Selecting Drinking Collecting Obsessing

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Selecting, Drinking,

Collecting & Obsessing

A WSJ Guide to Wine

Lettie Teague & Will Lyons

The Wall Street Journal New York, NY

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How to Read This Book

Is there a “right” way to drink wine? For some, the answer is simple: If you’re enjoying it, you’re doing it correctly.

Others see the matter as more complex. They believe the utmost enjoyment comes from making a lifelong study of the art and science of wine—from what to drink, when to drink it and how to serve it, to the specialized tasks of growing grapes, bottling wine and storing the finished product.

Whether you’re sure where you sit on the question, could be con-vinced to update your position, or just want to burnish your creden-tials, this book is for you.

“Selecting, Drinking, Collecting & Obsessing: A Wall Street Jour-nal Guide to Wine” gathers columns from our pages into sections that follow the progression from choosing a bottle to getting the most out of it – and then to the next levels of collecting wine and turning it into a lifelong passion.

Each section is introduced by a member of our two-person wine-writing team. Will Lyons, our European correspondent, has been

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recognized in the Louis Roederer International Wine Writing Awards and was short-listed for the prestigious Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the Year in 2006. Lettie Teague, based in New York, has won three James Beard Awards, including the MFK Fisher Distin-guished Writing Award.

Feel free to start from the beginning and read through, scan the contents and pick a topic that strikes your fancy, or jump to the end. Whatever your relationship with wine, we think you’ll find plenty here to make you more curious and better informed; to inspire you to make different, new and wiser decisions; and to make you laugh, think and appreciate wine and life just a little bit more. Enjoy. Signed,

The Editors

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On Selecting Wine

BY LETTIE TEAGUE

What could be easier than buying a bottle of wine? After all, it’s available everywhere: in supermarkets, specialty shops, restau-rants—even online.

And yet wine buyers fret over their selections in a way that pur-chasers of beer or soda would rarely think to do. Wine, clearly, is much more than a drink.

So, how to go about it? Some oenophiles are emboldened by the use of wine critics’ scores. Others are compelled by good tasting notes. Some situations, however, call for specialized knowledge.

What’s the best wine to choose when you’ve got a long plane flight? In restaurants, should you opt for the familiar or the new? If the time has come to order a second bottle, should you get another like the first or try something else? If the latter, what should you choose?

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Thankfully, centuries of wine-drinker experimentation and study means many seemingly esoteric questions have thoughtful answers.

On planes, you’re better off forgoing Bordeaux and opting for an Australian Shiraz. (A softer, richer wine is the right choice at high altitude.) In a restaurant, pick the obscure over a well-known bot-tle: Familiar labels generally get bigger mark-ups because sommeliers know they will sell, while they fill in their offerings with lesser-known wines they truly love. As for second bottles, avoid a repeat purchase. Not only is it boring, but it’s unlikely to match the courses yet to come.

Of course, it always helps to know the names of some important grapes. While there are thousands of varieties—in Italy alone—there are only a few you’ll see over and over again all over the world: Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, Grenache, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Riesling.

My advice for avoiding stressful wine choices? Start with a frame-work that helps guide your decisions – then start exploring.

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What You Need to Know About Grape

Varieties

BY WILL LYONS

“I know nothing about wine—where do I start?” is perhaps the most frequent question I am asked. An obvious starting point is with grape varieties, which each have their own distinctive character and flavor.

There are more than 5,000 varieties of wine grapes planted in the world. Luckily, for those new to the subject, only 100 or so have enough appeal to be deemed commercially viable. Luckier still, it’s a relatively small number that have found international recognition.

These used to be referred to as the Noble Grape Varieties, a term coined by the British wine trade to describe the classic grapes of Europe (though it’s no longer used in professional wine exams). Nicholas King, research and development manager at the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, says it drifted out of use in about 2003. After

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using “common” or “international,” the educational body has now settled on the term “principal” grape varieties.

Whatever the term, it refers to the eight classic vari-eties—Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvi-gnon Blanc, Syrah, Grenache and Riesling—whose flavor and charac-ter have led to them being exported around the world. Their success has, in many ways, been detrimental to their reputation: the level of planting being such that quality has inevitably been diluted.

Wherever you are on the wine journey, whether a connoisseur or a novice, an understanding and appreciation of these varieties will ben-efit you enormously.

I rather like the old term for them as, in their finest form, these grapes are capable of producing wines that are among the very best in the world. Here’s my guide to what every wine drinker should know.

CABERNET SAUVIGNON

Principally associated with the red wines of the Médoc in Bordeaux, this variety has been planted all over the world. A late ripener, its small red berries produce wines that when young have a concen-trated, dark color and taste predominantly of blackcurrant. Young Cabernet can also have a spicy, herby character and a lot of tannin. With age (and the very best will be long lasting), they develop sec-ondary notes of cedar. Often blended with other varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon is also grown in Australia, Chile, South Africa and Cali-fornia, where it is very successful.

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(Jean-Manuel Duvivier)

CHARDONNAY

Due to the fact that it can be grown successfully almost anywhere, this white grape variety from Burgundy is a global superstar. It can be all things to all men, from rich, buttery and nutty in Burgundy to taut, clean, crisp and dry (most notably in Chablis); sparkling where it

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is part of the Champagne blend; and ripe with a nose of exotic fruits in warmer regions. Sublime in Burgundy, Chardonnay is also suc-cessful in Australia, California, New Zealand and Italy.

GRENACHE

Powerful, low in acidity, high in alcohol, this hearty red-wine grape is the staple for Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where it finds its greatest expression. Extensively planted, it is believed to have originated in Spain before being introduced to the Rhône valley, where it produces rich, fruity wines. Often blended with Syrah and Mourvèdre, you will also find Grenache in Australia, California, Spain, and through-out the Mediterranean basin.

MERLOT

Soft, supple and fruity, Merlot is the yin to Cabernet Sauvignon’s yang. Mainly grown on the Right Bank of Bordeaux, it is the prin-cipal variety of Pomerol and is often blended with Cabernet. It pro-duces red wines that are packed full of fruit notes such as blackcurrant and plums—wines that can be high in alcohol but, due to their soft tannins, can be drunk young. Outside of France, it is grown in north-ern Italy, California, Washington state and Chile.

PINOT NOIR

Delicate, early-ripening and, with thin skins, difficult to grow, Pinot Noir grapes find their natural home in France’s Burgundy region. Here, the variety produces texturally light red wines that have aromas of raspberry, cherry, violets and sometimes game. It is also

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fully grown in cooler regions such as Oregon, Germany, parts of Australia, California and New Zealand, where it achieves greatness. As well as producing red wines (for which it is rarely blended), it is also grown in Champagne and blended with Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier.

RIESLING

This ancient variety from Germany is particularly popular with oenophiles. In Germany it produces wines that are crisp, light and fruity. Their nose can range from pungent perfume to flowers, limes, lemons and, with age, petrol. Their charm is the way they can marry acidity with either dryness or sweetness on the palate. The very best are always refreshing. Riesling is also grown in Alsace, Australia, Oregon and California.

SAUVIGNON BLANC

Refreshing, grassy, aromatic, scintillating, light, direct—there are myriad descriptors suitable for this white grape variety. Now widely planted, it was originally grown in Bordeaux and the Loire, where it produces a crisp, dry style. Today it is best known for its new spiritual home in New Zealand, where it overflows with ripe, tropical charac-teristics such as gooseberry, pineapple and green pepper.

