How to taste wine for (almost) free

One of the things that people who aren't "big wine drinkers" often cite as a reason for not trying a lot of wines is the expense -- buying bottles to take home can add up, buying glasses in a restaurant is even more so.  But... how do you find wine you love without trying new wines?

Ahh, the eternal dilemma -- the safe, comfortable, known wines versus the new, unusual wine with a hard-to-pronounce grape name from an appellation that you didn't know even made wine!

So, barring winning the lottery, what's an aspiring wine geek to do?

Simple.  There's tons of opportunities for you to try wine for little to no money!

Get on the mailing list of wine stores and restaurants with good wine lists.  It's not unusual for them to have regular, scheduled, tastings, and special events when producers come into town.  For example, there's 4 major wine stores in my region that have such -- two have monthly tastings that cost $10 ($5 of which is returned in the form of a gift certificate), one has semi-regular tastings (some of which are free, some of which are up to $25), and one has regular weekly tastings for free.  Additionally, one has monthly themed, in-depth tastings ("Cabernet around the world," or "Celebrate with Champagne and Sparkling Wine" for themes) for $25.  In all these cases, it's not uncommon for there to be specials or coupons on the wines tasted -- so if you like something in the store, you can take it home for a little off retail.

As for restaurants, one in my area has "wine down Wednesday," where house pours are $2, and the rest of their by-the-glass list is half off.  Others will host tastings (generally costing $5-$10) on a semi-regular basis; keeping track of the emails can be a bit of work, but it's easier than paying full price!  You'll also hear about "big name" tastings at some -- one steakhouse near me, for example, is having a dinner with the makers of Nickel & Nickel... for $125 a seat.  Still, that's only marginally more money than a bottle of their wine and a steak would cost, and you get to try 5 wines (and a 4-course meal).

Additionally, when you eat out -- look for wine flights for tasting.  In my area, a number of places now serve a flight of 4 wines for roughly the same price as 1 by-the-glass.

Then, there's the option of hosting a wine tasting on your own -- get together with 5 or 6 friends, everyone buys a bottle in the same price point (generally, my rule here is "about $20, and something you've not had before"), and get together to try them and compare notes.  

One good resource for finding out about cheap/free wine events, pretty much nationwide, is localwineevents.com.  Yes, some of the information will be repeated (two of the wine stores in my region, for example, post their events here too), but better to hear about something twice than miss it!

And how do you keep track of what you taste?  In my case, a notebook for recording stuff "in the field," and then Cellartracker for keeping it all straight and organized -- the whats, whens, and how-I-liked-the-wines of tasting.

Tasting room etiquette.

So, you're in wine country for a vacation.  You spot a cute looking winery, and their tasting room is open!  You walk in, and you're confronted by a bar with bottles, and a friendly looking person behind it asks you if you'd like to try their wonderful Sauvignon Blanc.  What should you do?

Chat with the host; ask about the wines.  I mean, you're in the tasting room, you're obviously interested, right?  Don't be a silent lump!  These people know more about the wine than you do -- they can often point you to the block of the vineyard where it came from, explaining why this one has a hint of mint while that one tastes of cocoa.

The order of tasting will almost always be white, rose, red, dessert.  If there's a variance, ask why, as it'll give your host a chance to talk about the wines and why this white follows those reds, or whatever the variance is.

There's often a fee.  It'll be upfront.  Sometimes you get something for the fee (a glass to keep, for example, or a the fee is applied to pay for wines you purchase at the tasting room).  Sometimes you don't.  There's no standard for that -- just accept it and move on.

If you're offered a bonus of some kind during a tasting -- be it a reserve wine, something offbeat that's not for sale yet... accept!  I once watched someone turn down a tasting of a pre-release rose of Pinot Noir that was absolutely amazing because "I only drink red and white, not pink."  Insanity!

The same goes for taking a quick tour -- you're in wine country, why on earth would you not want to see the winery?  Take some pictures -- wineries are often quite photogenic.  Ask questions -- why does the winery use new barrels for this wine, and used barrels for that one?  It'll improve your appreciation of all wines, not just the ones of the winery you're visiting.

Actively taste.  A tasting room isn't a bar.  Slamming down wine is bad form.

The spittoons are there for a reason -- again, it's not a bar, you're not there to get drunk, so spit your wines.  Especially if you're going to be driving.

The crackers are a palate cleanser, not a snack.  If you want a snack, bring your own (although, some wineries do have light snacks for sale in their tasting rooms).

