Current Catalog

WINEWISE Your Complete Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Enjoying Wine by Steven Kolpan, Brian H. Smith, Michael A. Weiss, and the Culinary Institute of America Wiley September 2008 $29.95/hardcover Full-color photography ISBN: 978-0-4717-7064-0 Back to book information Printer-friendly page

…When we taste on the job, pleasure is paramount. Maybe we're naive in our approach, but we want to taste wines that excite us, wines that make us want to yell "Yes!"

The real fun of tasting wine is tasting for pleasure, not for punishment. And the best place to do this is at home, with friends, in a relaxed atmosphere of conviviality and generosity. Tasting wine at home is fun coupled with a bit of self-guided education. Ouch. Don't worry — in this case the education mimics the learning curve that began with the awkward pleasures of your first kiss and grew exponentially into sensual subtlety: the confident strut, the irresistible smile.

How to begin? What wines? How many wines? How expensive are the wines? What glassware? What room? Outside or inside?

Wait! The most important factor is the people. You can taste some of the most glorious wines in the world, but if you taste them with miserable people, guess what? The wines will taste miserable, too. You want to invite friends who enjoy the company of other people, have a sense of humor, don't judge others harshly, and don't want to be the "expert" but have something to say. Finally, invite friends who are moderate drinkers. Wine tastings are not for lushes, who can diminish or even ruin the experience for everyone else. Tasting is the operative word.

Once you've put together your guest list, start to think about the wine. Some basics:

Use wineglasses
Don't use clear plastic cups, which make the wine taste like clear plastic cups. Most people don't have enough glasses, so here's a hint: rather than burdening your guests with a request to bring glasses from home, check out the local party rental folks. You'll be surprised how inexpensive it is to rent two or three racks of glasses - not necessarily great glasses, but all of them the same size and shape, and racked together for convenience and to avoid breakage.

Provide spit cups and napkins
Tasting involves four steps: looking (judging the color of the wine), smelling (the nose of the wine), tasting (sampling a small amount of wine and swishing it around in the mouth), and spitting. That's right: part of tasting is spitting the wine into a spittoon or spit cup. While you're at the party place renting glasses, pick up a sleeve of 16- ounce (480-milliliter) paper cups, and place one at every setting. You may not be able to enforce spitting at a home wine tasting, but especially if your friends are driving away from the tasting, you can certainly encourage it. A couple of good-quality paper napkins should be placed at each setting, too.

Bread and water
Water should be plentiful and available. A few bread baskets filled with crisp sliced baguettes and/or individual plates with water crackers should be available for cleansing the palate between wines. Make sure the bread or crackers are as neutral-tasting as possible: no brioche, croissants, or flavored crackers because these will have a dramatic impact on the wine's taste.

Tasting mats/tasting sheets
On your home computer you can make a simple or an elaborate and creative tasting mat, or if you're truly inspired, you can design your own. If you are tasting the wines blind, obviously the wines will be identified by number only. If you know what wines you are tasting, list them by name. It helps your guests to be consistent in how you list the wine.

We recommend listing each wine this way:

• Product
• Special attribute, if any
• Producer
• Subregion, if any
• Region, if any
• State (U.S.) or country
• Vintage, if any (write "NV" if nonvintage)…