SYRAH OR SHIRAZ

In France, Syrah produces a dark, brooding red wine, packed full of tannin, that smells overwhelmingly of pepper and can age beautifully. In the northern Rhône it is found in such famous appellations as

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mitage and Côte-Rôtie. In Australia, where it is known as Shiraz, it produces an altogether different wine, replacing its savory northern Rhône notes with dark fruit, chocolate and licorice. Widely planted around the world, this variety produces big, bold red wines that are best drunk with red meat.

This article originally ran on March 27, 2014, under the headline “Get to Know the Global Superstars of Wine.”

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How to Read a Wine Label

BY WILL LYONS

Wine labels can be a little like cryptic crosswords: unfathomable, infuriating and intimidating.

Browsing the shelves of one of my favorite local wine merchants, a cozy little shop in London where the wines are stacked in bins that stretch from the floor to the ceiling, I was faced with a scrambled col-lage of labels. There were wines with chickens on the label, wines with etched drawings of Neo-Gothic houses, brightly colored Impressionist-style labels, watercolors depicting far-off vineyards or simply the name of a French village written in attractive, bold font. Some wines had the name of the grape variety clearly marked across the label, but on the whole the display presented a pretty mysterious picture.

No wonder most people were wandering around in silence, I thought, afraid to reveal their lack of knowledge. The subject of wine

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can reward a lifetime of study, but for those coming to it for the first time, it must feel like a puzzle.

The good news is that armed with just a few simple rules, you can decipher the most complicated of wine labels, helping you avoid the pitfalls of confusing a sweet with a dry wine or a full-bodied red with a light, fruity Beaujolais.

Of course, there are myriad exceptions. But when it comes to European wine, the first puzzle to solve is that wine producers use location as the descriptor of the taste, style and character of a wine, and not grape variety. If it says Burgundy on the label, it will be a Chardonnay if it is white, or a Pinot Noir if red.

As a rule of thumb, the more specific the location, the higher the quality of wine. For example, Meursault in Burgundy is the name of a village with a particularly strong reputation for producing Chardon-nay. Saint-Émilion is a village outside of Bordeaux, whose neighbor-ing vineyards are known for producneighbor-ing blends of Merlot-dominated red wine. So a wine with Saint-Émilion on the label will be more interesting than one that is labeled as a generic Bordeaux. Every region uses a specific blend of grape varieties, which, with a little application, one can learn.

The year the wine is made is referred to as the vintage. Most wine is made to be drunk straight away, certainly within five years of its bottling. Fine wine benefits from bottle age, as it develops tertiary characteristics and more mature, complex flavors. These wines can be cellared for 10 to 20 years.

The numbers on the bottom right-hand corner of the label are the alcohol percentage. Labeling rules can vary by country, granting the

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winemaker a tolerance of around 0.5%. So it’s worth remembering that if it is as high as, say, 14%, it could actually be 14.5%. Regular readers will know that I favor drinking wines with an alcohol level of 11%-13.5%, which sadly, due to modern viticultural practices that favor a fuller, riper style, are becoming harder to find.

Labels also offer a slew of other information, from the name of the individual vineyard and the winemaker, to whether the wine has been bottled at the winery, to whether it has been produced from old vines, or “vieilles vignes” (older vines produce fewer grapes, with more concentration and flavor). All of these tend to suggest the wine has been made by an individual winemaker from fruit grown in the estate’s vineyards.

Aside from the label, one can also identify European wine by look-ing at the shape of the bottle. All Bordeaux wines come in a high-shouldered, straight bottle. The glass is green for red wine and clear for white. Speaking generally, outside of France, these high-shoul-dered bottles are used for a plethora of styles, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec.

Gently shouldered bottles are found in Burgundy, the Loire and the Rhône. Outside of France, these are also—but not without excep-tion—used for bottling Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Long, thin bottles are used in Germany and Alsace. These invari-ably contain Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Gewürztraminer. In Germany, green bottles indicate the wine comes from the Mosel, and brown from the Rhine, where the wines tend to be drier.

These general guidelines will help in understanding a wine label

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and, more importantly, take you a step toward solving the perennial puzzle—how good is this wine?

This article originally ran on July 22, 2011.

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How to Write (and Read) a Good Tasting

Note

BY LETTIE TEAGUE

If price is what most wine buyers notice first, the second must be the wine-tasting note. In fact, I’d bet a few good lines of prose tacked on a store shelf sells more bottles than a low price or a high score. Tast-ing notes help would-be buyers by tellTast-ing them what the wine tastes like, smells like and pairs with (chicken, meat or fish), not to mention when to drink it (now or in 10 years). And yet, wine-tasting notes are often mocked and lampooned as pretentious and silly, or both.

One former sommelier turned blogger recently raised this brand of mockery to a high art when he awarded a “Pulitzer Prize for Wine Reviews.” Ron Washam, who calls himself “the HoseMaster,” noted in a guest post on Tim Atkin’s wine website that Wine Spectator critic James Molesworth had mastered the form. Mr. Washam posted, tongue firmly planted in his cheek:

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“Molesworth has created what can only be described as an amazing body of work in very short sentences. With the precision of E.E. Cummings, the opaqueness of Donald Barthelme, combined with an intimate and commanding knowledge of fruit rivaled only by Del Monte, Molesworth entices us into a world where wine isn’t just a beverage, it’s the key to unlocking the secrets of the human soul.”

Mr. Washam’s post goes on to offer this sample James Molesworth tasting note: “Ripe and lush, but very pure, with gorgeous yellow apple, white peach and Cavaillon melon fruit aromas and flavors, lined with honeysuckle, heather and quinine and sailing through the long, stone- and mineral-framed finish.”

While this write-up may be a touch florid, it shows a remarkable attention to detail (not to mention expertise with fruit). It also makes me curious to taste a wine that inspired this kind of prose.

It’s not the type of language that most wine retailers employ—in fact it’s the sort that many eschew. Lorena Ascencios, head wine buyer for Astor Wines & Spirits in New York, said that elaborate descriptors mean little to her customers who simply want “a good bottle of wine.”

Although Ms. Ascencios writes most of the tasting notes that appear in the store, she encourages her staff to contribute “staff picks”—and lays out only one rule: The write-ups “cannot bash other brands.” Ms. Ascencios discourages brevity because “a longer note seems more sincere.”

She uses simple words, like “rich” or “light-bodied”—the kind of language that non-oenophiles can understand. She also indicates

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whether or not a wine is oaked. “Customers always want to know,” she said.

I can personally testify to the power of Astor staff prose. I’ve pur-chased wines I didn’t know I wanted—obscure Italian reds, small-producer Champagnes and several cheap roses—on account of enthu-siastic, sometimes long notes. More often than not it turned out quite well.

I’ve also been moved to action by the tasting notes written by buy-ers at the K&L chain of California wine stores. As at Astor, K&L staff members can write almost anything they choose, but unlike Astor’s website, the K&L website also includes wine critics’ scores. It’s the tasting notes that are key, K&L vice president Trey Beffa told me. “We try to refrain from ‘pointing’ wine,” he said, referring to the practice of citing the points without prose.

