Four Steps to Improving Your Palate

How to Improve Your Wine Tasting Skills

Step One: Train Yourself to Taste Wine

Gary Vaynerchuk is making the rounds of late night TV with bowls full of dirt and tobacco, but you really don’t have to go that far to discover the aromas and flavors in the your favorite wine’s tasting notes. Read my article ‘Seven Ways to Develop Your Wine ‘Palate’’ here: http://wineconsumer.com/content/new-york-wine-consumer-magazine/

Step Two: Learn to Taste Like a Pro

Wine tasting can be a sample as enjoying a glass on the deck at sunset or as complicating as judging flights of wines in a wine competition. If you’d like to get more enjoyment out of every glass of wine, do what the professionals do:

To full appreciate a wine’s flavor, inhale, take a sip, roll the liquid around in your mouth, coating your taste buds, and exhale through your nose before swallowing. If you are feeling brave, purse your lips in a small ‘o’ shape and inhale a little air, running it over the wine in your mouth, then exhale that air through your nose. After you swallow, note how long the taste of the wine stays in your mouth. This is called the wine’s ‘finish.’

Taste white wine before red wine, light bodied before full bodied wine, ‘still’ (regular) wine before sweeter ‘dessert’ wine.

Taste wine at the correct temperature, 50 – 60 degrees for whites, 55 – 65 degrees for rose, and 62 – 68 degrees for reds.

Don’t put on cologne/perfume or brush your teeth before drinking wine.

Instead of just drinking the wine, practice the 5 S’s of wine tasting – See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip and Savor.

Step Three: Pop Some Corks

This is a fun way to have an evening in with friends. Go to your local wine shop and ask for suggestions for a ‘sample case’ of wine. Choose one bottle of oaked Chardonnay, unoaked Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, dry Riesling, off dry Riesling, Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, fruit-bomb Merlot, old world Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah/Shiraz. Divvy the list up among your friends, and have your new ‘Wine Tasting Club’ get together over the course of a few weeks to sample 4-6 wines at a time. Taste, and then try to describe what you are tasting using the flavors you remember from Step One’s exercise.

Step Four: Practice Makes Perfect

Learning about wine can take a lifetime; here are some fun ideas to get you on your way:
Take your results from the wine tasting in Step Three and ask your local wine shop to put together a second case of wine for your personal use. Drink these wines over the next few months and choose which ones are your favorites.

Follow your favorite wine around the world, trying versions from different countries.
Rent a wine-related educational video from Netflix or your local library.

Consider joining a wine group. Meetup.com and LocalWineEvents.com are great resources for finding local wine lovers.

Pick up some books from the library on wine and food pairing and try different wines with family meals.

Host a wine and dessert or wine and cheese tasting party at your home. Some great tips for wine party hosts are here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ_pt_XrftI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6JWcp8u40I

How to impress friend and family with a memorable wine at dessert

How to impress friend and family with a memorable wine at dessert

I invited nine friends over last Monday night, all members of my Wine Meetup group, to participate in an experiment.

Each person brought a bottle of wine, a dessert or both and we mixed and matched to find out which pairing each of us liked best.

The result? A delightful evening full of friendship and amazing combinations of sweet and rich tastes and textures.

Desserts were either home made or locally available, including a fruit tart from Hannaford, a selection of Lindt and Ghirardelli chocolates, a pound cake, a peach tart, French Vanilla ice cream, chocolate covered strawberries, Stilton and Roquefort cheeses and a fig jam.

The wines were fortified and unfortified, native and vinifera, and from as close as the Finger Lakes to as far away as Germany and Italy. We sampled a Meda Moscato d'Asti, a Domaine de Durban 2004 Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, a Lakewood 2006 Glaciovinum, a Hunt Country Vidal Blanc Ice Wine, a cranberry wine from the Tomasello Winery, a Red Wine Sweet from Schlink Haus, a Chateau Reynella Tawny Port, a Pellegrino Marsala, and 'Deco,' a port-style wine.

