Wine in Restaurants

Here is the typical picture you are in a fine restaurant with a couple of customers or friends. As usual the wine list is passed to you with "You know more about wine than me Joe,… you order". Panic strikes you, what will you do now? Unfortunately a lot of restaurants either have very poor wine list or they have turned the simple task of ordering wine into a complex ritual with intimidating wine lists that resembles New York City telephone books. Waiters have memorized words like “breathing” and “decanting” and carry out their ritual or removing the cork and pouring a bit of wine holding the bottle like it is a fragile one week old baby that might break its neck if you move too quickly. The most often problem is however, disappointment with the wine list. Although it is getting better, we in North America and Asia are not given great choices of wines. strange as it may seem wine can be selected to accompany dinner, or dinner can be selected to accompany wine. Before you go out check to make sure the restaurant you are going to has a decent wine list. Sometimes the restaurant has good wine but has not put them on the wine list all you have to do is ask. The first thing I do before I pick out a wine is determine how much I want to spend. If the meal I am having isn't a special occassion I will not spend a lot of money on my under the “B” or under the "G” but will more than likely pick one under the "I" for interesting. Lets face it if we picked the best wine all the time we would need to mortgage our homes to maintain our lifestyles. The next thing I do is ask "what does everyone like to drink?" This usually gets my guests talking a bit and I can understand where they are in the world of understanding wine. Some will just say red or white, others will ask for a

grape variety such as Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon. Sometimes, when you least expect it, someone will ask for a Burgundy, a 1990 Batard-Montrachet imported by Chartron, but it is rare. I will then ask if they want something light and classic or heavy and aggressive. If they are not sure ask them what they are going to order for food, and although there are no standard rules today as there were years ago (white with fish, red with beef) light wine goes with the more complicated foods and the heavy, aggressive wines go with the simple foods. If you are ordering more than one bottle you don't have to order the same type, if you give some variety it not only gives your guests some choice, but it adds conversation in the comparisons. I think the most important decision in selecting the wine is the year or the vintage of the wine. There is lots of things you don't have to memorize in appreciating wine but you must know the good years and the bad years. This knowledge will save you a lot of money. Usually the best vineyards still produce good wine in off years, but, you can get great wine from not so famous vineyards and producers at a much better price when it was a good year and all vineyards made great wine that year. For instance if the wine list has red Bordeaux on the list and has a 1992 Chateau Latour from Pauillac (a First Growth) for $200.00 and a 1990 Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacost (a Fifth Growth) also from Pauillac at 45.00 I would venture to say that not only would you probably enjoy the Grand-Puy-Lacost more, you would probably order two or three bottles if they were available and still have change left in your pocket. This certainly should influence your wine buying decision. Perhaps there is a good priced Pauillac wine you do not recognize on the wine list and it is a 1992 it becomes a Texas bottle from El PASSO, but if it is a 1990 it becomes a strong possibility for me to order, because 1990 was such a good year. You have made your wine selection based on the information you have read in this blog and the information you have gathered at the table. One of my greatest pet peeves is the wine snob. You have all seen him in restaurants hurling unwanted information at everybody, bashing the waiter for his lack of knowledge, nose high in the air and nothing is good enough. In the words of Michael Broadbent" the aristocrat of the table, the nature's gentleman of the cellar...the deeply knowledgeable, is rarely, if ever, a snob." I hate being with such characters, and, choose carefully who I share my wine with. Your knowledge of wine should only enhance your social . affairs and enjoyment of food. The waiter returns with the bottle and shows you the label. If it is the one you ordered check the vintage you ordered. He then removes the cork and hands it to you. You don't have to smell it! …look to see if it is moist and it's condition. If it is dry air might have gotten into the bottle and caused it to become oxidized and now "vinegar". This is caused by storing it upright instead of laying it down. lt is a good indicator that when you taste you might be in for a surprise. The waiter then pours a little, hopefully in a nice glass, and stands back holding the bottle for you to look at. I firstly swirl my wine in my glass to release all 'bouquets' and aromas. I look at the way the wine appears in my glass, and check the 'legs' or 'tears' fall down the glass as the liquid settles back in the bottom of the glass. This really tells you the amount of alcohol is in the wine. The more tears, the more alcohol. I then bring the glass up to my nose and inhale. One sniff, another swirl and then another sniff should be all you need to detect if there is any defects. You are only tasting here to give the waiter permission to pour the wine. Once it is poured you can spend as much time sniffing, swirling and swilling as you would like. It does not take a great deal of tasting experience to detect a flawed bottle of wine. If it is corky or tastes like mold it is usually a result of a bad cork and the wine is flawed. If tastes like Port or Sherry, it is usually a result of poor storage or exposure to heat. There is no doubt that the wine is bad. I have only had a few bottles that I found were flawed and sent back. I usually call the manager and explain what I tasted. Sometimes they will try it as well if it is expensive, but rarely will they challenge your call if you explain why it is flawed. Nobody likes to send back wine, but even fewer like to drink flawed wine. So, you checked the cork and it was fine. You detected no flaws, in fact, you are quite pleased with your decision. The waiter reaches for a decanter to pour the bottle into. Not all bottles of wine should be decanted. The main purpose of decanting is to separate the sediment from the wine which can be in older wines and unfiltered wines. Burgundians don't believe in decanting wine whether there is sediment or not. The other reason to decant wine is to aerate the wine. Big wines, certainly Italian wines, seem to like this process as the character of the wine softens. The choice to decant is all yours. I decant all unfiltered wines, old wines with sediment, big Italian wines and big Cabernet Sauvignon wines. I never decant a Pinot Noir or a Chardonnay. I don't let the old wines sit for long in the decanter as they are fragile, but I do let the Italians sit for a couple of hours.

