2009 May | homewineschool.com

Trust your Retailer!

On May 21, 2009, in Blog, Lessons, by ngorevic

While working in a wine store, one thing has become clear to me-- a lot of people don't trust retail wine store workers. I think there's a fear that somoene's lack of knowledge will be dangled in front of them, or that they'll be forced to spend more on a bottle than they want to. Worst of all the retailer might actually make you taste some wine! Gasp! You might think I'm being funny, but there are a lot of times when I have a bottle open, and I'm greeted with looks of shock and fear when I offer someone a taste from it.

What I'd like to get across in this post is that you really shouldn't be one of these people. While there may be stores that intimidate you, and that try to push bottles of wine on you that don't want, you'll never know if you're in one of those stores until you open your mouth and talk to them. I can tell you that the people who do open themselves up to us end up with better wine. And that's not some secretive backroom elitist transaction, it's just that we start to know their palates really well, and every time they walk in the store we can give them a new wine that they'll like, and maybe even expand their tastes little by little as they explore the world of wine with us as their guide.

This is the kind of relationship a retailer can provide for you. And I really believe that the retailer is unique in the world of wine for what we offer to the consumer. Now I may have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this, but I often feel that the retailer is the least respected wine professional out there. In comparison the sommelier is lauded above all as the gatekeeper of all things fancy and tasty, even though there is absolutely no standardized international certification to qualify one for the job. My point here is not the sommeliers don't know what they're doing. It's just that there is just as much chance of a sommelier being snotty,intimidating or uneducated, as there is of finding the same qualities in a retailer.

The retail perspective is unique because we have to be laser-focused on price and value, and we have to know all palates, disregarding our own personal tastes. The prices on our shelves have to provide quality and value, because there's very little barrier to a customer walking out the door and going to the store down the street that has better wine at the same or lower price. When you're in a restaurant, you're pretty much stuck with what they have on their list, and price distinctions become much less obvious. Sommeliers do a fantastic job of pairing the specific food in their restaurant with the specific wines on their list. But that's a very deliniated decision. They spend a lot of time (hopefully) tasting each dish and each wine in their cellar, to come up with the best matches. When they've found a pairing that works, they can go back to it again and again, because food and wine pairings will taste good to somoene, even if they wouldn't normally like that wine on its own. But as a retailer, we have to match wines with any cuisine in the world, and a lot of times we have to be able to pick wines to go without food, while knowing very little about the buyer's tastes. That's a lot harder and more nebulous. The only way for us to do it well is to get some help from you! If you're worried you don't know how to talk about what you like, that's OK. Just trust us and see how we do. If you don't like what we gave you, come back and tell us and we'll try something different.

Retailers also have a leg up over wine critics. It's not a new idea to say that each critic, be it Robert Parker, Steve Tanzer, or Eric Asimov, have preferences for certain styles of wine. In the Oxford companion to wine, Jancis Robinson says over and over again that a certain grape finds it's best expression in this particular plot of land in France, or somewhere else in the world. And I might even by inclined to agree with her, as far as my personal tastes are concerned. But as a retailer, I have to disregard my tastes. Just because I think Loire valley cab franc is the most expressive funky wine on the planet, doesn't mean a thing to someone who loves an oaky buttery chardonnay from California. So I have to be able to evaluate that chardonnay against all the other chardonnays on the market. All we do as retailers all day long is taste and spit and talk to each other about, is this particular chardonnay a better example of the grape from California than this other one? Is this one priced at $15.99 really that much better than the other one priced at $12.99? Once in a while we come across the $12.99 wine that really is better than the $15.99 one, and that's why we push you to buy it, because we know you'll like it, and the low price will keep you coming back for more.

But if you don't open your mouth and talk to us, we can't even start to tell you about these special wines, and you'll miss out on getting something you really like.

So my message today is to open yourselves up a little bit, and start talking to us! Granted, you are taking a risk here. What if you do this in one of those intimidating snotty wine stores and they encourage you to buy a wine that costs more than you wanted to spend? Here's what you do: Don't buy it! And if it bothers you, don't go back to that store! They're probably not spending nearly enough time focusing on bringing a wide array of wines tailored to diverse palates if they're that snotty, so it's probably not the store for you. Now you've learned something about the store, and you're that much closer to finding a retailer you can trust.

The perect retailer to me is one who can remember what they sold you, and why the next time you come in. Ask them if they have a way to track your purchases though, just in case. Or keep your receipts and remember what you bought so you can tell them if you liked it or not. You might even want to keep a log of what tasted and whether you liked it or not. But the most important thing is you have to be willing to open your mouth and speak your mind to get any of this done. And once in a while, you might want to try the wine we're pouring. It's ok if you have to go the gym afterwords, it's only a little taste! And even if you don't like it, that's a great place for us to start to figure what you will like that's different in some way from what you just tried.

Good luck and happy wine buying!