Jared served the most-liked combination of the night, pairing his bottle of Muscat de Beaumes de Venise with tiny spoonfuls of Roquefort cheese and fig jam on thumb-sized mini-toast squares. Sweet wine and stinky cheese doesn't sound like a match made in heaven, but opposites definitely attracted. Kirby, Ilene, Paul Joseph, Kerrie and I all enjoyed this dessert idea.

The pairing of Ice Wine with ice cream and pound cake was also widely appreciated. Ilene liked both the Glaciovinum and Vidal Blanc with the ice cream; Kristin liked the Glaciovinum with ice cream; Sandy liked the Vidal Blanc with both pound cake and ice cream; and I enjoyed what I like to call the 'No Frosting Adult Birthday Party' - the Glaciovinum, Vidal Blanc, ice cream and pound cake in any possible combination.

Those pairings were the two most popular across the board, but many guests also had other favorites. On the lighter side, Leslie liked the Moscato d'Asti paired with the fruit tart and Ilene liked the cranberry wine paired with chocolate-covered strawberries. On the more decadent side, Parthi and Kerrie both liked the Deco Port paired with chocolate squares and Paul Joseph liked the Tawny Port and Stilton cheese combination.

My downtown Albany apartment was full of laughter and animated conversation as everyone tasted the different wine and dessert combinations and discovered which pairings they liked and disliked. With no food to cook, I was free to pop corks and chat with my friends as I filled and refilled their glasses. What a perfect idea for a party!

Serving a memorable dessert with a unique wine is a great way to give your loved ones a remarkable experience at the end of a celebratory meal. With work and family obligations, our lives are so busy. Setting aside a few hours to share food and laughter with friends is a pleasant way to reconnect with the ones we love.

Hopefully my little experiment gave everyone that attended the confidence to serve one of the wines we tasted with dessert after their next special meal with friends or family.

How to Host Your Own Wine and Food Pairing Party

How to Host Your Own Wine and Food Pairing Party

For those of you who like to entertain and love wine - step by step instructions, tips and tricks for hosting this easy and popular party in your living room.

The Youtube video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6JWcp8u40I

How to encourage your favorite restaurant to carry New York wine!

How to encourage your favorite restaurant to carry New York wine!

The meal was fine... but where's the New York wine?

The New York Wine and Grape Foundation has a great way for New York wine lovers to encourage their favorite restaurants to carry New York wines.

Email bonitahampton @ nywgf.org and request a few of their free "The meal was fine ... but where's the New York wine?" cards.

Simply slip one of these cards to your server with your signed credit card slip. Inside, it contains information that will help the restaurant owner find out more about ordering New York state wines.

The I received my cards from the New York State Wine and Grape Foundation this week, and I look forward to using them soon!

Finger Lakes Cabernet and a Great Cigar Wine

Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc and a Great Cigar Wine

I recently posted new interviews from the Hudson Valley Wine Festival, including Fox Run Cabernet Franc, wine from the Thousand Islands Seaway Trail (yes, they make wine in Alexandria Bay, NY now!) and a Cream Sherry that pairs perfectly with a cigar.

Watch videos of New York winemakers talking about their wines here:

http://www.youtube.com/khlisson

How to be a New York Wine Insider

Want the latest scoop on New York wine? Here are a few newsletters and blogs that help me keep track of what's happening at New York wineries:

Newsletters:

Each week Sheila Livadas of Pittsford, who has been writing about food and wine since 1997, writes feature on the week's spotlight winery for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Subscribe here: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=REGISTER01&ForceUserreg=1 by signing up for 'Finger Lakes Wine.'

The Wine Press is a free newsletter from the New York Wine and Grape Foundation: http://www.uncorknewyork.com/maillist/learn_more.asp


Blogs:

There are several excellent bloggers covering New York's wine making regions. Here are a few of my favorites:

Finger Lakes - The Finger Lakes Weekend Wino:
http://fingerlakesweekendwino.blogspot.com

Western New York - The Wine Chicks: http://thewinechicks.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Niagara – Niagara Escarpment: http://waterintowino.typepad.com/niagaraescarpment/

Hudson Valley - Gunks Wine http://gunkswine.blogspot.com/

Long Island – LennDevours : http://lennthompson.typepad.com/lenndevours/