At the Wine Spectator, a publication famous for its numerical scores, the magazine’s executive editor, Tom Matthews, maintains that words matter just as much as numbers. In fact, Mr. Matthews, who estimates that he has written more than 10,000 tasting notes in his 26-year career, called tasting notes a real art form—even if they are easy to parody. “Whenever you try to translate a feeling into words—whether it’s about wine or music or art—it’s easy to make fun of,” said Mr. Matthews, who gamely tweeted about the “Pulitzer” that Mr. Molesworth’s work in his publication earned.

Meanwhile, Mr. Molesworth said that he was “flattered” by the award and that some people even emailed to congratulate him, not realizing it was a prank. “Tasting notes are meant to inspire,” he said. In fact, Mr. Matthews said he encourages his staff to “keep it personal

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and fresh,” in their notes—albeit at 50 words or less (shorter than this paragraph). He advises his staff to write much less if the wine gets a low score. “The lower the score, the shorter the note,” said Mr. Matthews. But even a perfect 100-point wine isn’t to receive more than 50 words.

I told Mr. Matthews that I’d read restaurant reviews where the number of stars and the actual description of the meal didn’t seem to match up. What did Mr. Matthews do when the wine’s score and note were far apart? In the case of a discrepancy, the staff did a “reme-dial” tasting that involved re-tasting and rescoring the wine, said Mr. Matthews, adding that such variances tended to happen with less experienced tasters.

Some critics use words as if they were scores. English wine writer Clive Coates rates wines “Fine” or “Very fine plus” or “Very good plus” or “Disappointing,” at the end of his tasting notes, whose style could best be described as “anti-Molesworthian.” Here is the very practical Mr. Coates’s complete entry on Domaine Louis Jadot Clos de la Roche in his book, “My Favorite Burgundies”: “Full colour. Rich. Concentrated, closed nose. Full body, concentrated, tannic, backward, and very profound on the palate. Very lovely fruit. Lots of energy. Splendid finish. Very fine plus.”

“The whole point it seems to me is to convey information. Not emotion,” Mr. Coates wrote in a recent email. He admitted his notes were utilitarian, even boring, but he believed a reader only needed to know a few basics: “The size of the wine, its balance, its elegance and its potential for aging.” As for those fanciful, Molesworthian write-ups, Mr. Coates felt that notes with a plethora of adjectives simply

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said too much. “I want to be able to taste the wine in my imagina-tion,” he wrote.

Of course, some wine drinkers have better imaginations than oth-ers, and after many decades as a wine critic, it’s likely that Mr. Coates can fill in the blanks of just about any utilitarian tasting note. But for those of us whose range of reference is smaller, a more elaborate note might be useful.

As a reader, I look for a few basic facts in a tasting note (that’s pretty much all I tend to write as well; I’m more Coates than Molesworth, alas). But I was gratified to find the same is true of Eric LeVine, the founder of CellarTracker, a website with a repository of over 3.5 mil-lion tasting notes written by passionate amateurs. Mr. LeVine said that the most useful things he found in a note were mentions of whether or not a wine was ready to drink, as well as its structure and personality. He looked for notes about fruit, acid and tannin. Mr. LeVine also wanted to know about “pleasure”—did the note-taker enjoy what he or she drank?

My friend Richard said he reads notes by amateurs and profession-als but never retailers (“they’re just trying to sell me something”). There is one thing that he cares about most: aroma. He likes to read about the aromas that others had found and see if he could locate sim-ilar ones. “What’s really unique about tasting notes is what people smell; there are things in there that are delightful,” Richard said.

I thought Richard would appreciate hearing the James Molesworth tasting note—it was, after all, full of aromas. Richard paused, then chuckled a bit. “Wow, I’m impressed. There’s someone who wants to be F. Scott Fitzgerald,” he said.

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Maybe that’s the real story of wine-tasting notes—and why we hate and love them so much. From wine writers to retailers to regular wine drinkers, we all hold a secret desire to be F. Scott Fitzgerald—in 50 words or less.

This article originally ran on Sept. 28, 2013, under the headline “Wine-Tasting Notes Don’t Need to Overflow.”

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How to Break the Rules When Ordering Wine

BY LETTIE TEAGUE

As wine drinkers have grown more discerning, not to mention diverse, certain “rules” about ordering wine in restaurants may no longer apply. For example, a man is no longer considered the auto-matic recipient of a wine list; women are (more) frequently regarded as eligible, too. In fact, I was handed the list just the other week (full disclosure: my male companion was frantically waving the sommelier away).

Cowardly dining companions aside, one reason women may be getting the wine list more often may be that there are more female sommeliers working the floor. Belinda Chang, wine director at the Modern in New York, estimates there are 30% more female somme-liers now than when she started out in 1995.

Ms. Chang (who says she is handed the list 50% of the time when she’s dining out) takes a direct approach to determining the gender

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of The Decider when she’s working. She simply approaches the table and asks, “Who’s in charge?” Half the time, said Ms. Chang, “The man will point to the woman.” (Though for some couples, this senti-ment may apply only to the question of wine.)

Ms. Chang said she can pretty much predict who is going to end up with the wine list. The aperitif is usually the giveaway.” If a guy orders a glass of lager, I probably won’t be handing the list to him,” said Ms. Chang, who gives a man—or woman—who orders a glass of Grüner Veltliner much better odds.

Meanwhile, the wine list has lost a bit of its ceremony, not to men-tion heft. Another rule gone by the wayside is that a serious wine list should look—and feel—like a library book. Today, a wine list may be no more than a few sheets of paper or even the back of a menu. It could even be a tablet computer. (Except at a steakhouse. Where beef is king, the wine list comes leather-bound.)

Scott Monette, co-owner and wine director of the Flagstaff House in Boulder, Colo., switched from a traditional wine list to an iPad a few months ago—a move apparently so shocking it made the local news. With a wine list that features nearly 3,000 selections and is updated daily, Mr. Monette said he needed to reduce his paper and printing costs. So far it hasn’t been cheaper—the restaurant spent about $10,000 on 13 iPads. But in the long run Mr. Monette said he expects to save money.

A smart wine list might be the reason to dismantle rule No. 3: Sommeliers are the best source of advice. With wine lists that allow diners to access the Internet, sommeliers may not be diners’ first source of information. Electronically emancipated diners can now

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look up descriptions, get the latest wine scores—and even find out how much that Cabernet really costs at retail.

I asked Mr. Monette if he was afraid the iPads would stop his cus-tomers from talking to his sommeliers. And did his sommeliers resent the change? I experienced a bit of iPad antipathy recently myself during lunch with a wine collector who spent about half an hour researching a bottle on his own iPad—ignoring both me and the hov-ering sommelier.

Mr. Monette wasn’t worried. Though his wine stewards had been nervous at the beginning, Mr. Monette said the tablets had actually inspired his customers to ask better questions. According to Mr. Monette, there was a “deeper discussion” between stewards and din-ers. (I wondered if that included such penetrating questions as “Why is this Cabernet marked up four times retail?”)

This brings us to the fourth rule ripe for discarding: When in doubt, order the second-cheapest wine on the list. The idea behind this rule was always that the second-cheapest wine would be a pretty good deal and the person ordering it wouldn’t look like a cheap-skate—or at least not as much as if he or she had ordered the wine at the absolute bottom.

