Don't Know Much About Wine

I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand wine the way I'd like to. The main thing I look for when tasting wine is complexity, or a flavor that emerges over time. But the descriptions I read don't make much sense to me, and I'm not confident that I could pick out a truly fine wine from among a bunch of imitators.

After watching the Pigs and Pinot competition on Top Chef the other night, I felt curious and wanted to try a Pinot Noir with the fresh perspective the show had given me. I tend to buy Merlots, mainly because I figure that if I stick with one type of wine, I'll be better able to tune in to nuances. I'm not sure if it works, but it's what I do.

I chose one from Oregon. It was one of the cheaper ones on the shelf, but I wasn't feeling particularly extravagant. I decided to open it while I was cooking dinner because I was making tomato sauce, and it's always nice to put a little in the sauce (and a little in my glass.) I reached for the corkscrew and was surprised to discover that the bottle had a screw top.

My first reaction was, "This is going to be lousy wine." My second reaction was that I wanted to try to taste it as objectively as possible. I remember reading in Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating about an experiment where researchers served one group of diners a wine with a label that said it was from California, and then served the same wine to another group with a label saying it was from Minnesota. Not only did the table drinking the "Minnesota" vintage give their wine a lower rating, but they rated their entire meal more critically than the California group, who received exactly the same meal.

I think about that study regularly in my own business. I know that people's preconceptions about how food should be served affect their perception of its taste, but I like to challenge these presumptions, even though it probably costs me sales. I'd rather use my equipment until it's falling apart than replace it as soon as it starts to look shabby. This is a sustainability issue, one that has far-reaching consequences: one of the reasons our food costs more than it needs to--one of the reasons we waste so much food--is because we're so invested in appearances.

So I tried to taste the wine as if someone had just poured it into my glass, as if I had no idea it had come with a screw top. At first I thought it tasted one dimensional, then I detected some complexity. I kept second guessing myself.

So I tried to do an actual blind experiment. When my sweetie came home I told her I got a bottle of wine because I'd felt like I wanted to re-experience Pinot, and I poured her a glass. She said she thought Pinots tasted watery in general, and this one was no exception. When I told her about the screw top she said she didn't have an issue with screw tops: she didn't think cork was necessarily the best substance to close wine bottles anyway. (She's a scientist.)

Did I learn anything? I'm not sure.