To Decant or Not to Decant

This is a little something I came up with as sort of a guide for why and what is the best way to decant red wine. Very few white wines benefit from decanting, however very few red wines don't benefit from decanting.

v  Decanting any red wine will make it taste better

Ø  2 main reasons for decanting wine:

§  To remove sediment

§  Let the wine aerate

·             Volatile components evaporate

·             Right amount of oxidation

Ø  Wine’s will taste smoother, more “round,” more complex, better integrated, less “tight,” less alcoholic, less bitter, and will last longer on the palate

Ø  The more expensive the wine the more important decanting is

Ø  Ideal range for decanting is 1½ to 3 hours. Most people in restaurants don’t have that kind of time, but the closer it is to that range the better

Ø  People prefer oxygen levels between 4-6ppm (parts per million). Most bottles start around 2ppm where they will taste “tight” and after it hits 8.6 will taste oxidized

Intro Guide to Pairing Wine

Wine pairing is an art. There are some rules, but mostly loose guides left open for individual tastes and goals. In general you want to match weight, acid, and sugar. Then it's up to you how you want to mirror and contrast fruits, herbs, spices, vegetables, spices, nuts, etc. Sort of like a relationship, there are certain core areas you probably need to match on, but you don't want to date exactly the same person as yourself.

An easy method is to just match color and weight with a wine that is probably also high in acid. The higher the acid the more pairing options you have. Most wines are dry and high in acid, some wines are very high in acid. If you're doing a heavy rich tomato sauce pasta you want a deep rich red wine such as Super Tuscan. If its a light tomato cream sauce maybe a rose.

Other general rules: Salty foods are good with sweet and/or fruity wines. Consider oak and smokiness. Keep away tannins and fish. Acid and tannin can balance. Acid is good with salt. Consider both main component, minor components, and sauce. Keep alcohol from spiciness.

Famous wine pairings:
Cab and a slab - tannin balances out the fat
Sauternes and foie gras - matching weight and richness
Champagne and oysters - matching minerality, Champagnes high acid works well
Goat cheese and Sauvignon Blanc - both strong flavor and high in acid

Where it gets tricky is when there are multiple contrasting things happening in a dish. For example, sauteed mussels in a white wine sauce with spicy chorizo. You almost don't want to do a white wine because of the chorizo, but you also need something low in alcohol and has some sweetness because of the spice. There is no exact answer, it's what flavors and components you want to complement.

A Few Interesting Important Events in the History of Wine

The biggest event is of course the discovery of wine sometime before 8000 BCE. I use the term discover because It was not the original intention to make wine. Iit was hunter and gatherers in modern day Georgia trying to keep grapes in ceramic jars to be able to eat them following year. What they found the following spring was no longer grapes but wine. It was safe to consume because the type of pathogens that affect humans cannot survive in wine. The wine was created by the natural yeast that was on the grapes. Still today many wineries use the natural native yeasts that cling to grape skins to make the wine. Most however use commercially produced yeast strains. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing by any means.

Another big event is the phylloxera epidemic in 1870. Imagine the Black Plaque but worse except that it is regarding grapes. Phylloxera is a type of pest that attacks the roots. One day they just went crazy and spread like wildfire. No one could stop it or fight against no matter how meticulous a farmer was. Nearly all vineyards in all of Europe were completely wiped out. There was no more wine for anybody and most wineries had to close. This went on for about a decade. The good thing that happened was that it very highly incentivized many other countries to start producing there own wines and even export wines to France! The problem was eventually resolved thanks to the invention of grafting. They would take the specific winemaking varietals of the grape but graft them on to rootstocks from other varieties that had thicker rootstocks that were much more resistance to the phylloxera pest. Now nearly all wines are grafted onto other rootstocks except a some areas in Chile and on the Island of Sardinia, Italy.

The other would be the Judgement of Paris in 1976. I wine store owner in France refused to sell American wines and really very few of anything not French no matter how many times his customers would ask. He would just tell them it's all crap and French wines are the best. I might be paraphrasing. But they kept askin, so to shut them up he staged a grand wine-off between American wines and French wines. He got together some of the most famous wine journalists and sommeliers and had them to a series of blind tastings between the finest wines from France and California. They tasted California Canernet against right bank Bordeaux (which are dominated by Cabernet) and white Burgundy (Chardonnay) against California Chardonnay. California one first place in both the Reds and whites. They even did a follow up study 30 years later because of the following claims that French wines age better. They were also wrong again and we won both. The results from this small event of maybe around 50 people changed the entire wine landscape. France was kind of up on this podium that no one could get there. All other wines were basically considered a joke until this day. Because of this event there was an explosion of wineries all over the world and instead of it being automatically considered second class wines, they could compete against France on equal ground.

A Story about Herman Story Wines

From my wine tasting trip, my favorite winery was Herman Story. Russell P. From, the winemaker, named it after his grandfather, and many aspects of the winery contain homages to him.

What is so cool about these wines are the uniqueness of wines and the uniqueness of the winemaker, evidenced here:

http://hermanstorywines.com

Just look at literally any other website from any winemaker and you will see how unique he and his wines sound. 

The wines themselves are also incredible and incredibly powerful. To give a comparison, most red wines from Europe are around 13% alcohol. Californian wines are usually around 14%. Alcohol can make a wine taste "hot" but if it is a quality wine you will not notice any extra alcohol only notice the fuller body and increased complexity of the wine. This is how his wines are. The alcohol usually kills off the yeast as it reaches around 13 or 14% alcohol, or a winemaker can cool off the must (the mixture of grape juice and yeast before it becomes wine) to stop the yeast. Herman Story uses special types of yeast that are able to thrive even in higher levels of alcohol. And because they use excellent grapes from the best surrounding wine regions and are fantastic winemakers the increased alcohol is unnoticeable. What is noticeable is how powerful the wines taste. They are more "punch you in the face" type of wines, punching you in the face with flavor. They are so strong that another winery close by asked us to make sure to taste their wines before Herman Story's because otherwise we'd barely be able to taste them. I usually don't like to pay to ship in wines or be a wine club member anywhere because I like variety. But for here there is no way I wasn't going to be a wine club member which is the only way to attain their wines without visiting.