Mark Ellenbogen, founding wine director of the famed Slanted Door in San Francisco and now the wine director of San Francisco’s Bar Agricole, was dismissive of the second-cheapest-wine rule. “The second-cheapest wine is a formulaic maximum that obviously doesn’t work,” he said firmly.

Obviously? Well, it certainly wasn’t easy to find the second-cheap-est wine on Bar Agricole’s list. That’s because Mr. Ellenbogen has

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organized it mostly by producers—a few famous, most obscure. The second-cheapest wines that I found were the 2009 Señorío di P. Peciña Rioja ($29) and the 2009 Domaine de la Pépière Cabernet Franc ($30).

In many cases, the second-cheapest wine isn’t such a great deal. As Christopher Oppewall, wine director of the Hospitality Restaurant Group of Cleveland noted, “The markups on the more expensive wines are much less.” This is pretty much a universal truth—a wine that costs $9 at retail will often show up on a restaurant list for $28.

On the other hand, on the Blue Point Cellar Big Bottle list, a mag-num of the terrific 2006 Quintessa, a top Bordeaux-style blend from Napa Valley is $275 —about $40 more than retail.

My fifth and final invalid rule is the largely unspoken one that dic-tated certain wines—Pinot Grigios, Merlots and Chardonnays (par-ticularly from California) were unfit for consumption by well-informed oenophiles. Wines such as these were considered obvious or “starter” beverages that true wine lovers learned to outgrow.

But as wine directors have discovered compelling examples of these grapes, wine drinkers have responded accordingly. Serious wine lists feature minerally Chardonnays from California’s Russian River and Sonoma Coast, well-structured Merlots from Napa and Washington state and complex Pinot Grigios from the Italian regions of Friuli and Alto Adige.

Even Mr. Ellenbogen, whose wine list is an exercise in vinous eso-terica, has a Chardonnay among his Bar Agricole offerings, albeit one made in the mountains of Jura, France, and blended with the Sava-gin grape. When I complimented Mr. Ellenbogen on the selection,

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he disputed that he deliberately picked the obscure. It was just that he believed the best wine values were in the “least known” parts of the world.

That’s a sixth rule, as yet unbroken: A great wine list (and a great wine director) will always have a point of view.

This article originally ran on April 9, 2011, under the headline “Some Wine ‘Rules’ Are Made to Be Broken.”

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How to Order a Second Bottle

BY LETTIE TEAGUE

First impressions matter the most. According to college recruiters, corporate executives and humorist Will Rogers (among others), “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” But what may be true about life is not necessarily true about wine. In fact, I’d argue it’s the second bottle that counts most of all (unless it’s a second bottle of the same wine—but more on that later).

The first wine prepares the palate—its responsibility is pure refresh-ment. It’s more vinous entertainment than vinous enlightenrefresh-ment. Or as Michael Madrigale, sommelier of Boulud Sud and Bar Boulud, says: “The first bottle is the overture, the second is the crescendo.” (That’s the way sommeliers talk when their restaurants are located across from Lincoln Center.)

I almost always start with a white wine that doesn’t have too much weight, in terms of fruit and oak, but has plenty of acidity. That’s

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why a Chablis is so often my default choice. I might also opt for a minerally Chenin Blanc, or maybe a dry Riesling or Grüner Velt-liner. Other common options include that Spanish mainstay, Albar-iño, as well as Soave, Verdicchio and Vermentino (Italy is particularly fertile ground for first-bottle whites).

If the first bottle is sparkling, it almost always has to be Cham-pagne—most often a simple nonvintage, though occasionally atête du cuvée (the prestige bottling of a Champagne house). I’ll rarely start with a cheap sparkling wine, as it seems like too great a leap to the second, inevitably much better, bottle. It would be like risking the vinous equivalent of the bends, the decompression sickness of deep-sea divers who ascend too quickly from the bottom of the ocean.

When it comes to rosé, I’m of two minds. Many people I know dislike rosé—they think, as one friend of mine does, that rosé signals “cheap.” (Never mind how fashionable rosé has become.) But I also find that if I order rosé first, I often want to keep drinking it—there’s something so seductive about a good rosé that I’ve even committed the sin of ordering a second bottle of the same wine.

And it is considered a sin of sorts to order a second of the same. People who drink the same wine twice over the course of a meal are not only displaying a lack of imagination and missing a chance to try something new, they’re also probably doing a disservice to the meal. After all, how likely is it that the wine will go as well with the second course as it did with the first?

I feel like there should be a warning posted on wine lists: “Order-ing the first bottle twice may be injurious to your wine education.” Alas, there are plenty of people guilty of this particular sin. At Tony’s

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(Marc Rosenthal)

in Houston, which happens to have a really good wine list, the restaurant’s general manager, Scott Sulma, told me that his customers ordered the same bottle “about 50%” of the time.

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Has he noticed any particular patterns? “Cabernet drinkers tend to stay with the same Cabernet more often than anyone,” Mr. Sulma said. The people who tended to be the most adventurous were adven-turous with both their first and second wines, he noted.

And what about that second wine? What sort of qualities should it possess? According to Aldo Sohm, chef sommelier of Le Bernardin in New York, the second wine should build on or maintain the qualities of the first. Mr. Sohm believes that first and second bottles are equally important, though he noted that the second wine should “evolve” from the first in terms of both complexity and price. My friend Mark, a collector, believes much the same thing—although the last time I ate dinner at his house, he served two wines that I consider second-bottle types, 1998 Soldera Brunellonormale and 1998 Soldera Brunello ris-erva. Both are rare, and both are great wines.

Not that a great second bottle always has to be a great wine. As Mr. Sohm noted, it can also be the proper evolution from the previ-ous bottle. That was the case at a recent dinner with friends at I Trulli restaurant in New York. I asked one of my dining companions, a rosé-avoider, to choose the first bottle. “I like to start with a nice, crisp dry white. I think it should be something that people are comfortable with,” my friend opined. “Maybe a Vermentino or a Soave.”

Just then, I Trulli’s owner and wine director, Nicola Marzovilla, appeared. He suggested starting with a light red. “Why does every-one start with white?” he asked. He had a section of his wine list, enti-tled Chillable Reds, for this very purpose. Alas, we were all fixed on a white. “Then try something different,” said Mr. Marzovilla. “Order a Nosiola instead.”

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The Nosiola, a Vermentino-like white wine from Trentino, was delicious—light, bright and charming—and a perfect start to the meal. (It also came with a perfect first-bottle price tag of $39. That’s another of my first-bottle rules: It should be inexpensive enough that the sec-ond bottle can cost a bit more.) We complimented Mr. Marzovilla on his choice.

Did many people order the same wine twice at his restaurant? I asked. Mr. Marzovilla looked horrified by the idea and practically threw up his hands. “Why do people do this?” he asked, addressing the world at large as much as our table. “You wouldn’t have salad salad salad for your meal!”

The Nosiola was so delicious and so drinkable, it soon disap-peared—too soon, in fact, as our appetizers had just arrived but the bottle was empty. We had two courses to go—would a second bottle see us through, or would we need to plan for a third?

A third bottle presents an altogether different dilemma—and it puts the second bottle into a different category as well. The second bottle, instead of being the crescendo, becomes more of an intermezzo. My friends and I discussed our dilemma. What should the price and char-acter of the second bottle be? Should it be another white or should it be a red? We thought it should be pricier than the first wine but not that much more expensive since we now had to budget for a possible third.

