ResearchThe Ten-Minute Wine Expert for the Holidays
Oh, here comes Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years just around the corner, and you not knowing your Holiday table potables! The problem with wines is that everybody has to make such a fuss about them, with all this pretentious business mixed in with wine know-how. Pomposity is ripe in the wine world, with people who think they're upper-class just because they can identify a Sauvignon Blanc at ten paces. Well, hang with me, and by the time we're through maybe you'll be able to show that snooty sommelier (restaurant wine-server, pronounced "some-ale-YAY") that you're not just a hayseed rube.
Wines go in two categories: red and white, also known as mostly sweet and mostly dry (tart). White wines go with seafood and poultry and red wines go with everything else.
The most common white wines are Chardonnay (most popular, flexible, wide range of flavors, usually dry and full-bodied), Sauvignon (sharp and dry, like aged cheddar, with a bite and a kick), Riesling (usually German, light with some dryness), and White Zinfandel (mildly sweet).
The most common red wines are Cabernet (most popular, medium to bold taste, sometimes sweet), Merlot (deep in color and flavor, very full-bodied), Pinot Noir (a gamble, expensive, hard to get right, tasty when it's done right), and Red Zinfandel (very sweet and light).
Mingled in with these breeds are the intended purpose of the wine. So there is Aperitif (a before-meal appetizer, flavored, includes Sherry and Madeira), Table Wine (served with the meal or stand-alone), Dessert Wine (very sweet, goes well with cake or cheese, includes Port, Tokay, and also Sherry), and Sparkling Wine (as in champagne, served as a stand-alone refreshment). Of course there are also cooking wines (meant to fry your flounder in and not for drinking, salty) and country wines (made from something besides grapes, like plums or strawberries), but that's wandering too far off-course.
Some jargon about taste: Wine grapes, without any additives at all, can encompass a huge array of character in taste and smell. Taste is usually described in terms of sweet (either sweet as in sugar, or sweet as in vanilla or apple taste), dry (tart or tangy, the alcohol content shows through), fruity (wines can have an under-taste ranging from raspberries to bananas!), jammy (really full-bodied fruit taste - see Merlot), spicy (as in black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.), oaky (subtly flavored by the oak barrels which fermented it), earthy (not like literal earth, but a very ripe, full taste), and tart (as in citrus).
When to send a wine back: Not to be rude about it, just politely signal the sommelier that there's something wrong with it and have them bring out another bottle of the same. They shouldn't take it personally, as some wines can go wrong even in the finest establishments. Here's what to watch for: corked (the bottle's cork got moldy, and the wine will smell like a mildewed cardboard box), buttery (it has a taste like butter, caused by some complicated yeast chemistry, however in Chardonnay some butter flavor is done on purpose), oxidized ('flat', little taste except the alcohol and acid), and reduced (overpowering musky or burnt odor, from the wine not getting enough oxygen). Bad wine is rare, so it's not doing much good to be too nervous about it; if it tastes good to you, it probably is good. When a wine is bad enough to be sent back, it will announce this in force and be unarguably bad!
Alcohol content is related to flavor: the fuller the flavor, the higher the alcohol, and the lighter the flavor, the lower the alcohol. The color, however, is determined by tannins, the residue left from grape skins. So red wines are allowed to have contact with the grape skins while white wines have no exposure. Tannins also contribute to a wine's longevity, so white wines "age faster" while red wines can be stored for much longer. 'Bouquet' is another word for aroma, and most of what applies to taste applies to aroma.
For home serving, don't worry so much about the exact temperature and time per wine breed; if it's been in the fridge for six hours it's fine. Wine tasters often swirl their glass gently as they smell it because this stirs it up and helps all the chemicals in it to be noticed. And whoever said never mix beer and wine was not talking about the hangover the next morning, but the taste while drinking - after a couple of glasses of wine, beer isn't going to taste as good.
Man, I could go for a jammy Pinot Noir with a peppery bouquet and a fruity body right now. Now get out there and enjoy the Holidays - you know as much about wine as the upper-crust without being so snooty about it!