SC - Allergy rant - was garlic in British Isles

[Philip & Susan Troy]

In a message dated 5/7/98 10:09:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu writes:

<< Can you offer any helpful
 suggestions for those of us who really like to cook, but are utterly
 ignorant of wine and honestly could not tell the difference between
 "a four dollar generic Burgundy" and a "far superior Bordeaux or
 Beaujolais"? >>

Read, read, read. There are many magazines, articles and books which tell all
about wine and it's creation, uses, tasting and appreciation. If there is a
local wine club, join. If you have the finances experiment. Drinking wine is
the best way to fullty appreciate it's many subtleties and nuances. In fact,
IMO, it is the only way to develope any amount of discernment. For instance,
when tasting a chardonnay, is the nose do you taste apricots, melons,
butteryness? Or is is more like citus fruit and apples? The first would be a
style more typical of the better California chardonnays. The second more
typical French style whites. 

Is the nose flowery, perfumelike, berrylike? Is it earthy? Does it smell like
a barnyard (a good quality in pinot grigios :-))? Does the peppery taste and
complex flavors of Syrah appeal to you? Or do you prefer the heavy tannins of
a young Cabernet? Perhaps the rich smoothness of a well-aged merlot? The
fruitiness of a spicey gewurtraminer? Do you like a wine that makes you
instinctively chew or one that is crisp and thin bodied?

As you can readily see, it is not easy translating the wine experience into
words. And an experience it definately is. Each wine has it's own unique
characteristics and those characteristics can be described by each person only
in a subjective manner. Individual likes and dislikes are the definitive focus
of wine drinking. What may be "great" to me may not be particularly pleasing
to someone else. Choose and serve those wines that you like to drink and you
are well on the road to wine appreciation. 

When cooking with wine, the the vinegary, bitter off-flavors of some generic
type wines is carried into the cooked dish. The act of cooking does not
improve the taste of a bad wine. Indeed, the bad flavors will become more
concentrated. Thereby you see the wisdom of those who say don't cook with
anything you wouldn't drink. A good cook uses the freshest, highest quality
ingredients they can find and  cooking wine is no exception.


The good news is that the varieties used today are for most part those grown
in the MA such as pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, merlot, trebbiano, cabernet
franc, chardonnay, etc. so for the most part the wine drinker in the SCA has a
vast amount of choices without the added burden of deciding whether it is a
period wine or not. :-)

Ras





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