We pored over the wine list, weighing our options. There were attractive Barberas, Dolcettos and other light reds that would pair well with our pastas and provide a good transition to our next pos-sible wine. Mr. Marzovilla reappeared and suggested a Tuscan wine

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made with grapes grown on his own estate, the 2010 Massoferrato Sangiovese. You’ll love it, he said—and at $39, the price was certainly right for a wine that might not be the last of the night. We quickly agreed, and Mr. Marzovilla returned with the wine.

He poured us a taste and we all concurred it was delicious—marked by bright red fruit and a lively acidity. My friend the rosé-hater loved it so much that he declared it was a “Sangiovese by way of Morey-St. Denis,” a reference to a famous wine village in Burgundy. As Mr. Marzovilla began filling our glasses, I noticed he wasn’t pouring from a regular wine bottle but a liter—a third larger than a standard-size bottle. Our problem was solved. Sometimes a perfect second bottle isn’t a matter of evolution, complexity, color or price—sometimes it’s simply a matter of size.

This article originally ran on March 15, 2013, under the headline “Second Thoughts: How to Follow Your First Bottle.”

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How to Order Wine on an Airplane

BY WILL LYONS

We all dream of flying first class. Admit it, when the plane pushes back from the gate and begins its taxi to the runway, those of us not quite as close to the cockpit as we had hoped begin to entertain envi-ous thoughts about those up front, sipping vintage Champagne and nibbling their smoked salmon and Osetra caviar.

I’m one of those who still experience a little pang of excitement as the catering trolley makes its way down the aisle. But such has been the downgrading of air travel in recent years that food is no longer a given, let alone wine. To compound matters, modern aviation regu-lations mean the oenophile hasn’t a hope of bringing his favorite bot-tle on board.

I’m always reminded of the final scene of “Hannibal” (2001) when Anthony Hopkins, flying in economy, takes delivery of a Dean & Deluca hamper complete with a half-bottle of 1996 Château Phélan

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( Jean-Manuel Duvivier)

Ségur from Saint-Estèphe, an assortment of fruits, caviar and cheese and, infamously, a tiny pot of brain.

Not that I would recommend drinking such a delicate wine in such a small glass at 35,000 feet. Wines taste very different in the air; a combination of altitude and low humidity tends to accentuate a wine’s acidity and alcohol. Meanwhile, the cabin’s dry atmosphere will make the tannins—the bitter-tasting compounds found in red wine—more pronounced. And it’s not just the wines that are affected. The way we taste things also changes at altitude. As the recycled cabin air dries the mucus in our nasal passages, our sense of smell diminishes, wreaking havoc with our olfactory appreciation.

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Saint-Estèphe is known for producing wines with plenty of tan-nins and acidity in their youth—Dr. Lecter would be advised to plump for something a little riper and softer to pair with his brain; maybe an Australian Shiraz.

Which brings me to Australia and its flagship carrier, Qantas, which has, for the second year running, picked up a string of prizes in the annual “Cellars in the Sky” awards. The airline was judged to have the best overall wine cellar, above Emirates, which won silver, and El-Al and Cathay Pacific, which shared bronze.

Qantas says its success lies in its wine panel, created in 2003 and comprising three Australian winemakers: Vanya Cullen, Stephen Pannell and Tom Carson. They meet several times a year and assess hundreds of wines, asking questions such as, does it represent a pre-mium wine? Is it a benchmark of its style? Is it drinking well and will it show well under flying conditions?

A spokesman for the panel says altitude dulls a wine’s aroma, potentially ruining a good bottle of wine. Soft fruit and citrus flavors are reduced, whereas wines with riper, red-berried fruit tend not to be so badly affected. Meanwhile, a young wine can seem hard whereas older wines tend to taste better.

With its mainly Australian wine list, Qantas has got it right. My advice to fliers has always been to opt for those wines that are bigger, riper and more expressive, with low acidity. Something like a Merlot, Pinotage or Shiraz for reds or Chardonnay, Semillon and Viognier for whites.

It does seem a shame, though, that some of the finest wines in the world are consumed under such poor conditions. Having said that, if

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I were traveling first class and were handed a cool glass of efferves-cent vintage Krug after takeoff, I’d take it.

This article originally ran on Feb. 20, 2014, under the headline “Getting On Top of Wine’s Altitude Problem.”

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On Drinking Wine

BY WILL LYONS

There is a difference between drinking wine and tasting it. Both have merits it is foolish to deny.

When we drink, we don’t give much thought to what is in our glass. The job of a chilled glass of uncomplicated rosé, poured swiftly from the bottle on a hot summer’s day, is to refresh, lift the mood and jolt our taste buds into action as we await the arrival of food. To extract the most possible sensory delight from a bottle, however, needs a little extra effort.

Wine isn’t as complicated as most experts would lead you to believe, but like the appreciation of music, art or literature the more care and attention one gives to it the more pleasures will unravel.

When I was training as a young wine merchant in London, one of my first jobs was to prepare the wines for the lunches my employer held for his more illustrious clients. I would be given a list of wines,

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usually containing the best of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa and—always—a vintage Port to serve, and great care was taken in their opening, presentation and tasting.

Stepping into the damp, chilly cellar to find the bottles, I would check the labels and make sure the year and estate were correct. I would unwrap the small coil of foil and pull the cork. This little rit-ual, repeated hundreds of times, never lost its appeal. As I poured a small measure into a tasting glass, inspecting its color, I would give it a large sniff. (It is our noses, not our taste buds, which pick up the layers of flavor a great wine reveals.)

After checking that the wine’s temperature was correct, I would carefully pour it into a decanter before presenting it to my boss. Invariably, he would take a sip and ask “What do you think?”

There are dozens of ways to enjoy the taste of wine, and at least as many occasions for doing so. Everyone will have their preference; I am for learning the basics, then improvising. As my boss’s question illustrates, there is no better palate than your own.

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How to Make Sense of Wine Scents

BY WILL LYONS

A few years after I embarked on a career as a wine critic, I found myself in the cellars of a fairly well-known Bordeaux producer. My wife and I were on holiday and I had surreptitiously scheduled an afternoon appointment at a château not far from Saint-Émilion. The only problem: The vigneron hadn’t been told, and I hadn’t told my wife. So, as he poured out his first barrel sample, I thought I’d better concentrate.

Lowering my nose into the tasting glass, I managed to detect a few telltale aromas: blackberry, red currant, vanilla and a hint of dark chocolate. It was enough. The vigneron’s mood visibly improved and my spouse later admitted that it was the first time she actually believed that, when it came to wine, I knew what I was talking about.

Wine appreciation is fundamentally linked to smell. Much of what we taste in the glass—about 70%—is based on its bouquet. There are

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more than 1,000 different aroma molecules in wine and yet, outside the rarefied world of professional wine tasting, I suspect most drinkers can only detect a handful.

Our sense of smell is one of our most powerful senses. But unlike our eyes, which automatically recognize color, and our ears, which are attuned to detect sounds, our nose needs to be trained. What I had demonstrated in the cellars of Château Fonroque wasn’t some sort of magic trick but an analysis based on concentration and olfactory memory. It isn’t hard, anyone can do it. But it does take a little appli-cation and time. And as anyone who has sufficiently developed their sense of smell and learned the basics of a wine-tasting vocabulary will tell you, once mastered, wine will never taste the same again.

