Red, White & You

What I know about wine can fit in the top of one of those mini-toothpaste tubes they give you on the airplane for overnight flights. Oh, I’ve had my fair share of wine. I tripped blithely through a Chardonnay phase (obligatory?) in my early 20s – imagining Kendall Jackson Chardonnay connoted “elegance” at fraternity parties, as those nearby drank from a large trashcan filled with grain alcohol and fruit. I drifted insecurely through a Pinot Grigio phase, the first glass ordered to signal to my date that I knew how to pronounce it. By my 30s, I had settled confidently into Sauvignon Blanc, with the occasional prosecco to be festive.

Not really one for red, I first experimented with Chianti (college dates at the Olive Garden), segued distractedly into a Merlot phase (until I saw “Sideways” and was shamed out of it) and now rely on Pinot Noir as my red of choice. I do pretend to like Cabernet Sauvignon to impress my husband, Conor, and my dad. Shiraz is fun to say, so sometimes I order it, despite my lack of taste for spice. Suffice to say, despite my years of struggling through wine choice, I’m still a wine novice.

When my best friend Elena and I traveled around the world for four months a few years ago, we had chance after chance to refine our palates. Our carnivorous tour through Argentina alone provided ample opportunity. A glance at our trip photos, alas, reveals our gawking at “snake wine” in Vietnam, slurping Gato Negro (a red “wine product’) out of a juice box in Peru and a sucking a wine-vodka mix from straws out of a bucket in Thailand. Learning had not occurred.

Another one of my best friends, Pam, lives close to Napa Valley in Northern California. Together with our dear friend Cat, we’ve visited vineyard upon vineyard. But somehow my favorite Napa memory continues to be the bacon at the Carneros Inn (in my defense, their bacon is ridiculously delicious, as are their donuts — homemade!). Outside of Napa, Cat, Pam and I have shared countless bottles of wine — over new relationships, breakups, new jobs, resignations, marriages and babies. And in those cases, perhaps it’s fitting that I remember the heart-to-hearts, rather than the wine we drank.

After a life half-lived of substandard attention to wine detail, three of us — Conor, our friend Jill and I — settled into South Africa, one of the world’s greatest wine-producing regions, in the summer of 2010. Once in Stellenbosch, I began to focus afresh, embarking upon a Tour of Wines. There are about 100 wine farms (conservatively) in the region. Breathtakingly stunning vineyards. You can drive right onto them, park just yards from the cellar, quickly to be served a multi-glass tasting for about 30 rand maximum (about $3.50). Some vineyards even pair their wines with a chocolate- and/or olive-tasting at the same time. Which is — I’ll shamelessly quote Conor’s best friend Charlie here singing the “Yo Gabba Gabba!” hit “Party in My Tummy” — so yummy!

In Africa for a month, here’s where we went: Tokara, Asara, Verlegegen, Lourensford, Beyerskloof, Fairview, Spier, Waterford and Guardian Peak. Each wine farm was surreal, like a movie set. Orange groves, fresh lavender, roaming mastiffs, sundrenched stone walls, bare winter plantings still a fresh green-on-brown. In sharp contrast to the volunteer work we were also doing, we wondered often if we “deserved” to be there. We endeavored to take very little for granted. Each sip was well attended to, received with the gratitude one has when on a self-induced momentary “pause” in life.

From all this sipping, there are five lessons I learned about wine:

Lesson 1: De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum
That is, there is no accounting for taste. For the collector, wine may be objective, but for the drinker, wine is most definitely subjective. Whatever you yourself like, you may safely classify as “good” wine. My friend Michelle, a gorgeous Australian expat who owns David Family wines, told us this during a tutorial in New York. “Wine is meant to be enjoyed! If you like it, then it’s good, to you. Drink only what you like!” So obvious, so true.

I sampled a huge array of objectively “fantastic” wines in South Africa, yet one of my favorites was the Vergelegen Semillon, which the vineyard reports it will soon discontinue due to its lack of sophistication. No matter, it was the highlight of a Friday afternoon for me and I’m unapologetic. I have years to grow in sophistication — my 40s to 80s to enjoy heavy, complex reds. Pour me a glass of 10-year-old Cabernet Franc when I’m wearing a flowered mumu, a purple hat and a slash of red lipstick totally outside the lines, and I’ll swirl my glass, sniff appreciatively and comment on the complementing notes of beetroot and fiddleheaded fern, with the subtle aftertaste of Cuban cigarbox. But I’ve got time to get there. I’m in no hurry.

Lesson 2: Keep Trying New Wines
The paragraph above notwithstanding, your palate won’t improve if you don’t push the envelope. Conor and I have a son, 19-month-old Finn, who loves oatmeal — loves it. But every now and then I’ll sneak him some green curry or some chick pea masala. Granted, my conniving usually backfires, and it’s messy and on occasion a bit frightening. But only through forcing new things on Finn did Conor and I find out he adores calamari and black olives. And so it goes with wine. The more Cabs I drink, the closer I am to actually liking them. I can now tell a special Chenin Blanc from an average. Comparing two Sauvignon Blancs, I find that I prefer the more dry to the more fruity. My tastes are maturing (would that my personality were as well).

Lesson 3: Don’t Be Embarrassed to Admit You Know Nothing
I learn so much more when I’m not afraid to admit I’m an idiot about wines. No one knew me in South Africa, except that I was a blonde American. So I had lots of leeway to admit ignorance. I asked question after question, and these gracious winemakers never hesitated to answer with great attention to detail. We even got a long cellar tour after my 27th question one night. Winemaking 101, it was awesome. But people go to school for years to learn this stuff. There’s a lot to learn. And when in doubt but afraid to reveal it, Wikipedia is your friend. Google doesn’t judge.

Lesson 4: Wine Paired with Food Enhances Both
So, yes, I know this one is intuitive, but aside from red with meat and white with fish, I’ve never truly paired wine deliberately with my food. I’ve ignored how a good Sauterne can transform an already delicious seared fois gras, or how the right Pinot Gris can make the mussel soup really pop. Many of the vineyard food menus in South Africa offered lessons on food pairing, which I loved. Dessert pairing was even more fun. At one lesson, we had chili chocolate with a spicy Shiraz (yummy spice!), rock salt chocolate with a rich Cabernet Sauvignon (crazy delicious) and rose-flavored chocolate with a fruity desert wine. (Ack! Totally disgusting! Why rose flavor, why? Mouth full of soap, so awful!) A well-chosen wine can really enhance an already great meal. And while it can’t save what is already terrible, enough wine can dull your taste buds. That’s why I traditionally over-pour at my dinner parties.

Lesson 5: Use All Five Senses to Enjoy Wine
There are always at least five ways to enjoy a good glass of wine. The smell (flavors on the nose, anticipation of what’s to come). The sight (clarity denoting age, color signaling flavor). The sound (the clink of a toast, and, for us, Conor’s variety of “wine songs” — there’s a haunting Gregorian chant about Beyerskloof in heavy rotation these days). The touch (the delicate stem of a chilled white wine glass or the warm bowl of a large red wine glass). And the taste (obviously). So many things to enjoy; so many reasons to slow down.

As fairly new, middle-aged parents, Conor and I have indeed slowed down. One glass is plenty. We rarely finish the glass, in fact, and, as it turns out, we enjoy it much more that way. That turned out to be a particularly good thing when it came to driving around Cape Town. “Which side of the road are we supposed to be on again?” Just kidding.