2005
California
Do you truly taste your wine?
So, I have a co-worker who is very impressed by the amount of money spent on a bottle of wine. The more expensive it is, he is sure the better it tastes. I have tried to tell him that the price tag doesn't mean diddly. He tastes with his eyes, not his mouth. And I think he's a fool for it.
He has access to interesting people and parties and fabulous wines. His neighbor has a wine cellar to die for, a brother who is somewhat of a connoisseur, and a bank roll to buy the latest and greatest (or in most cases, the oldest and greatest). So, he tells me about the wines he experienced over the weekend and/or holiday. But when I ask for label info, or vintage, etc., he can never remember. All he can ever tell me is what color it was and it cost $90 a bottle and they went through ten of them (etc.). It's disappointing. So, I tend to have my more meaningful wine conversations with the guys who work in our machine shop that spend less than $15 on a bottle. I actually get good suggestions from them.
This is a perplexity that remains on my mind frequently. When I was bartender a few weeks back at an auction, the auctioneer's assistant came up and talked wine with me. He actually asked for a glass of Little Penguin Merlot. He passed up a 1995 Folonari and a few other older, more expensive labels that I wasn't familiar with myself. When I poured it for him, I told him it actually isn't a bad wine and it's great for the price. His eyes lit up, he winked at me, and he said: "I know!" Then he proceeded to impress me with tales of his extensive collection at home and the square footage of his cellar, etc. He told me how he and his wife held their son's wedding at their home and he was chief wine supplier to a very discriminating group of guests, especially on his new daughter-in-law's side (specifically, her mother). He served a few thousand dollars worth of wine before deciding later in the evening that everyone had totally ruined their palate and it wasn't worth bringing up the expensive stuff anymore. So, he took out the other wine. One of those he served was Little Penguin merlot. He said his daughter-in-law's mother came up to him with an empty glass and asked for more. He poured her a glass of Little Penguin and stood back and watched. She began to walk away, took her first sip, and then turned right around again and emphatically asked him what delicious wine he'd pulled from the cellar now. He told her, and she'd never heard of it( not surprisingly). But she told him it was "fantastic" and she could only guess how much it must have cost. Well, he and I had a huge laugh over that story. He told me that he was glad to see that I could recognize good wine doesn't always have to have a big price tag. And thus ends my story, but think about it. How do you really taste your wine? What factors must be present before you even bring the rim of the glass to your lips? Are you cheating yourself out of a better experience?
Well I finally had a taste of Toffee on the palate from a wine. This wine is pretty good. Though the Guy spent $12, I've seen it for $9, thereby making this a really good deal. I had it well after my dinner, but it is recommended with hearty stews and barbecue flavors. Mostly blackberry-forward, there is a melancholy headiness to it (I don't know what the hell that means - it just came to me in trying to describe my experience). But the Toffee kind of wraps it up nicely in the finish. I recommend it, especially if you can get it for the lesser price. And try it with a barbecued meal and then COME BACK HERE and comment on the experience. PLEASE.
She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns.
--Radiohead, "Fake Plastic Trees"
8.0 out of 10
13.8% alc. by vol.
$9-12 / 750 ml. bottle
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