Identifying Fruit in Red Wines

On May 21, 2009, in Lessons, by ngorevic

When you're trying to identify the fruit characteristics in a red wine, I find it helpful to first try to decide if it's a red fruit or a black fruit. You can see examples of these on the aroma and flavor cards I've designed. Taking a look at the card, you can see that red fruits include things like raspberries and red cherries, while black fruits include blackberries and black cherries. For this lesson, the wine I've chosen to illustrate fruit qualities is the Arboretto Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (which you can order from Frankly Wines). I picked this wine because it is a very simple, but good example of a fruity wine. It doesn't have very much earth or spice, but it does have plenty of fruit.

So what do you think? What kind of fruit do you taste in this wine? It can be fun to taste and smell a wine for a long time and debate with your friends if it's blackberries or if it's red cherries. But the important thing for you to get from this wine is that it is is predominantly fruit driven. The primary fruit quality I get from this wine is a sour red cherry, which is a very typical fruit quality to find in an Italian wine.

Do you like this wine? If you do, you could be lucky, as wines that are simple and fruity tend to be fairly inexpensive. A wine like this is a perfect pair with a tomato based pasta sauce. If you don't like it by itself, you may find that it comes into its own when paired with the right food. If you like this wine, you should try Shiraz from Australia, or just ask the salesperson at your local wine store for a nice fruity wine.

It should be noted that this wine is not sweet at all. In other words, there is no sugar in this wine. When a wine has no sugar in it, we refer to it as dry. There's no good reason for why we call it that, and it causes lots of confusion, but that is just the way it is. While this wine isn't sweet, it is very fruity. A lot of people come into the wine store asking for something sweet, and it's hard for us to tell what they mean. Most red wines are not sweet, but plenty of them are fruity. So now you're armed with the right vocabulary to get what you want the next time you ask a store clerk for help.

Tagged with: courses wine • food and wine pairing • pairing food and wine • wine and cheese pairing • wine cheese pairing • wine courses • wine on line • wine tasting class • wine tasting course

Web Lessons

On May 21, 2009, in Lessons, by ngorevic

In this section, I give you a taste of what it's like to get a private class from me. I will usually recommend a specific wine to be tasted for each lesson. All of those wines can be ordered through Frankly Wines, my retail partner. But if you really want the full experience, you should order my wine class in a box, which comes complete with 6 bottles, and gorgeous laminated cards, placemats, and flavor and aroma cards that will guide you through the lessons.

Tagged with: courses wine • food and wine pairing • pairing food and wine • wine and cheese pairing • wine cheese pairing • wine courses • wine on line • wine tasting class • wine tasting course

Wine Geeks Section

On May 8, 2009, in wine geeks, by ngorevic

This section of the website is the content that used to be located at WineScholarship.com. I use it to reinforce my wine knowledge, and try to create a blog entry for every topic I might be studying. I find it's a really good way to make all these esoteric wine concepts stick. You can search for something specific in the search box to the right, or you can explore the topics under the wine geeks topic section.

If this information seems too geeky for you, you might want to check out the Home Wine School blog , where you'll find my musings on the wine world, as well as basic lessons for beginners.

Reflections on Long Island Wines

On May 4, 2009, in Blog, by ngorevic

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being invited to Taste Camp East, which Lenn Thompson, the creator of Lenndevours, put together. We did a whirlwind tour of what seemed like 10 wineries in a day and a half. In reality, it was probably only 6, but it felt like more. I thought I would go over some of the highlights of the trip, for those of you that are interested in heading out to Long Island Wine country.

For the most part, my take on the wines of Long Island is that they are made in an earthier french style, sometimes featuring lots of new oak, and sometimes a moderate amount. Most of the wines are good solid table wine reds that would appeal to people who don't like the fruit forward style of California, but who don't mind some oak in their wines. The main problem I have with the area is that the prices these wines are selling for are completely off the charts. Probably because of the swanky surroundings of the Hamptons, these wines have developed a certain cachet, and small quantities sell out completely every year. The wineries have reacted to this demand by raising their prices to levels that rival Napa Valley. So for the most part, I have a hard time recommending very many wines for people to purchase. Most of the time, you can just get better quality wine from somewhere else for a lot less money.

As far as visiting the wineries, there are a few places that I think stand out above the rest. The wineries I woudn't miss are Channing Daughters and Shinn Estate. Both of these wineries are doing their best to make sustainable, naturally made wines, and are not afraid to experiment in the vineyard. They haven't gone quite as far as being fully biodynamic, but they're getting as close as they can. The great thing about spending time at these two wineries, is that the experimentation and artistic passion really come across. You leave these two wineries with a feeling like you've been allowed to tour around inside an artist's studio, rather than just walking through a factory.

So, if you're heading out to the Island, and only want to spend a little bit of time going to cp,, don't miss those two places! As far as wines, there's really one one bottle I can recommend as a great value. This is the Channing Daughters 2007 Scuttlehole Chardonnay, which retails at just $16 a bottle. It's unoaked, crisp and refreshing with lots of minerality and a delicious yeasty quality that reminded me of a really good Muscadet, or a nice bottle aged Champagne. That's not to say that I didn't taste plenty of other very tasty wines out on the Island, but they are almost all way overpriced for how good they are.