[wine] Conventional Wisdom

I hope you all made it over to Kallsen Studio. We had a great time. FYI/FYE: Article on "Conventional Wisdom." " ... simply to hold forth loudly and repeatedly." Anything going on? Zipps Neighborhood Tasting is on 25 October, was great last time. They're doing Belgian Beers on 18 Oct, and have teamed up w/ Solo Veno for Portugese wines on 20 October. Cheers, Jim October 10, 2007 The Pour Taking a Closer Look at Wine.s Conventional Wisdom By ERIC ASIMOV IT doesn.t take a lot of knowledge to be considered a wine expert. Sadly but surely, the key to earning respect for your wine aptitude . or more accurately for intimidating others . is simply to hold forth loudly and repeatedly. This is one reason that what is undeniable one year is laughable the next. Here are some widely repeated assertions, and some explanations suggesting that nothing is that simple. ASSERTION No-oak chardonnay is better than oaked chardonnay. TRUTH Oaky may be bad, but oak is good. Back in the 1990.s, when the fashion for big, bombastic, oaky chardonnays was at its height, nobody would have taken this belief seriously. Fashion has changed and oak barrels have now been branded the villain for previous excesses. The fact is, for aging wine, no better vessel than oak barrels has yet been discovered. How those barrels are used is another question. New oak can imbue a wine with all sorts of flavors, including vanilla, chocolate, coffee and just plain woody. But many people tired of over-oakiness, and so came chardonnays, mainly from Australia and California, called .No Oak,. .Metallico. (for the steel tanks in which no-oak chardonnays are made), .Inox. (a French term for steel) and the like. The no-oak method can produce wines that are lively, pure and delicious. It.s also much cheaper for winemakers than buying new barrels every year. But wines made in this style lack some of the crucial benefits of barrel aging, namely a very slight exposure to the oxygen that passes through the wood, which can enhance a wine.s texture and complexity. One way to retain the benefits of barrel aging while avoiding its excesses is to use older barrels, which impart fewer or no flavors to wine. Many great chardonnays in California and in Burgundy are made this way. The bottom line: No-oak is an alternative style, but not necessarily a better one. ASSERTION Red wine with meat, white with fish is an archaic rule. TRUTH It.s really not such a bad guideline. In the last 20 years the matching of foods with wines has become an exercise in wizardlike precision. Seemingly every aspect of ingredients, cooking methods, seasonings and the position of the moon must be figured into selecting the one wine that will marry, as they used to say, with the food. This exercise has been carried to absurd lengths. Many guidelines in books and periodicals make sense, but they require esoteric knowledge of wine regions, producers and vintages well beyond what most people might be expected to have. That.s why simple generalizations are made. Most people don.t want to work at wine-and-food pairing, they just want something that will taste good. For red meat, red wine is a no-brainer. Might you find a white wine that will go with steak or lamb? Sure, but it.s likely to be a very unusual wine. Will there be differences if you choose a Chianti or a Washington cabernet? Yes, but they.ll both be enjoyable. For fish, dry white wine is the odds-on choice. Exceptions and nuances? Indeed. California chardonnay is better with lobster or scallops than with oysters or sole. Sauvignon blanc, muscadet and Champagne are versatile, and light-bodied reds will go beautifully with salmon, tuna and more assertive fish. But so will many whites. Then there.s the great in between . poultry, pork and the rest. White.s fine. So.s red. So are semi-sweet wines like Mosel rieslings. In this area you can truly drink what you like. The bottom line: Matching food and wine is not sweat-worthy. ASSERTION The lower the grape yield the better the wine. TRUTH Most vines have an ideal yield below which the quality of the grapes does not improve. While the issue of grape yields has moved from a subject for wine geeks to a vehicle for marketing, it is based on a crucial truth: The quality of the grapes is inversely proportional to the yield of those grapes. Roughly speaking, the more grapes you harvest from a vine, the more dilute those grapes will be. Conversely, farmers who reduce their yield will harvest grapes with juice of greater intensity. The truth, naturally, is never so simple. Yields depend on many variables, including the type of grape, the age of the vines, the soil in which they are planted, the type of rootstock, the trellising system and the climate. Overly high yields may never produce very good wines, but lowering yields won.t improve grapes planted in the wrong places, while unnaturally low yields can result in unbalanced wines. The bottom line: Yields should be based on sound viticulture, not marketing. ASSERTION It doesn.t matter how big a wine is if it.s balanced. TRUTH Good whiskey is balanced, but you wouldn.t want to drink a bottle with dinner. Of all the current wine shibboleths, this is the one I hear most frequently. It generally comes from producers who want to rationalize their high-alcohol wines, and it is guaranteed to set off a heated debate over the importance of a wine.s alcohol content. High-alcohol wines have always existed, like Amarone and certain cuvé of Châauneuf-du-Pape, and alcohol levels have been rising all over the world, but only in California and Australia do so many wines come in at 15 percent or more in alcohol. These wines can be complex, well-made, even balanced, so the heat of the alcohol does not stand out. But these wines almost always feel huge, seem sweet, and tend to dominate food. You cannot drink as much of them. The bottom line: Big is fine if you drink wine as a cocktail; not so good with food. -- ------------------------------ * * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *