Reader Question--Syrah or Merlot? How does one begin?

Dear YoungVintage:

At a spring release tasting, I spoke with two people about Syrah. The conversation happened because a wine writer and I were tasting some amazing Syrah and I asked her and the winemaker what their favorite varietals were, if they could choose. I said mine was Syrah, and the winemaker at Va Piano Vineyard said that his favorite was Syrah, but he also added that he thinks Syrah is really on its way in, even though it’s a young varietal type, because it is so approachable for young people. It’s big, bad, bold peppery—all the things that I love about it, this guy was saying were the reasons he thought it was a great entry wine for young twenty-somethings.

I asked the Longshadows guy what he thought about that and he disagreed. He just thinks Syrah is a really great wine, and he thinks that Merlot is a better entry wine.

What say you, YoungVintage, about entry wines and about Syrahs?


Gentle Reader,

“Entry wines” are certainly an issue of concern for not only people starting out on their wine (or just plain drinking) path, but for winemakers and wine marketers across the board. How can you prove to someone that they like wine, unless you can magically, psychically determine what will appeal to him or her?

I love Syrah, but New World Syrahs especially tend to be big, bold, smack-you-in-the face wines, and old World Syrah tends to be kind of…stinky. If you have some experience with wine, these can be very appealing, especially if the wine is paired well with food. If your only drinking experience has been with wine coolers at frat parties then Syrah undoubtedly will come as something of a shock. Conversely, hardcore beer drinkers, especially of stouts, are used to earthy flavors and will probably enjoy a Syrah, and find Riesling and other sweeter wines repulsive. It all really depends on previously determined preferences.

I think there are ways to establish what will be a good first wine experience. The best way to figure out what will appeal to a new wine drinker is to go to a big tasting event like Taste Washington Seattle or a new release tasting like the one you attended and just taste through what is available. That way, it won’t feel wasteful if you buy an entire bottle, decide you don’t like it, leave it languishing in the fridge thinking you’ll use it for cooking, until you finally move and have to pour it down the drain. You get to try (and spit and dump) dozens of wines, and get an idea of what you find tasty.

Other than attending a big tasting, here is my rough guide on how to determine a good “entry wine”:

If you like: Guinness
Try: Syrah
A Guinness is a meal. So is New World Syrah. If you like Guinness, you can handle bold flavors, and can appreciate earthly elements.

If you like: Vodka Martinis
Try: Cabernet Sauvignon
You can take the high alcohol and big flavors. Provided you haven’t yet burned your taste buds off with Grey Goose.

If you like: Cosmopolitans
Try: Riesling
Sweet, but not overbearing, Riesling is a good gateway into dry and full white wines.

If you like: Microbrew IPAs
Try: Merlot
If you like complexity in your beer, but don’t like the fullness of a stout, Merlot is a good place to start with wine. With a complex flavor profile, Merlot doesn’t have quite the tannic punch of Syrah.

If you like: 25 year old Scotch
Try: Pinot Noir
Subtle and mellow, Pinot is one of the finer things in life. Though if you’re a devoted fan of expensive Scotch, you probably already drink Pinot Noir…in a gentleman’s club….wearing an ascot.

NB: But seriously, I think Pinot Noir is one of the most versatile wines available. I would suggest anyone try it regardless of wine experience.

If you like: Wine Coolers
Try: Lambrusco
If you like very sweet beverages, this is a good place to start getting your palate used to wine flavors, without a lot of tannin or complexity.

If you like: Bud Light
Try: Chardonnay
Chardonnay is a good place to start for light beer drinkers—both are light and refreshing. Also, note that wine has 120 calories or less per serving.