Bingo Juice, intellectual and sensual but also healthy!     Over 30 studies in the past 20 years have all reached the   same conclusion: moderate consumption of one or two   drinks of wine a day is associated with significantly diminished             risk of heart attack. Ancient times and modern day research  provide cumulative wisdom.Wine dates back through many  ancient civilizations. It has been used as a medicine...a purifier... a drink to strengthen courage and stamina,  a beverage to enhance foods and is now included as part  of a healthy diet.  

The Wines of the United States 

Europe has had two thousand years practice in making wine, the United States only three hundred years, yet, if you have had one of their great bottles of Cabernet, or Chardonnay you too will be singing with the Mammas and the Pappas "California Dreaming". At first glance the U.S. wine industry looks like a ant hill with a huge amount of activity that doesn't

make any sense. However, there is a plan with each ant as it strives to better the commune. Proffessor M. Armerine of the university of California has said "The best french wine is made in france and the best California wine are made in California...and we intend to make them better" In California there are few traditions to hold growers back, so they are

constantly experimenting with new technology and have the freedom to create new products, the freedom that is forbidden to the french winemakers. This explains why 25% of the wine industry in California is owned by foreigners. Rothschild of the Pauillac region of Bordeaux owns Opus One. The Moueix familly of Chateau Petrus, the Pomerol chateau, owns the California vineyard Dominus. Moet and Chandon from Champagne owns Domaine Chandon in the Napa valley. Many

of the old established winemakers of Europe are trying their hand with their new found freedom, side by side with Lillian Disney (Walt's widow), Smothers Brothers, and Francis Ford Coppola. The U.S. wine industry is a "ant hill" of activity all trying to appease the queen of the hill, our taste buds.

Wine has never been Americas most chosen beverage. The statistics are that 30% of Americans don't drink alcolhol and

another 30% don't drink wine. The net result of th.e study was only 5% drink 75% of all of the wine. look at the following

worlds top ten wine drinking countries that was published by the California Wine Institute.

Compare this to the estimated less than one gallon per person or 4.73 bottles in the U.S., and this is even less in Canada. Remember this is per person each year not per family. It is my feeling that we are going to go through a massive wine revolution in the next 20 years. There will be some catch up when we start to understand what wine is.

·        Beaujolais Village - comes from certain villages in Beaujolais, this is a bit better quality and a bit more expensive.