If you want a second taste of a wine, that's fine, but you should buy a bottle of something at that point.  Remember that the tasting room is also a store -- the wines should be priced reasonably competitively with retail, and there's often tasting-room-only wines (eg, Sobon's Tempranillo, Heitz's Grignolino and Port).  The words "I can get this less expensively at home," should be banished from your vocabulary.  The producer's gross profit on wines sold on-site is 100%.  On wines sold at retail, it's around 30% (more or less).  You want to support a favorite producer?  Buy a bottle directly.  It'll be a souvenir you can savor at home.

Photo of the Martin Ray tasting room, from Sonoma Uncorked.

A wishful tasting...

Friday, Dr Vino (a blog I highly recommend, by the way) posted about an amazing tasting attended by James Halliday, including '55 and '71 Grange, '55 Wynns Coonawarra Shriaz, '62 Penfolds Bin 60A, some '85 Hill of Grace, and '96 Clarendon Hills Australis, amongst others.  The whole list is here.

This is, if you don't know it, a hitlist of the heavy-hitters of the Australian wine scene, and most of them were aged either to perfection (yeah, even after railing against aging wines... but these ones deserve a chance to develop!), or in fact were over the hill.

All in all, I'm highly jealous.  I've had some great Aussie wines -- a mid '90's Grange, back in 1999 (alas, I didn't make notes, and it was before I got into the wine business in a serious way), William Randall, Amon Ra, and The Gate, amongst others.  But never this many on one table.

So, in that vein, here's the tasting note for arguably the best Australian wine I've ever had -- 2006 Amon Ra, which I had about a year ago.  I can still see the brick-red color of the wine, smell it's toasted oak and fruit, and feel the velvet of it on my throat.  Truly a wine to remember, and one that I happily pulled out of my personal cellar for a friend's going-away party.

The color is a deep, brick-red, almost opaque. On the nose, a rush of blackcurrant and rich berries. The nose intensity is overwhelming; I poured less than half an ounce into a glass when decanting the wine, and it almost knocked me over taking a short sniff from over the rim of the glass; I didn't even try to put my nose into the bowl. On the palate, the wine is indeed overwhelming in flavor. Notes include distinct cedar and oak notes, an overarching flavor of dark chocolate, red fruit, coconut, spice, and espresso. The mouthfeel is velvety. There's a richness to the flavor that's hard to put into words; it's mouth-coating, intense (even in a 1/2 oz tasting pour). The wine sets up camp in your mouth and stays there for seemingly ever. Truly amazing.  99 points.

All in all, too intense to have on a regular basis, but wine like that is amazingly nice to have for a special occasion.

Photo from K&L Wines, where you can buy 2006 Amon-Ra, and who did not contribute in any way to this update.

Active tasting.

I've realized, nowhere on this blog is the procedure for tasting wine described!  Yes, actively tasting wine -- as opposed to passively drinking wine, which is what most people tend to do.

So, here's the routine I go through, which is abbreviated as "see, swirl, sniff, sip, swish, slurp, spit and/or swallow."

1. Pour about 1 - 2 oz of wine into the glass.
2. Look at the wine with a white backing (generally a tasting note sheet).  Note the color of the main part of the wine and the color of the rim.
3. Swirl the wine in the glass -- coat the inside of the glass with wine, to give the maximum surface area for the aroma to develop.
4. Sniff the wine -- both long and short sniffs.  Really get the nose into the glass, to detect aromas.  Generally, at this point, I close my eyes here, to remove visual distractions and force me to concentrate on what I smell and later taste.
5. Sip the wine -- a little bit goes a long way.  Note the immediate flavor of the wine on the tongue; is it the same as the nose, or different?  How acidic is it, how sweet?
6. Swish the wine all over the tongue, to get a fuller picture of the flavor profile.  Is it dry in the back?  How does it feel?  Generally, this looks like I'm chewing the wine.
7. Slurp some air over the wine; this allows the aromas to work up through the sinuses onto the olfactory bulb -- which is where 90% of what you "taste" really is noted (ever notice that when you can't smell stuff, everything tastes bland? That's why.).
8. Spit -- if I'm at a tasting, where I may be tasting multiple wines in a row, as the alcohol in the wine will dull the senses.  Of course, at home, I swallow.

Note that this is real, active tasting.  That is how you people find "a hint of mint, and some creme de cassis" in a wine.  The best thing to do, to learn to pick out these kinds of flavors, is to actively taste everything.

Yes, you can even actively taste milk.  And water.  And soda.  And steak.

