http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/dining/wine-school-albarino.html 2016-09-15 22:58:23 With Albariño, or Any Wine, Don’t Forget the Context Every wine has its own character, but almost as important is how it reacts to food, temperature and surroundings. === A prime motive of So we’ve departed from the usual clinical examination of wine in a vacuum. That approach, in which many wines are given scant attention in a routine of rapid sniffing, swirling, tasting and spitting, has dominated wine criticism. It accounts for the multitude of often inane tasting notes and scores found in consumer publications that purport to appraise hundreds of different bottles. It has long been my contention that, while this may be the simplest method of convincing consumers that they are making educated buying decisions, it is the least effective way of assessing a bottle of wine. It also does nothing to help them learn for themselves how to evaluate wine or to discover their own set of preferences. With the thought of helping consumers gain confidence in their own critical powers, I’ll leave it for others to debate whether this approach can be effective on a mass scale. But judging by the comments in our recent evaluation of albariño, I would say that for participants, it has been a rousing success. The Most readers naturally tried to describe the aromas and flavors they experienced. This is worth doing. But I was gratified that rather than issuing exhaustive grocery lists of esoteric descriptors, readers seemed to focus on general terms: tropical fruits, apple and mineral, rather than papaya, Gravenstein apples and so on. The more general terms indicate the discernible properties in a wine. Tropical fruits may convey a high level of ripeness when the grapes were harvested, while apples indicate a tartness that may come from lively acidity. You could just as easily say “very ripe” or “tart,” but why spoil the fun? Highly specific descriptions, however, do not clearly convey information that can be useful to others. “Notes of rambutan,” for example, serves better as a personal mnemonic device for remembering a wine than it does to communicate its character to others. More important than descriptions, though, is the context in which wine is consumed. The albariño comments were filled with references to context, which crucially influences how we experience a wine. What was the temperature of the wine when you first drank it? How did the wine change as it warmed in the glass? What did you eat with it? How did the food change the wine, and vice versa? One reader, VSB of San Francisco, often lists the music that accompanied a meal. The soundtrack for albariño was I have harped continuously on my belief that we often drink good white wines too cold. Straight out of the refrigerator, the best whites seem muted. The cold blunts nuance, which is a good thing for a bad wine; you want that glass of pinot grigio you ordered at an airport bar to be as cold as possible. But for good wines, you want to detect every nuance. Dan Barron of New York and his wife, Barb, noted how temperature affected the Albamar, which helpfully notes on its label that it is optimally served at 12 degrees Celsius, or 53.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The wine went best with a dish of curried hake, he said, when it was nearly room temperature, and “turned sweeter, friendlier, more generous.” Sadly, he added, the wine went much better with a side of charred cherry tomatoes when it was cooler. I had not thought of the necessity of coordinating main and side dishes, but perhaps it’s something sensitive eaters may want to consider. Joseph of Île-de-France noted that as the Do Ferreiro warmed in the glass, its inherent minerality emerged. Since minerality is prized by many wine lovers, this is yet another reason to shun the ice bucket. Joseph also noted that oysters in a spicy dressing and blackened salmon overwhelmed the delicate wine. I will say that curried fish and blackened salmon offer complex sets of flavors, contrary to my suggestion of simply prepared seafood. On the other hand, Martin Schappeit of Forest, Va., tried a Ferguson of Princeton, N.J., loved the albariños with I thought each of the three albariños was terrific, though I liked the Do Ferreiro and the Albamar a bit more than the Pedralonga. The Albamar had a ripe peach and citrus aroma, and a spine of minerality on the palate, with a slight but discernible bitterness, almost like tonic water. The Do Ferreiro had a richer texture — unctuous, as Max D. put it — yet was lively, energetic, complex and pure, with herbal, floral and citrus flavors, and a firm minerality. The Pedralonga was a little more tart, with clear apple flavors, as several readers noted. It, too, had persistent mineral flavors, but it seemed less energetic than the other wines. I might not have noticed if I were not trying the wines side by side. Each of these wines, however, went beautifully with two recipes I prepared: Going back over our study of albariño, I was struck by how dependent the wines were on external circumstances. Each element — whether temperature, overly complex dishes and other factors, like mood and weather — can demonstrably affect a wine, although you have to pay attention to notice these things. Attentiveness to these details is both a curse and a blessing. No doubt, blissful ignorance would diminish the disturbing effect of a wine that is served at the wrong temperature or that clashes with a particular dish. Others, for whom the minutiae of food and wine are unimportant, may deem you fussy if you notice too demonstrably. But far more important are the pleasures when the fine points do align. (Honestly, I’m not hard to please.) It’s like music, which you may find to be pleasant when you listen passively, but which may inspire something akin to religious awe when you take in the details. These are the feelings and emotions that cause people to pursue wine, whether as a passion or a calling. It’s a complexity that can’t be gotten at when you’re tasting and spitting dozens of wines. It must be lived with and consumed.