The first thing we learned was a question that has been burning on my mind since I first didn't know the answer to it. On Thanksgiving I decanted a Pinot Noir that Scott and Christy had made. I decanted it simply because we wanted to use the decanter which we had received as a wedding gift. Somebody (and I totally forget who) asked if there was any reason for the shape of the decanter. At the time I was like, "naw", but I remembered the question. In fact, we registered for this one because it looks nice. gawd what a couple of amateurs! Well, tonight at the Fremont Wine Warehouse John Bell, the very nice wine maker, explained that there are two reasons to decant, and therefore there are two main decanter shapes.
You decant a young wine because you want to 'blow off the sulfites'. As you probably know, sulfites are an (all natural!) additive to wines which act to preserve the wine in the bottle. Well, sulfites also bind to "flavors". Because they are jerks. Sorry to get all technical on you there, but my memory of my 2 quarters of organic chemistry aren't enough to really go more in depth. Sulfites are also powerful anti-oxidants, which means that they bind to the O2 in the air like a son of a gun, and release "the flavors". What this means is that for a young wine you want a decanter that exposes the wine to a lot of air, like the one we received for our wedding, pictured here. The wine spreads out over a large area, allowing a lot of interactions with the air.
Over time, the sulfites also release the flavors in the bottle. I really don't know why, we all soften with age. If you expose an older wine to air, you just lose your wonderful flavor to the wind. But you often need to decant an older wine because there is sediment. (I'm going to guess that sediment results from the sulfites binding to the tannins, because I have heard that wines become a lot less tannic with time, too.) You might decant an older wine in order to leave the sediment behind in this bottle. Decanters for older wines are shaped a little like a wine bottle so you don't get so much air exposure.
Our general rule is to decant only when we don't like the wine... in that case, it can't hurt.
We also learned, from the French guy, that Cabernet Sauvignon is a horizontal wine, and Merlot is more of a vertical wine. Horizontal and vertical in flavor, not in space. I think that Elyse should explain that, because it went a little over my head.
The French guy also told us that many winemakers add artificial sweeteners to there wine. I have a feeling that if you spend under, say, $7 per bottle, that you have some sweeteners in there. I personally have found that all cheap wines taste more or less the same, and this sweetening might have something to do with homogeneity of flavor.
I asked why cheap wines give me a headache after 1 glass, while spending just $10+ allows me to drink half the bottle without getting a headache. Apparently this is because cheaper wines often have more sulfites. I didn't ask why they have more sulfites. But apparently they do.
As you can tell, we really became major experts tonight.
One of my favorite things that the French wine maker said was that Americans generally lack an appreciation for blends. Most French wines are blends. A red Bordeaux, for example, is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot. I have to agree with him. I tend to like blends better. His explanation was that you get a horizontal and vertical wine with a Bordeaux. I'm not quite sure I can get my tongue around that answer, but it seems to be similar to cooking. Yeah, I like to eat, say, pineapple (one ingredient), but I really like to eat, say, crème brûlée (many ingredients). I guess when most of us go to a store, and we see "merlot" on the label, we know that merlot is a type of grape, but if we see "Côtes du Rhône" on the label, well, what the heck is that? You don't even need to know that the wine is from the Rhône valley, and it is a blend of Grenache Noir, Syrah, Cinsault, Carignane, Counoise and Mourvèdre, you just need to know if you like it, and that wines from that place will be similar.
We have become big fans of the Fremont Wine Warehouse and of Michael Cawdry, the manager (owner?), because he knows a lot about wine, and keeps it real. A lot of wine talk seems like B.S. to me, I mean, I do not need a different shape of glass for each type of wine I drink. Do I?! But that is not what the Warehouse is about. It is about good wines at reasonable prices. We live in a time and place where people have the opportunity to indulge the senses to their heart's content. To me, enjoying wine is about learning to appreciate each bottle to its fullest, with all of its complexities, without going crazy about the food pairing or the shape of the glass. (But still caring about the shape of the decanter - because apparently that one's key. I'm sure of it now.)