Image from Wine-Community.It.

Visiting a winery

When going to a visit a winery, you'll find some variation on the following speech.  Always.

"Welcome to Chateau du grandmere d'taurieau¹!  Our winemaking philosophy is simple; great wine begins in the vineyard.  We selectively harvest only the best grapes from our vineyards, which are then gently handled and vinified using labor-intensive techniques, to fully express the terroir of [appellation].  That's how we've done it since the Taurieau family founded this winery, [number of years] ago."

Cutting through the marketing, basically what's being said is "we try to get good grapes, and treat them well.  Since everyone else does this -- excepting giant bulk producers -- we have to make it sound more artesianal."

This is often followed by the phrase:

"So, please, try our wonderful [appellation] Sauvignon Blanc."

I'll note that, in general, the Sauvignon Blanc isn't all that wonderful.  There are exceptions (Barnett, pictured above, and Sobon both come to mind), but for the most part the Sauvignon Blanc is slightly sweet and low acidity; it's there to whet your appetite for the more serious wine.  And, perhaps, to dull your palate a bit.

You'll then be given three or four other wines, culminating in their best (read: most expensive):

"Finally, our most select lots go into this wine, our tete de cuvee.  Note the depth and complexity of the flavor, the power, and the little hint of [odd flavor], the signature of the terroir of [appellation]."

Of course, the best is saved for last, after you've had 3 or 4 tasting pours -- just over a glass.  Your palate will have been dulled slightly, and (if this isn't your first winery visit of the day), perhaps you're even a bit buzzed.  So, of course, you're just a bit more suggestable.  And more likely to buy the tete de cuvee (which, generally, really is their best, although I often wonder if it's worth the price).  Yes, it does have a hint of mint, or fresh asparagus, or whatever the odd flavor is, but does that make it worth twice the price of their regular offerings?

Again, I'll note exceptions -- Sobon Estates, for example, has a tete de cuvee zin that is over twice the price of their regular offering.  A whopping $25 for their Reserve Paul's Vineyard, as opposed to the $11 Hillside.   And, yes, it is worth it.  I'll post a review Monday, in fact, of some of the wines in their lineup, as I realized that I've had just about everything out of their winery when the winemaker came to visit my local wine store last year.

You may also get, at this point, an invitation to join their wine club, by whatever name they call it.  Honestly, this is often a good deal -- you get wine, generally their new releases, on a regular basis, and there are often other benefits (generally the price for the wines is lower, you get access to library releases and club-exclusive wines -- which can be either experimental wines, or are just really low-production).  But, think before you sign on the dotted line!  Do you really want their wine on a regular basis?  Is it unavailable in your local wine shop?  If so, is it less expensive in your local wine shop (often, the vineyard is the most expensive place to buy a wine)?  Maintaining several mailing list memberships can be quite expensive!

¹ I couldn't resist the pun here.  Does anyone else notice it?

Pairing wine.

"What's the right wine to go with [whatever]?"  If you're a wine geek, and out to your friends about it, it's probably a question you're confronted with every time you go out to a restaurant.  Of course, there's no specific training for pairing food and wine, at least for most people (culinary school/hotel and restaurant management graduates and sommeliers exempted).

However, there are some rules that can be applied to help find good pairings for foods.  No, not "red with meat, white with fish," that won't work at all (imagine drinking an over-the-top Australian Shiraz with a delicate fillet mignon!  Ugh.).  But...

• Think of the weight of the food in the mouth -- heavier food will pair with heavier wines, lighter food with lighter wines.
• How intense the wine is -- an over-the-top wine will overpower a light, delicate food.  Conversely, a rich, heavy food would overpower a delicate wine.
• High-acidity wines will pair well with foods that are mouth-coating and fatty.  So chicken in a cream sauce will pair well with a crisp medium-weight wine (chicken is what I would call "medium weight" food), while sea bass in butter would go with a crisp light wine.
• Think of the flavors in the wine; would they compliment the flavors of the food, or might they contrast well?  The citrus in a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, for example, would go great with fish tacos!  Ditto the earthy flavors of a good Rhône red and a beef stew with mushrooms and potatoes.
• How sweet is the wine?  Sweet wines go well with hot and spicy foods.  Additionally, if you're pairing with dessert, choose a wine that's sweeter than the dessert, or it'll come off slightly bitter.
• Finally, relax.  There's still wine in the glass, there's nothing wrong with that.  If you pair "wrong," there's nothing to worry about -- I know of at least one person who loves White Zinfandel with steaks!