If you like: Hard Cider
Try: Sauvignon Blanc
There is a crispness to hard cider that’s reflected in the herbaceousness and citrus and apple flavors in Sauvignon Blanc. If you like Strongbow or microbrewed ciders (apple or pear), Sauvignon Blanc is a good place to start appreciating wine.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day is, in my opinion, the best "holiday" we celebrate in the US. Perhaps it's not the most meaningful, we can leave that to holidays like Yom Kippur, Easter, etc., but it speaks to dynamic social shifts. Less than 100 years ago the Irish in America were a marginalized people (you've all seen the signs from the 1920s: Help Wanted--Irish Need Not Apply). Today, almost every major US city has a parade on St. Patrick's Day, it's hip to be Irish, and the country itself, with the exception of generally waning political and religious strife in Northern Ireland, is a model of cultural tolerance and economic prosperity. Plus, as a people they can drink the rest of the world under the table. As a holiday it's grand--there's no need for a gift exchange and you don't have to dress up. All you have to do is wear green and enjoy beer or whiskey.

I really want to post today, since it's my favorite holiday. I racked my brain--how does wine relate to St. Patrick's Day? Should I post about green tannins? Irish-born winemakers? Then it hit me--this is a holiday about beer (and I do love Guinness). And as every winemaker knows, at the end of the day, what you want is a brewski. So, I'd like to direct you to an excellent article about beer from Budget Travel today, and a blessing to toast your friends with:

May the roads rise to meet you.
May the wind be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rain fall soft upon your fields
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Coppola Director's Cut 2005 Chardonnay

I attended an event last week at which I tried some interesting American wines, so I plan to post some "reviews" over the next month. The first of these will be for Francis Ford Coppola's Director's Cut 2005 Russian River Chardonnay. This bottle retails for between $17-20.

Celebrity wines don't sit very well with me on principle. I prefer to see hard working farmer-types build reputation, and (dare I say) fame, through their knowledge of terroir, a deft hand with yeasts, excellent vine and water management and, let's face it, a little bit of luck. Such is the American dream. Much to my chagrin, Francis Ford Coppola's wines are generally well reviewed, and when I had the chance to try the Director's Cut 2005 Russian River Valley Chardonnay, I was pleasantly surprised.

As wine is all about the sensory experience, I'll start with the package. I love the label--a long strip of paper wound 'round the bottle with images vaguely reminiscent of Renaissance France by way of 1930s cinema. The color of the wine is medium straw, the initial nose sweet with a touch of green apple. I'm admittedly not much of a Chardonnay enthusiast--especially of the oaked variety--but this was well integrated. Contrary to other reviews I read of the wine, I didn't find a lot of fruit on the palate--mostly green herbaceousness, some floral on the nose (perhaps honeysuckle) with a fairly strong note of bread. The finish was long enough, with nicely balanced acidity. I think this is a good wine for food--seafood in a light cream sauce, baked herb chicken with wild rice or mushroom pastry.

Wine Word of the Week: Chaptalization

Inspired by this article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week, I've decided the word for the week will be chaptalization.

A relatively rare process, it is one by which the winemaker adds sugar (or honey, in the case of the ancient Romans) to fermenting wine in order to raise the alcohol level--not the sweetness. This is typically done in cool climates, where the grapes might not reach their full maturity, and thus ideal sugar levels. Without ripeness and sugars, there won't be enough material for the yeasts to convert to alcohol at the proper levels. Some winemakers say for certain vintages chaptalization is necessary to stabilize the wine--others say it can cause an imbalance. It depends on the harvest year and the climate. It's a fairly common practice in Champagne, Austria and Germany, less so in the New World, though it is used in New Zealand and Oregon.

How to use this term: to look ridiculously pompous at wine tastings. "Oh my gawd, Buffy--this Beaujolais Nouveau is 16.5 percent alcohol. They must have used chaptalization."

NB: The process is named after Jean-Antoine Chaptal, "Napoleon's minister of the interior, who gave it the French government's official endorsement and promoted it in his 1801 book 'Traite Theotique et Pratique Sur la Culture de la Vigne.'"

The Horror!

Spilling red wine on your (or God forbid, a dear friend’s) beige carpet, white couch, tan trousers or ecru silk blouse creates a special kind of freak out. I have this on my mind because I’m attending an event in April and wearing a beloved ivory satin dress, and I’m worried someone will dump a glass of red wine down my back. This may seem paranoid, but I had someone spill half a glass of wine (thankfully white) down my décolletage at a winery opening not three months ago.

