So, I've been around. I'm by no means a neophyte to thrill-seeking adventures. I used to promise myself I'd do at least one "crazy" thing a year. One year I did a two week solo camping trip in Glacier National Park. Another year I signed up for a sailing race from San Francisco to Hawaii. Both these experiences were daunting and at least one time each I felt my life was in serious jeopardy.
Nothing, though, could prepare me for the sheer terror of going to my first party in Napa where I had to bring a bottle of wine.
I knew there would be people there who had lived in Napa for years and there would be at least one or two "industry insiders". What to do? I didn't want to look like a fool or a "newbie" and I was attending the party with my (then) brand new girlfriend who was also a Napan (is it Napan?). If I showed up with an inferior bottle I'd be scoffed at, ostracized. My girlfriend would be embarrassed and would probably give me that dreaded doorstep line, "I'm really tired. I think I'm just going to go to bed."
This was not going to happen to me!
So, what does one do when he or she has never really thought about buying a "good" bottle of wine? Simple. Go to the grocery store, find the wine section, and look up.
Don't look down! That's where the cheap bottles are. And when you've got nothing to go on the best strategy is to let the distributors do the choosing for you. You see, the distributors and stores always put the more expensive wines on the top shelf. The mid-priced wines will be staring you in the face and the cheap bottles, well, they're "down there".
Once you've located the expensive bottles (you ARE in Napa don't forget) how do you choose a good one? I know I'm going to get flak for this, but here it is.
You look for the coolest label.
What? the label? C'mon. I can hear you say it. But it's true. The label on a bottle of wine will tell you all you need to know. A serious wine will have a sophisticated label. The letters will be elegant and loopy, like they were lifted straight off the Magna Carta. Other quality ques they will have are the names of varietal (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir) , the region it where it was made, and maybe even the appellation.
An appellation is the very specific region where the grapes were grown. In Napa we have several appellations including Stag's Leap, Carneros, and Atlas Peak. If you choose a bottle with an appellation, your probably going to get it right. Be sure to discuss the appellation with your friends! Ask them what it is they like/dislike about this particular appellation and why. At least you won't be seen as a total newbie! You'll be an interested newbie. Not as bad, for sure.
So anyway, I chose a bottle from the second from the top shelf (hey, I'm not Donald Trump!) and I made sure it had at least a region and a varietal listing. I went to the party with my girlfriend and my purchase in hand. I must have done well too. We've been married for almost two years.
I've noticed that within the community of self-professed claim to know oenophiles (or as a very wine-knowledgable friend of mine once derisively called them, "wine fags"), obscurity is the key to success in the "mine wine is more impressive than yours" game.
ReplyDeleteApellations that everyone has already heard of might get your foot in the door, but they are always more impressed when you trot out a dusty old bottle with a label that could have been written by a four year old with old crayon that promises a taste of some variety that no one has ever heard of like Dumont (which is actually fairly common in so-caled Petit Sirah [or syrah if you must]), grown in chalky soil on a north-facing slope in some obscure region like "Goats Fetters" in an obscure valley in northwestern Tennessee, preferably in a very dusty old bottle with a vintage of 1973 or something.
After you carefully open the bottle, take a sniff, then pompously demand that it be decanted because "the sublime essences must fully develop to be appreciated."
Of course, as you take the first small sip, be sure to use obscure adjectives to describe the unique sensations. My dear friend MB taught me a few choice ones, such as "hints of cedar and graphite" (tastes like you are chewing on a number 2 pencil), or even better, "barnyard" (essence of, well...she always assures me that the wine needs a little more time to "open up," and sometimes it actually does). [I really should take better notes when I'm drinking with her, but I'm kind of distracted usually, by other more immediate attributes.] Rather than declaring it "sour," it always helps to be more specific, perhaps, "hints of propionic acid and diethyl malonate tell me that this one was fermented lean..."
Of course, if it tastes like Welch's grape juice, it is "fruit forward" but if it tastes like an old shoe, you may just say it is "corky." Of course, if it could have used a little more time in the barrel, you can call it "fresh, new, or nascent."
Needless to say, never refer to their selection as pedestrian, ordinary, or blecccccch!"
In reality, the majority of the other snobs at the party are making up half the crap they are tossing out anyhow, so you need to just make up a few of your own. Obnubilation is the key to winning this game.