Our sense of smell comes into play not just when we sniff a glass but when the wine is in our mouth as well. This is because our sense of smell is based above and behind our nose. Indeed, our nose is merely a passageway to our olfactory bulb, which is part of the limbic system, whose other functions include emotion and long-term mem-ory. Hence when we walk into a room and smell a particular aroma, we are transported back to our childhood. In my case, this is always wood polish, as my school had wooden floors.

Trained wine tasters will have spent a fair amount of time in florists’ shops, bakeries, vegetable stalls and spice counters, learning and honing their smell memory banks. I have even known one Mas-ter of Wine student who used to eat Parma Violet sweets so that he could detect the faint trace of violet in Malbec. A more conventional route is simply to taste as much wine as you can. But unless you are in the wine trade or live in a city like London, which hosts a large

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(Jean-Manuel Duvivier)

number of wine tastings, this is both expensive and logistically chal-lenging.

Around 25 years ago, in the Burgundian town of Chalon-sur-Saône, an amateur wine enthusiast named Jean Lenoir decided to solve this problem. Convinced from the wine-tasting classes he was hosting that more needed to be done to educate people on taste and smell, Mr. Lenoir identified 54 aromas in red, white and rosé wines.

Collecting everything from pineapple to cut hay and dark choco-late, he bottled the scents in tiny perfume bottles and created Le Nez du Vin. Starting at €25, each kit comes with an instruction manual,

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a collection of numbered aroma vials and a key to tell you what they are.

Mr. Lenoir suggests settling down in a quiet room and blindly smelling a random bottle. With time, your nose should be able to identify a number of aromatics.

He divides wine aromas into three categories: primary (those that originate from the grape variety); secondary (those that come from fermentation); and tertiary (the aromas that emerge from matura-tion). Within these broad categories, there are five essential notes: fruity (anything from lemon to blackberry); floral (acacia to violet); vegetal and spicy notes (green pepper to thyme); animal notes (leather and butter); and roasted notes (toast and coffee).

There are flaws to the system: Some scents are hard to identify, and it is a different skill smelling the aromas in isolation, compared with the crowded combinations found in a glass of wine. But for anyone unfamiliar with certain fruit descriptors, it is extremely useful. Per-sonally, I like to use it to keep sharp and to keep on top of the berry scents, which are often confused. There is now a range of kits, from wine faults and oak to coffee. Recently, Mr. Lenoir launched Le Nez du Whisky (€300).

Created in conjunction with whisky writer Charles MacLean, the kit contains an eclectic group of smells, including tar, broiled meat and tobacco leaf. Mr. MacLean says it is useful for identifying certain aroma profiles. For example, if a whisky has a fruit character, one can then ask if it is fresh, dried or tinned.

My advice would be to try to master the scent of a few unusual but prevalent smells. Then, the next time a sommelier hands you a glass

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to taste, or you find yourself in the cellars of a well-known winery, you’ll be able to sniff like an expert.

This article originally ran on Oct. 17, 2013, under the headline “Making Sense of Wine Scents.”

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How—and Why—to Do the Swirl

BY LETTIE TEAGUE

After decades of wine drinking, there are certain things that I do almost automatically: Check the alcohol level on the wine label, examine the cork upon removing it from the bottle and swirl the wine around in my glass. The latter is an absolute among oenophiles—an action as necessary as tasting, perhaps even more so considering the importance of a wine’s aroma.

Swirling releases the wine’s aromatic compounds, known as esters, into the air. Every wine has these volatile aroma compounds, although some wines have more than others, depending on the struc-ture and character of the grape. Swirling can also affect the wine’s flavor. The oxygen introduced by the act of swirling binds with the tannin molecules to make the wine seem softer, more accessible.

I began thinking more seriously about swirling after watching a YouTube video a few weeks ago. (Isn’t that where most of today’s

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obsessions begin?) Created by a group of physics professors and stu-dents from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the video, titled “Modelling the swirling of a glass of wine,” depicted research team member and Ph.D. candidate Martino Reclari (unac-countably attired in a Guinness T-shirt) swirling a glass of wine and explaining that his team had studied the “shape of the wave” of a swirled glass of wine in the belief that it could be applied to their study of cellular cultures.

While the Swiss researchers found wine swirling worthy of sci-entific analysis, the wine professionals I talked with seemed a bit more blasé. “Swirling?” Alexander LaPratt repeated when I told him the reason for my call. I thought Mr. LaPratt, the sommelier of New York’s DB Bistro Moderne and the reigning Best Sommelier in America (as the winner of the biannual competition hosted by the American Sommelier Association) might have some deeper insight into the subject of swirling—perhaps he’d even taken a few swirling tests in his title quest?

He had not, but he did, in fact, swirl all the time. “I do it automati-cally. It’s a reflex,” he said. What did Mr. LaPratt consider the greatest benefit of swirling? That was easy. “Oxygenation,” he said. “Swirling is like a kind of miniature decanting.”

What about Champagne? There are conflicting theories about this: Some wine drinkers believe Champagne should be swirled like any wine, others believe the act is deleterious to the bubbles in the glass. Then of course, there is the practical challenge—it’s hard to swirl a Champagne flute or detect much aroma from the narrow bowl of the glass. “It’s funny how controversial things get when you add

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bles,” laughed Mr. LaPratt, who does swirl his Champagne, which he drinks out of a regular glass. “But I’m fine with drinking flat Cham-pagne,” he said.

The glass is of great importance when it comes to swirling. So is the volume of wine: The glass should be no more than one-third full. This allows the aromas enough room to circulate—and gives the swirler sufficient space to fit his or her nose into the glass. The glass itself should be generously proportioned; the glasses that Mr. LaPratt employs at his restaurant are large enough to fit the contents of an entire bottle of wine.

Is there an optimum swirling glass? I put the question to Maximil-ian Riedel, scion of Riedel glass.

“The glass must be lead crystal,” Mr. Riedel said. “When you swirl a wine in lead crystal, the aromas are easier to identify—the wine rubs the inside wall of the glass.” Lead crystal is rougher than regular glass—it agitates the surface of the wine, thereby increasing the oxy-gen flow.

Though Riedel makes hundreds of types of wine glasses, seemingly one for each grape—and Mr. Riedel strongly recommends having multiple sets of glasses for different varietals—I decided I’d use one type of glass for my swirling exercises. After all, most people can’t afford that many sets of glassware. And in his book “The Taste of Wine,” famed Bordeaux oenologist and researcher Émile Peynaud recommended using a single glass for tastings: “Otherwise a wine’s odor cannot be analyzed exactly the same way.”

I decided on a Riedel Vinum Burgundy glass—the bulbous shape and large bowl of the Burgundy stem is designed to allow the

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mulation of aromas. I gathered a group of friends and an eclectic group of wines, some overtly aromatic and others not: Pinot Noir, Gamay, Zinfandel, Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc and Gewürztraminer, as well as less famous grapes like Falanghina, Greco di Tufo, Torron-tés and Frappato.

I chose only young wines. Many older wines may not benefit from a vigorous swirl—for example, a fragile old Burgundy is best left unswirled.

It’s also important to smell the wine before swirling to note the difference. In most cases, we didn’t find much in the way of aromas preswirl, save for the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, whose grassy character practically jumped out of the glass.