·        "Cru" - There are ten crus in Beaujolais that produces the highest quality wine of this region. They are:

1.     Brouilly,

2.      Regnie,

3.      Morgon,

4.      Moulin-a-Vent,

5.     Fleurie,

6.     Chenas,

7.    Chiroubles,

8.    Saint-Amour,

9.      Julienas, and

10.   Cote de Brouilly.

Learn them they will reward you. These "Crus" don't make it obvious that they are Beaujolais wines as they want to be considered apart from the crowd, so, therefore by glancing at them in a wine store you might not recognize them as Beaujolais, but they are in fact the state of the art! The third Thursday in November is Beaujolais Nouveau day, a time when everyone tries to offer the consumer the new wine that has been taken from the grape crops that year. Save your money for the "Crus" of this region, you will enjoy it a lot more, and probably won't get that new wine headache. Southern Burgundy consists of the Cote Chalonnaise and the Maconnais and produces wine that offers good value as they are not well known. Try

1.      Rully,

2.     Givry ,

3.    Mercurey or 

4.  Pouilly­ Fuisse.

This region is the southern most white wine producing area in Burgundy and in general are pleasant, light and uncomplicated. In Burgundy the most important factor in making wine is the soil. Think of the vine as a straw that brings all the goodness to the grape from the soil it is planted in. The vine does nothing but transports what it finds in the earth. Seeing it this way you can understand the French term "terroir", which creates all the nuances and tastes you find in your glass, and thereby explains why there can be so much difference in just a few miles of grape fields. Right smack dab in the heart of Burgundy is the Cote d'Qr. loosely translated it means the slopes of gold, no doubt because of the income it produces for it's owners and producers. Here we find the highest price of farm real estate in the world, that is only some thirty miles long and about one half a mile wide. Every time I visit I am amazed at how small and compact this holy ground is, and how diverse the tastes and crops are. To understand this region you need to know there are four levels of quality.

They say a little knowledge is dangerous, and here is a perfect example. You glance over this blog and you remember that

Burgundy is great wine so next time you go into a wine store you buy a bottle of "Burgundy" wine as it isn't cheap and it

has a nice label. You are disappointed, if that is great wine then you will stick to that Canadian stuff or Chillian you have drinking for the

past 20 years.. Don't be fooled by the lights and mirrors that lure the unexpecting into. You must learn the difference between the four levels of quality, and read a Burgundy label. Save yourself from all the mistakes I made when I was attacking the retail shelves of the wine stores in my initial zeal. I am not saying that there isn't good generic or village wine, because there is, but when visiting the Burgundy wine in the store or restaurant some in-depth knowledge saves you a lot of pain. Lets look at my favorite wine Montrachet. There will be a least four qualities of wine based on aforementioned. The generic wine label looks a lot like the grand cm label. It says Montrachet, it has the Appellation Controlee label and has the negociant or importer name on the label. The Village wine has the actual name of the village, Puliny-Montrachet, the negociant's name and the A.O.C. label. The premier cm has the name of the village, Puliny-Montrachet, the A.O.C. label the negociant's name and the vineyard's name. There are hundreds of premier cm vineyards to choose from. The grand Cru has only the vineyard, the A.O.C. label and the negotiant name. It helps to know the grand cm vineyards, there are only 28 in the Cote d'Or. From the label you can tell it is from France, that it is a Burgundy wine, that it is from the Cote d'Or, that it is from the Cote de Beaune (internal region of the Cote d'Or), the village it is from, the year it was made and the vineyard it is from. All the thrill of rolling the dice is gone! but the result of the wine you select is pretty much for sure. Remember, unlike Bordeaux the Grand Cru is the best, with the premier crus rating very, very high. Following is a list of the grand crus in the Cote d'Or.

For me to describe the pleasure of drinking some of these wines I would defer you to Alexandre Dumas (1802- 1870)

who upon being asked of his opinion of Montrachet, a grand cru, said   "Montrachet should be drunk kneeling, with one's head bared". 

 Although some Burgundy wines are estate bottled, over eighty percent of the wines are sold, like Alsase, through shippers.

The following list are, in my opinion, the better shippers.

Bouchard Pere & Fils Joseph Drouhin

LouisJadot Louis Latour

]affelin Moillard

Jean Chartron

The wines of Burgundy can be expensive because there is limited supply and much demand. At one time in my personal wine cellar

85% of the wine is from Burgundy. Upon a choice in a restaurant I will choose a Burgundy, I love the “female” qualities it presents to ll my senses. Treat yourself to a bottle and you will understand why someone called this “bottled Poetry”.