For today’s posting, I would like to discuss how to get red wine stains out of fabric and carpet. I hope that anyone who has their own formula for red wine removal will post it here for general benefit.

Fail safe: Wine Away is perhaps the most necessary tool in a wine enthusiast’s toolbox, other than a good corkscrew and decent glassware. I once dropped a bottle of wine, which smashed next to my foot, and entirely soaked the leg of my tan trousers with Syrah. I sprayed Wine Away on it, and the wine and any stain disappeared. It’s really quite a remarkable product. I plan to keep a small bottle in my clutch during the said ivory dress event.

An old wives tale, which actually seems to work, is to combat red wine with white. It does seem to be true that white wine stops red wine stains from setting. So, if you spill red wine, the trick is to blot (don’t rub) as much red wine as possible off the fabric, then soak the area with white wine—if you happen to have an open bottle available. Club soda seems to work the same way as white wine. Once you have removed as much of the red wine as possible, in many cases pouring club soda on the stain will keep it from setting into the fibers. Then you can saturate the area with Woolite or another gentle cleaner to get the rest of the stain out.

I haven’t tested this myself, but I hear that pouring table salt on red wine soaks up the wine and stops the stain from forming. Apparently if you soak up the excess red wine, dump salt on the stain and leave it overnight, then vacuum off in the morning (this must work best for carpet), the stain will be gone.

I’ve had some success with hydrogen peroxide as well—which also works well on blood stains, incidentally. If the stain hasn’t set, saturating the area with hydrogen peroxide is a good bet.

I suggest stocking up on Wine Away, Woolite, club soda and cheap white wine if one is planning to throw a party. And if you have a propensity to trip, stumble or gesticulate with wine glasses (much like myself)—keep a small bottle of Wine Away in your purse (or man bag).

Wine Word(s) of the Week: Residual Sugar (RS)

Once again, my wonderful friend Scriptoress asked an excellent question about how to talk about sugar levels in wine. While brix refers to the sugar levels in grapes before, during and after harvest, the way to discuss the sweetness in a finished wine is to talk about residual sugar (RS).
Sugar remains in wine, usually, in one of two ways. One is by choice--a winemaker can change the temperature of a wine--either cooling or heating the wine--during fermentation to kill or stall the yeast from converting the sugars into alcohol. Another is naturally, resulting in stuck fermentation. Due to natural temperature changes, or just chance factors, the yeast may stop converting. At that point, the sugar you have is what you get in the finished product.
Thus, the sugars that remain in the wine after the fermentation process finishes are the residual sugars, which cause the sweetness in wine. Dry wines will have no or close to no residual sugars, dessert wine will have a high level of RS.

Love is in the Air, and Wine is in the News

When I checked my email this morning, I was figuratively clobbered over the head by the vast amount of articles about Valentine's Day wines. That's what I get for having so many Google Alerts set up. For your enjoyment, I've created a list of the best articles pertaining to V-Day wines:

Ray Isle of Food + Wine magazine, one of my favorite wine writers, published an article today about wine and chocolate pairing, which is a notoriously difficult process. Contrary to popular belief, wine and chocolate isn’t the perfect pair--Ray gives some great tips on how to make it work.

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post provide this great article about food pairings and Valentine's Day wines. They also provide a link to Eat Something Sexy, a website maintained by a Cordon Bleu trained chef who specializes in food aphrodisiacs.

I may not be a fan of Charles Olken, but his love of brut Rosé sparklers endears him to me somewhat. His article about his wine picks for Valentine's Day gives some reviews of both domestic and imported sparkling wine.

Laurie Daniel of the San Jose Mercury News gives a great primer on Port, and her shopping suggestions for Valentine's Day.

The Napa Valley Register published a humorous article today about doing Valentine's Day on a budget in Napa (perhaps an oxymoron?), but the tips are universal.

Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune and OC Register writes about dessert wines, which are truly underappreciated by American drinkers.

Happy Singles Awareness Day everyone. Go drink some wine.