Then we swirled. For how long? No one seemed to know the ideal, but four or five seconds seemed like the right amount of time.

Some wines were aromatically reticent even after a vigorous swirl, so for those, I put my hand over the top of the glass and reswirled. This helps to concentrate the aromas—or, in some cases, amplify a wine’s problems.

I noticed that we were all swirling in the same direction: coun-terclockwise. Why? “Because I’m right-handed,” offered one friend. “Because I live in the Northern Hemisphere,” suggested another, positing that people in the Southern Hemisphere swirled their wines clockwise, just as their water went down the drain in a different direction. (I checked with a couple of Southern Hemisphere wine-makers, Peter Gago, chief winemaker of Penfolds in Australia and Susana Balbo of Crios in Argentina, and found that both swirled

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counterclockwise, though Ms. Balbo said sometimes she went the other way, too.)

Could the direction of the swirl make a difference? For example, did a clockwise turn emphasize fruit, while counterclockwise pro-duced more notes of oak? I had read that some winemakers believed that direction made a difference, but when my friends and I tried swirling both ways, opinions were decidedly mixed. Some thought the fruit was more vibrant in a counterclockwise direction, while others disputed there was a difference at all.

There is clearly much more to know about swirling, which for all its simplicity and benefits is an act whose particulars—direction and duration of the swirl and optimal glass—are unknown. Perhaps the Swiss physicists knew more? I emailed Mr. Reclari, who replied that he was in the middle of additional research but the results would not be available for several months. Meantime, I’ll keep swirling. After all, as Prof. Peynaud said, “The study of aroma requires considerable application and many repeated attempts.”

This article originally ran on March 3, 2012, under the headline “The Art—and Science—of the Swirl.”

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How to Match Wine and Food Without

Overthinking

BY LETTIE TEAGUE

While wine may be worthy of extensive, even exhaustive study, there’s one aspect that I think has received far too much scrutiny in recent years: matching wine with food. I could eat and drink quite happily for decades without hearing anyone ever again utter those four consecutive words.

It’s not that I don’t like putting wine and food together; I do it every day of the week. It’s the ceremony that I object to—the eleva-tion of a few common-sense principles to something approximating great art. When did wine-and-food pairing start having to be studied so carefully—as if it were postmodernist art or “Beowulf”?

Once upon a time, not so long ago, food-and-wine matching rarely rated more than a mention on the back label of a bottle: pair with chicken, pasta and fish. Its glorification is a fairly recent

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event—in fact, I’d date it to 2006. That’s when two of the most suc-cessful books on the subject were published: “What to Drink With What You Eat,” by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, and “Per-fect Pairings,” by Evan Goldstein, a master sommelier and wine edu-cator.

Mr. Goldstein—who has educated tens of thousands of sommeliers over the years, by his own estimation—believes that sommeliers are to blame for the overemphasis on overly exact wine-and-food pairing: “The modern-day sommelier feels very strongly about you having the right wine with the right food—they become quite draconian,” he said during a phone call last week. “And it’s not always done with the customer’s pleasure in mind.” (Presumably, those sommeliers weren’t educated by him.)

The book by Ms. Page and Mr. Dornenburg is quite comprehen-sive—every wine in the world seems to have been examined for its suitability to food—while Mr. Goldstein looks at just 12 grapes and pairs them with appropriate recipes (created by his mother, Joyce Goldstein, the San Francisco restaurateur and chef). Mr. Goldstein’s advice is sound and the recipes are appealing, but what if someone didn’t want to think about pairing? Could he recommend wines that would work with most types of food?

He could. And they all shared the same attributes, said Mr. Gold-stein, who offered a list: moderate alcohol, moderate to high acidity, soft tannins and little or no oak. There were lots of wines with these qualities—made from all kinds of grapes from all over the world—but a few examples that came to his mind first were red grapes like

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bera, Gamay and Pinot Noir, which Mr. Goldstein called “the silver bullet.”

Was there a sommelier who could simplify things as well? Alpana Singh, a Chicago-based sommelier, author and almost-restaurateur (her Boarding House restaurant is opening soon), had a useful rule of thumb: Look for red wines “that you can see through,” she said. These included the same three grapes that Mr. Goldstein mentioned but a few others as well, namely Cabernet Franc, from the Loire, and Frappato, a red grape native to Sicily. “I’m drinking a lot of Frappato lately,” said Ms. Singh.

What about white grapes? Were there any that she considered just as versatile? “Pinot Gris,” Ms. Singh replied decisively. “It’s my Vel-cro of wines. It has acidity but also roundness and a little residual sugar—that’s the magic fairy dust of wine pairing.” There are only a few Pinot Gris on her list right now, although there are several Chenin Blancs—my personal all-around favorite white grape with food.

I liked the idea of wines that were so flexible it wasn’t necessary to think about how to match them with food. But was it simply too good to be true? I decided to stage a little food-and-wine-matching experiment. I assembled a few of the basic foods cited on those back labels of bottles (meat, chicken, pork, fish and pasta) and made them simultaneously to taste with the wine (no small feat on a four-burner stove). I made a pan-fried steak, a piece of sautéed salmon, a link of grilled pork sausage, a braised chicken breast and a pot of cheese tortellini and paired them with some of the food-friendly grapes sug-gested by the experts: Pinot Noir, Gamay, Barbera, Pinot Gris and

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Chenin Blanc. While the cooking wasn’t completely successful (see: four-burner stove), the wine pairings all worked—almost.

The Gamays (the grape of Beaujolais) were definitely the most food-flexible of all, with just the right measure of acidity, earthiness and fruit. Of the three I tried, the 2010 Julien Sunier Régnié, a cru Beaujolais, was particularly good—substantial yet lithe. The two Bar-beras were almost as versatile, especially the bright and juicy wine from Elio Perrone. The Pinot Noirs ran a close third. The lighter examples from Oregon and Burgundy were a touch too delicate for the steak, but the velvety-textured 2010 Arista Ferrington Vineyard Pinot Noir, from California’s cool Anderson Valley, overperformed, with a bright bolt of acidity balancing all its rich, ripe fruit.

The two white grapes, Chenin Blanc and Pinot Gris, went well with almost everything—the pork, the chicken, the pasta and the salmon all fit, and the wines were rich and viscous but also minerally and clean. (I tasted both domestic and imported examples of each grape.) The only sticking point was, unsurprisingly, the steak. While the wines’ voluptuous texture matched the steak’s richness, their min-erality proved a bit of a jarring contrast, particularly in the case of the 2011 Chidaine Vouvray Les Argiles. (A minerally white just isn’t as versatile as a minerally red.) But they both came admirably close to universal usefulness, and I was quite pleased with my food-and-wine-matching experiment, not to mention the advice of my experts.

Then I had a chat with Thomas Pastuszak, wine director at New York’s Nomad restaurant, who said the best match wasn’t between wine and food at all but between wine and diner. “I would rather pair the right wine with the right person rather than the dish,” he said.

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How did how that work? Did he ask diners to fill out a questionnaire, submit to a brief interview? It was far more practical than that, said Mr. Pastuszak. He simply gave them a taste of the wines he poured by the glass and waited to see which wines they liked best. More often than not, they cared less about choosing the right match with their food than choosing a wine that came with a good story attached.