Some good general pairings:  Australian Shiraz and wet barbecue -- spicy, smoky, slightly sweet wine with spicy, smoky, slightly sweet sauce!  Russian River Pinot Noir and tuna steaks -- good, high acidity, medium weight red with fatty, weighty fish (yep, a red with fish!).  Seafood in butter and Loire whites -- Loire whites go phenomenally with seafood, from clams to scallops to lobster.  Spicy Chinese food and slightly sweet Gewürtztraminer or Riesling.

So why fear having to pair wine and food?  As an outspoken friend of mine once said, "why worry?  It's just f*cking wine!"  Given that the speaker is a man with 40+ years as a wine importer, and a gourmet chef... if he doesn't worry, neither should you.

Photo credit: FreePhoto.com.

Tasting menus, enomatics, and wine tastings, oh my!

One thing that makes it hard to really get into wine, in a broad sense, is the plethora of wines out there and available to the consumer.  From $3 to "hey, how much do you want to spend?" there's literally thousands of choices in a well-stocked wine shop.

At that rate, learning about most regions and varietals is an expensive proposition!

But, it's fairly easy to find cheap-to-free ways to taste bunches of wines, and even be able to purchase them inexpensively (well... below list, at least).  First, and foremost, find out if your local wine store has regular tastings, be it weekly, monthly, whatever.  Sign up for their mailing list -- either email or postal, most stores offer one or both.  That should keep you informed of both regular and special events (producer visits, new releases, etc).  Generally, tastings are free or only nominally expensive -- in my area, there's 3 chains.  One has weekly, free tastings of 6-8 wines per week, and offers coupons for 50¢ to $4 off per bottle for wines on the tasting (depending on the price of the wine).  One has a once-monthly tasting of 30-40 wines that costs $10.  One has quarterly tastings at each of it's locations (there are 4 within a 20-mile drive of my house), with 60-80 wines, also costing $10.  Both of the $10 tastings also get you a $5 gift certificate for use the day of the tasting, so that's a possible rebate (and, in both cases, the gift certificate is for any wine, not just wines on the tasting). 

All 3 stores also have email and postal mail lists, with the occasional producer or importer visiting and showing off their wines.  Those tastings are free.

Now, there's also 4 wine bars within an easy drive of my house.  3 have enomatic machines (card-reader operated machines that store wine using argon to preserve it, and dispense wine at the touch of a button), while one is a traditional "pour from a bottle" bar.  These aren't free -- it's usually $2 to $10 for a 1 oz tasting pour, but the wines are generally slightly pricier than those served in the wine shops (eg, one of the enomatics had a highly sought-after Napa cab -- Cakebread, which retails for around $100 -- for $12 in a tasting pour).  Kind of a fun, build-your-own-tasting, and a really interesting option for having a night out with friends.  We spent my last birthday at one of them, and for 6 people, spent about $100, which isn't all that much considering how much wine we got to taste.

Finally, many restaurants have tasting flights.  It's usually noted on the bottom of the by-the-glass menu.  Generally, it's 3 wines, in 2-3 oz pours, for around $10-$15.  Not always the best stuff, but it's often themed, which can be interesting.  Usually these fit well with the theme of the restaurant, or the staff will have recommendations -- for example, at the suggestion of our waitress at PF Chang's one afternoon, I paired a trio of off-dry whites (a blend from Washington, a German Gewürtztraminer, and a Loire Chenin Blanc) to go with an order of heavily spiced fish.  Similarly, while at Legal Seafood, the waiter suggested I have a Loire trio to go with a lobster-and-shellfish platter.  Both were very good pairings.

One thing to note, though, about tasting at a restaurant -- not all wines are available for retail sale, and not all wines are commonly found on retail shelves even if they are for sale.  Some wineries engage in the consumer-unfriendly practice of "allocation," whereby most of the production is slated solely for restaurants, while a small portion goes to retailers; the most famous examples of this would be Rombauer's Chardonnay and Cakebread's wines (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet).  It's not the case in all states -- some don't allow the practice -- but I know that in Florida and Texas, it's perfectly legal.

Finally, some restaurants have tasting nights, where you pay $5 to "hey, how much do you want to spend," to taste anywhere from 5 to... well, many wines.  A good way to learn about these is your local newspaper's "events" page, restaurant mailing lists, and the website localwineevents.com.

So, with a minimum of trouble, I can go to taste anywhere from 50-100 wines in a month, and spend only $30 or $40 a month.  And if I can do it, you can too.