No matter how limited your knowledge of wine may be, it’s still easy to impress your family, friends and clients.
Let’s say you’re hosting a dinner at a nice restaurant for some of your best friends. Just follow these easy steps to impress them, never mind their eye-rolling as they watch you.
First, ask to see the wine list as soon as you are seated, and to have the sommelier sent over right away. Ask if the sommelier has any favorites on the list; when he or she suggests an expensive 1999 Burgundy, chuckle a wry chuckle and say, “That’s a charming choice, but I was hoping you might have a 2016 Pomerol.” It doesn’t matter whether the restaurant has that particular wine, you’ve made your point.
Let out a reluctant sigh when the sommelier says they don’t have the 2016 Pomerol, and settle on the Burgundy. When the sommelier presents the bottle to you, inspect the label carefully to be sure the sommelier hasn’t tried to trick you with a lesser vintage. Then ask, “At what temperature do you keep the wine?” If the answer is greater than 54 degrees, ask for a bucket of ice to “knock it down” a bit before it is decanted.
When at last the sommelier opens the bottle and presents you with the cork, study it carefully, noting any signs that the wine might have crept beyond the tip of the cork in its 25 years of lying horizontally. Assuming the cork looks normal, smell it slowly, looking for any indication the wine may have been corrupted.
At last, the sommelier will pour a small amount for you to taste. You want to stick your nose all the way into the glass, take a deep breath, and let your guests know what you have learned. For example, you might say, “This wine has an amazing nose; I’m getting fruit forward with some black cherry and a bit of lavender.” Note that the exact words don’t matter; simply mention one fruit and one flower.
Next, swirl the glass slowly, letting your guests know that Burgundy wines always need to “open up” a bit. Finally, you get to take a sip, as the sommelier, now completely bored, watches on. You let the wine rest on your tongue, then say, “Oh, this is a complex wine. I can already tell it has so many layers; there are floral notes on the tongue, but the tannins really come to life after you first taste it.”
Voila! You can use those exact words on most wines – or just make up your own. For instance, you might taste such things as forest floor, pencil shavings or lingonberries (all actual descriptors I have seen used by “experts”). If one of your guests challenges your taste buds, simply say, “That’s the beauty of wine! Everyone enjoys it differently.”
In a subsequent Wine Snobbery column, we’ll discuss how to make belittling comments to a host who orders one of the cheapest wines on the list.
Cheers!
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-Submitted by Bill Good
(Image credit: Pixabay.com and Vinepair.com)