Winemakers clearly know this to be true. After all, their back labels feature stories about the winery, the winemaker and the winery dog—and only a few words about food: “Pair with pork, chicken and fish.”

This article was originally published on Nov. 25, 2012, under the headline “Wine and Food: Pairing Without Overthinking.”

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How to Break the Rules of Food-and-Wine

Pairings

BY WILL LYONS

There isn’t an exact science behind choosing wine at a restaurant but I’m guessing that when most of us step inside the dining room we select the dish we want to eat first and then a wine to accompany it. What happens when you reverse the process? Imagine asking for the wine list first, choosing the style, country or vintage you would like and then asking the waiter to choose a dish to go with it.

In most cases, I suspect it would throw up some pretty safe options: oysters to accompany that glass of Chablis or perhaps a roast leg of lamb to bring out the subtle flavors of the cru classé Médoc you have carefully selected. But with the plethora of international cuisine now available to us from southern India to Thailand and Japan, the tradi-tional European-based rules of food and wine matching are no longer the preeminent catch-all guide they once were.

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Readers of this column will know that in the past year we have explored the subjects of what to drink with seafood and whether white wine pairs well with cheese, but what about often spicy Asian dishes? Traditionally, European based experts, of whom I am one, would recommend steering clear of pairing delicate wine with hot food. A glass of beer used to be the preferred option or, if one did have to opt for a wine, possibly a Riesling. These wines get their structure from acidity, which, together with their mineral-infused fruitiness, can prove an appealing partnership with delicately flavored Asian cuisine. Moreover, in Germany’s Mosel valley you can find examples at 8% alcohol, which works well with the heat of some Asian food.

But as more wine, mainly red wine from France, is being con-sumed by traditionally non-wine-drinking countries such as China, Japan, Singapore and India, we are gaining more knowledge and experience of what pairs well with non-European food.

Recently, I spoke with Nicolas Glumineau, technical director at Bordeaux’s Château Montrose, who now visits Southeast Asia several times a year. Marvelling at the variety of recipes found in countries such as Thailand, he also explained that from his experience Asian consumers weren’t as afraid of tannins as Europeans. Moreover he said that the tannins found in red Bordeaux match well with certain Asian dishes based around duck and veal. I was surprised, as I always found that spicy flavors matched with the bitter tannins of red wine can prove an unpalatable partnership. But I was falling into the trap of imagining the unknown from what I knew; most of my experi-ence of Asian cuisine has come via Europe.

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As Fiona Beckett, author and publisher of matchingfoodand-wine.com, says, food and wine matching isn’t just about matching different flavors, it is cultural too.

“In the Far East, people want to and expect to drink serious red wines with their food. In places such as Szechuan in China they like chilli and heat. The fact that a tannic red wine accentuates that char-acter is a bonus rather than detraction.”

Sriram Vishwanathan Aylur, chef and proprietor at London’s Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Quilon, says the picture is compli-cated, given the variety of recipes and dishes found in Asia.

“If you look at Indian food, you can eat in the north of India and the south of India, and you can almost feel that you are eating food from two different countries. It is not just about the dish being spicy, it is about how spicy it is and how it is cooked that also make it com-plicated.”

He points to red wines that are low in tannins, such as a New World Merlot with plenty of fruit, as a possible accompaniment to dishes flavored with strong spices as they absorb the heat of the dish.

From my own experience, I still enjoy matching white wines from France’s Alsace region with Asian food, in particular Pinot Gris (which pairs well with a variety of dishes) and dry Rieslings. But I also feel soft, fruit-driven red wines pair well with grilled or barbe-cue meats in the Indian tandoori style. It seems that, given the inter-national flavor of today’s wine-drinking landscape, we’re learning all the time. If you would like to drink red wine with your Asian food, by all means give it a go. Just remember to ignore the quizzical look from your sommelier.

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This article originally ran on April 19, 2014, under the headline “Breaking the Food-and-Wine-Matching Rules.”

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When, Why and How to Decant Wine

BY WILL LYONS

For wine lovers, there are many established norms that always seem to provoke heated discussion. Should you serve only white wine with fish? Does wine need to be chilled? And, the classic restaurant tussle, is your wine corked?

But perhaps the most universal flash point is that of decanting. As with all matters vinous, the answer is never straightforward. On one side are the pro-decanters, among whom I count myself, who argue that all wine improves with decanting, while the aesthetic appeal of a shimmering decanter adds to the theater of an evening. Others dis-pute this, saying decanting can actually deaden the wine’s flavors, los-ing some of its character.

The two principal aims of decanting a wine are to remove any sed-iment and aerate the wine. The latter will help draw out its nuanced flavors, soften the harsher, spicier, bitter notes and invigorate the

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wine. Whether you are decanting a mature or young wine will affect how you pour it into the decanter.

All wine that will throw sediment should be decanted; this includes red Bordeaux, Rhône, Rioja, vintage Port and heavy grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Also—and this is open to dis-cussion—young wines.

In my experience, exposure to air unfurls the complex layers of fla-vor in young fine wine. A wine that was tight, closed and rather dif-ficult to taste can, with time in the decanter, transform its personality. The smell changes, becoming replete with ripe fruit; the bitter tan-nins subside; and the wine opens up, revealing its true character.

Generally, I have found this to be the case with Old World wines from the classic regions of Europe, as opposed to New World wines, which change less in the decanter. White wines can also be decanted.

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Old Rieslings, white Rioja and young Chardonnay all improve with aeration.

If you prefer your white wine chilled, there are various decanters that will fit in a fridge, or you can buy an ice-pocket decanter, which has a small built-in capsule for ice that will help keep your wine cool. I prefer my whites lightly chilled and find that a bottle that has been in the fridge for an hour or two benefits from decanting, to take the chill off.

How long you should decant a wine for before serving depends on the age and type of the wine. When reviewing wines, I always prefer to decant. A recent example was with an Italian red wine made by Cantine Paradiso. On the first night, the wine was impenetrable, tast-ing hard, closed and bitter. On the second night, it still wasn’t quite there, but by the third evening, I could taste a host of intriguing fla-vors.

There are those who believe certain vintages should be decanted at breakfast, hours before they will be drunk at dinner. Sadly, there are no hard and fast rules on this and it is really down to personal prefer-ence. Certainly, very old wine should be decanted just before serving, as exposure to oxygen can cause it to lose its flavor quite quickly.

Young wine can withstand up to three or four hours or, in some cases, days. I am in favor of decanting shortly before I serve the wine—that way I can taste it immediately and track its evolution in the glass. If it turns out to be particularly impenetrable, I can always leave it for the following evening.

Selecting Drinking Collecting Obsessing

WS

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Selecting, Drinking,

Collecting & Obsessing

A WSJ Guide to Wine

Lettie Teague & Will Lyons

Contents

How to Read This Book

On Selecting Wine

What You Need to Know About Grape

Varieties

How to Read a Wine Label

How to Write (and Read) a Good Tasting

Note

How to Break the Rules When Ordering Wine

How to Order a Second Bottle

How to Order Wine on an Airplane

On Drinking Wine

How to Make Sense of Wine Scents

How—and Why—to Do the Swirl

How to Match Wine and Food Without

Overthinking

How to Break the Rules of Food-and-Wine

Pairings

When, Why and How to Decant Wine