A Tale of Two Bottles

a summer spent with people and wine

As a writer and a misanthrope, I spend much of my time alone, brooding, typing and occasionally, writing. But this past summer, I’ve been unusually social. I attended dinners, parties and weekends away, all pleasant obligations that require me to purchase and proffer a bottle or six of wine. This past summer, the social summer of 2010, has been defined by two specific bottles of wine: Di Conciliis Falanghina 2008 and Valle Dell’Acate Il Frappato 2008.

Neither of these bottles is particularly chic—they both come from southern Italy, areas windswept and arid, not lush, romantic regions like Toscana and Piemonte—so I wasn’t buying to impress a wine snob. They’re not expensive; both retail in the low $20 range. They’re not crafted from well-known varieties; rather, both Falanghina and Frappato are little-known indigenous grapes. They’re not big, fruity, international wines; some people might not easily understand either bottle. Not endowed with the qualities given to most hostess gift wines, the wines I chose are small, delightful, slightly eccentric and cheap—and I love them.

I’m not very good at describing wine in customary wine discourse. I could say that the white Falanghina has a white peach and lychee palate and a bouncy acidity or that the red Frappato has a lovely bright cherry color, a nose of raspberries and a charming, lissome body, but I’d sound disingenuous. That’s not how I think of these wines. It’s now how I remember them, and it’s not why I cart them by the case out to Fire Island.

Instead, I’d say this: the Falanghina always reminds me of a really pretty girl who is a lot snarkier and smarter than you first thought, and the Frappato always makes me think of eating berries on Central Park’s Great Lawn with the love of my life. Regardless of how I think of the wines—with analogies to fruit and flowers or in metaphors of people and experiences—I’ve enjoyed spending time with these wines, and I’ve liked them enough to introduce them to the people I love.

Summer is ending, and even a curmudgeon like me starts to feel nostalgic. My nostalgia too has become embodied in these bottles. Though the Falanghina may have begun in Campania and the Frappato in Sicilia, they’ve become forever attached to my summer here in Manhattan, on Fire Island and in Vermont. Though they’re wines, they feel like friends. I’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Corked Wine

How to Pick Up on the Wine Culprit

Nothing hurts more than opening a bottle and finding that it’s undrinkable. Most of the time, the culprit can be found in one simple phrase: cork taint. Cork taint is fairly self-explanatory; it’s a cork that has been tainted with TCA or Trichloroanisole, which usually spoils the entire bottle of wine and can derive from the barrels or other cooperage. Nevertheless, it’s a really rare occurrence. Cork taint is also why any good server or sommelier will ceremoniously hand you the cork before tasting—you can smell the potential taint in a dry cork long before you taste the wine.

If, when you swirl and sniff, you smell more cork than fruit or other components in the wine, you’re smelling a bad sign. Some folks can tell if a wine is corked by scent alone; however, a sip is usually the next step, and it’s usually foolproof. The wine will smell like wet newspaper or dog, mold, or old sneakers and will usually overpower any natural fruit, spice and other aromas in your wine and shorten the finish of the wine.

Sipping, or even drinking, a corked wine is not the end of the world; it won’t kill you. It won’t even make you sick. One could even argue that tasting a corked wine is part of learning about wine. It’s a taste you won’t forget, however unpleasant, and having tasted it once, you’ll know what to look for in the future.

If you’re not sure know how to spot, or smell, a contaminated bottle, you aren’t alone. Most of the time, corked bottles are never returned to the store or restaurant; they’re simply remembered as a really bad bottle of wine. Whatever you do, never try to return a bottle that is half or nearly empty—if you’ve drunk that much, you need to accept your loss and move on, as hard as it may be to throw away a favorite wine. If, however, you’ve noticed the wine is corked upon opening, you have every right to return it, whether at a restaurant or a shop.

The good news is that cork taint really isn’t very prevalent. With any luck you’ll never have to experience it in all your wine tasting, though if you do, you’ll survive to drink another day.

A Tale of Two Sisters and Several Rieslings

when drinking well is (almost) better than being right

I come from a family of opinionated control freaks, and I mean that in the nicest of ways. I’d be putting it lightly if I described every one of them as stubborn and set in their ways, which often makes for spirited debates and passionate opinions that stay with us long after the arguments end. The seven of us couldn’t have more varied wine preferences, so dinners out always result in at least one compromise in ordering wine, and it comes with gritted teeth and crossed arms. Because of our tendency to fight over wines, we’ve become great fans of wine bars, thanks to their ability to nullify the debate by giving each of us our own way. We order wines by the glass, no compromise needed.

Thus, our family celebrates our twenty-first birthdays by going to a wine bar and each ordering what we know we like, or should I say think we like. This past week, two of my sisters and I went to Terroir Tribeca for a belated twenty-first birthday celebration for one of them. It was a fairly warm August day, and I arrived to discover them both drinking red wine.

My sisters both shot me looks of irritation and disgust. One exclaimed, “You didn’t tell us they only have Riesling right now. I HATE Riesling,” while the other groaned, “Ugh, it’s like drinking Welch’s. How could you?” Terroir, I discovered, was serving only one kind of white wine–Riesling–but they were pouring many types of it. Clearly, my sisters needed to be stopped.

I assured them that they needed to listen to me, that in my professional opinion they did not hate Riesling, and that they were merely inexperienced. With a slightly haughty air, I asked the very knowledgeable bartender for the driest Riesling on offer, one with loads of minerality and aromatics. He poured two tastes of Alsatian Rieslings, and both were exactly what I was looking for. I savored both tastes, and in describing the wines to my sisters, I was sure to lay it on thick. The more wine I enjoyed, I noticed that the longer their glances lingered on my cool, refreshing glass of Riesling. They finally caved, just as they emptied their glasses of red.

The wine guru behind the bar suggested they go with a moderately dry Riesling and maybe try a pair, a younger one next to one with a little more age, and one from Alsace with one from Germany. Knowing from years of experience that the less I urged them to love it the more likely they would, I kept my mouth shut as they sipped. Much to their surprise, and my delight, both stubborn young women developed a taste for Riesling that night. I enjoyed my Rieslings, but I enjoyed being right more.

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