am highly sensitive to TCA in wine ("corked wine"), so when I smell a wine that is corked, I smell the TCA and not much else. When a person less sensitive to TCA smells a corked wine, that person may only perceive that the wine smells flat and lacks aroma. The person is not perceiving the TCA, only the effects of the TCA on the wine. The TCA masks the other aromas and flavors of the wine.

On the other hand, Brett (Brettanomyces, a wild yeast that reacts with the chlorine with which corks are sterilized), has an additive effect on the wine. It adds aromas to the wine while leaving intact or even enhancing the other aromas. Indeed, some wine lovers feel that a certain amount of the "earthy," "barnyard" aromas of Brett are desirable in a wine, especially in Old World wines such as those from the Rhone Valley or Burgundy. But that does not mean that we perceive the Brett differently; it means that the degree to which we perceive the Brett and how we feel about it varies.

So how is this different from the subjective way in which we perceive a wine? Perhaps the best way to explain the difference is to use the explanation I give to "newbie" wine drinkers when they ask me, "How do you taste all the different flavors, like cherry and raspberry and currant, in a wine? Isn't that what wine tasting is all about, being able to discern the different flavors?" My response is no, even after tasting thousands of different wines, "wine tastes like wine to me. I don't try to figure out if I'm tasting cherry or raspberry or currant." I taste the wine and decide whether it's balanced, has good structure, is varietally or stylistically correct, and of course, whether it has any technical faults like TCA or Brett.

Do you agree with Allen Meadows that wine faults are subjective, or do you agree with me that they are not?

Wine Epiphany

Each of us wine lovers has had at least one "Wine Epiphany," where you suddenly "get" what wine is all about. For me, it was on Thursday, March 9, 1989, at Jean-Louis at the Watergate in Washington, DC. It was the "Graves Tasting Tour & Dinner with Jean-Louis" sponsored by Les Amis du Vin (the storied wine tasting group that warrants a post all its own!).

For those of you who don't know Jean-Louis Palladin, here's a little background from the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation:

"In 1974, at 28 yrs old, Jean-Louis won 2 Michelin stars for his restaurant Tables Des Cordeliers in Gascony, France. At the time he was the youngest chef to have won 2 stars.

Always seeking a new challenge, in 1979 he came to America to open Jean-Louis at The Watergate, in the Watergate Hotel, Washington, DC.

He found little that was similar to the ingredients he knew in France and certainly few well trained cooks and servers. He plowed ahead with passion and fortitude."

The dinner was eight courses, paired with sixteen wines, all from the Graves region. My memory tells me they were all white wines, but it was so long ago and I was so new to wine that I am probably mistaken (if anybody reading this was at the dinner, please let me know). I have the menu and the actual fax registration form for the dinner, but of course there is no mention of the style of the wines, red or white.

The price was $160! A king's ransom for me at the time (and still rather pricey). But if the dinner were held today, I would guess it would cost at least $350. At the time I was a young database administrator, working at Coopers & Lybrand at an annual salary of $18K. The suggested attire was formal, and the dinner was limited to 60 people. We sat at round tables for 8, as I recall, and seated at each table was a representative from one of the chateaux. I was seated next to the representative of Domaine de Chevalier. He was about 60 years old and spoke no English, and my French was and is limited. But he was charming and was charmed, I think, by me.

The entire meal was sublime. Anybody who had the pleasure of tasting Jean-Louis' culinary creations will understand what I mean when I say that it was the best meal I had ever had up until that time, and even now it ranks in my memory among my top ten best meals.

But the one course that I still remember to this day is the sixth course:

Milk-fed Leg of Lamb in essence of Black Olives, Celery Root Mousseline
paired with Domaine de Chevalier 1976 and Chateau Haut-Bailly 1979

It's not the Leg of Lamb that I recall. No, when I tasted the silky, earthy, rich celery root puree paired with the herbaceous, flinty Domaine de Chevalier, it was truly an epiphany for me. It was at that moment that I truly understood what wine is all about. It's not about having an alcoholic beverage, it's not about having something to wash down your meal with, it's not even about how good a wine can be on its own. No, at that moment I understood that wine is meant to enhance a meal, and no matter how good a meal is, it's not complete without wine.

I believe that one experience has to this day influenced my approach to selecting from a restaurant menu. Before I even look at the menu, I study the wine list and see if there's anything interesting that I want to try. Then I look at the menu to find something that will go well with the wine. But I'm not really interested in whether there is steak or fish or lamb or chicken on the menu. No, for me the most interesting part of the menu is the side dishes, sauces and accompaniments. I look for polenta, mushrooms, grits, lentils, sweet potato, scalloped potatoes, risotto, barley, turnips, parsnips, beets...or celery root puree. I go back and forth from the wine list to the menu, until I find the "perfect" pairing.

So, that's my Wine Epiphany. Do you want to share yours?