It’s special because of all the mystery

May 23 2008 by Jane Hall, The Journal

IT is “magically coloured like a limpid strawberry lollipop … the haunting scents of violets and rose petals are captured, with that unmistakable whiff of cake you find in Cabernet-based rosés. It boasts a frivolous fresh fruitiness, teasing you to believe there might be a hint of sweetness.

“Dive into the glass, though, and you’ll find that the sweetness is just an attractive pretence; the wine is actually thoroughly grown up and dry.”

No one else describes wine in quite the outrageously frothy way that Jilly Goolden managed.

But in many ways I prefer her (abridged) tasting note of a nice little pink wine from Bergerac to the incomprehensible verbiage that still appears on some restaurant wine lists.

And even the most distinguished wine writers are guilty of flights of fancy and weird wine-speak.

For example, the American wine guru Robert Parker, talks about a wine with “an oxidised mid-life crisis”, or another with “aromas of crushed rocks”. (Do crushed rocks really have a smell?)

Parker also dots his descriptions with French words and phrases. Some are technical and thus fairly excusable, such as demi-muids (500 litre casks) or barriques (barrels), but others are just showing off, like goût du pétrol (taste of petrol) and pain grillé (toast).

As most wine is made abroad, it’s hardly surprising that wine labels are packed with foreign words.

However, it’s good if French phrases like sur lie or vieilles vignes are translated when they appear on restaurant wine lists. In an attempt to help people make sense of these very two last terms, Blackfriars restaurant in Newcastle held a Babel Fish Wine Dinner as part of the Eat! Festival earlier this month.

I was never really into The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but according to Douglas Adams’ fantasy, a Babel fish, when held to the ear, allows immediate translation from one language to another – a nice idea, if a bit slippery to manage.

The bill of fare for the night was deliberately full of menu-speak and the wine to accompany each of the courses was carefully described and explained, table-by-table, by Blackfriars affable sommelier (sorry, wine waiter) John Jardine and by Andy Taylor, borrowed for the night from Liberty Wines – one of the best importing agencies in the business. It was a nice idea and we settled down for a relaxed, pleasantly diverting time.

The job of explaining each wine took John and Andy a fair deal of time. They were very patient and did it well.

But the very length of their little talks reminded me that although there’s no excuse for wine snobbery these days, it’s a far tougher job to try to demystify wine than, for example, to avoid using pretentious and often misleading terms like mille-feuille on a menu.

Wine is just fermented grape juice, but the minor factors that may influence exactly how any one wine tastes are legion.

There are many hundreds of grape varieties, all with their own distinct character; dozens of different ways of fermenting and maturing wine, all of which influence its flavour; and the sheer, almost limitless complexity of site and climate, combined with the unique growing conditions of each season, all add their own nuances of smell and taste.

Earlier that same evening, I’d been trying to explain why Chablis from grapes grown in one vineyard tastes different from those grown in another, even if it’s made by the same producer in the same year. I find such subtleties fascinating. Because wine is so endlessly variable, because it’s a product in which each and every winemaker has a chance to put their own stamp on it, because one vintage is never quite the same as the next, I’ll never learn all there is to know about it. And in trying to communicate what a wine smells or tastes like, a bit of imagination seldom comes amiss.

After all, have you ever tasted a wine that was literally fat, supple, chewy, crunchy, lush, hard, rich or thick?

Some aspects of a wine can be described fairly objectively – such as the amount of sugar in it or the level of acidity and alcohol.

But a technical analysis, however detailed, can never conjure up adequately its smell or flavour.

To approach that, we need those carefully chosen but often playful words.

Forgive me when I slip into wine speak from time to time, or when one of my descriptions fails to ring a bell with you, but please don’t ask me to try to demystify wine. Its mystery is what makes it so special.

Wine is just fermented grape juice, but the factors that may influence how any one wine tastes are legion

Wine bites

TEMPRANILLO is the main grape of Rioja, as in my wine of the week, but it’s grown all over Spain.

In warmer sites, it has evolved a slightly different character, often with thicker skins, which give a rather more tannic wine. That’s exactly the case with the best-selling Durius Tempranillo, made by the same people as the Alea Tempranillo Rioja – the Marques de Griñon. It also has a smell dominated by plum, vanilla and spice, but is softer (with lower acidity) and has much more of a tannic bite. It’s £5.99 in Sainsbury’s (or two for £10).

The same grapes taste very different if they’re made into rosé rather than red wine. Duo Mythique Syrah/Grenache made by the fine Val d’Orbieu co-operative in the Languedoc comes in both versions – both £4.99 at the Co-op.

The 2007 Rosé is a lovely mouthful of raspberry and red cherry fruit, with a hint of bubblegum. It’s light, pretty pink, dry and fruity. The 2006 deep, purply red is just as good. The smell still reminds me of bubblegum, but the raspberry is now quite jammy and the cherry is black rather than red. It’s quite soft, and fills the mouth with ripe, almost chewy fruit.

Wine of the week

ALEA Tempranillo Rioja 2006, Tesco, £6.12 (also Majestic, Morrisons, Londis and Thresher).

Deep, ruby red with a spicy, vanilla, plummy, but elegant smell and a juicy taste of spiced ripe plums, and just enough tannins to give a little bite. Excellent value.

Perfect with spicy sausages or roast lamb.