Reports from Our Readers

My friend Barb Freda, a first-rate food writer and professional chef who's now based in South Florida, covered the recent South Beach Wine and Food Festival for WineLoversPage.com. Barb, a longtime wine enthusiast, files this report on a hands-on-glass Festival seminar, Tasting Wine Like a Master Sommelier.

After an hour or so of exploring the South Beach Wine and Food Festival's Grand Tasting Village under the bright sun on the sands of South Beach, I was ready to head for a cooler assignment, a wine-tasting seminar in the air-conditioned comfort of a South Beach Marriott conference room.

I was a bit nervous as I made my way south on Ocean Drive, past the art-deco Creamsicle-color buildings of South Beach. For all my love of wines, and the background of culinary school wine courses plus one on my own with Kevin Zraly, I felt maybe I'd be way out of my league in a session called Tasting Wine Like a Master Sommelier.

I arrived to find a big-but-not-overwhelming group of wine fans already on hand, happily anticipating good wine. With the crowd near capacity, the tasting tables filled up fast. Lined up in front of each seat were eight glasses of wine: first white, then red, white again, red ... The whites ranged in color from barely perceptible to rich gold; the reds from brownish red to opaque ruby. The woman on my left quickly scribbled letters next to each, apparently beginning her identification based solely on color. I raised my eyebrows. This was way out of my league.

Rick Garced of the United States Sommelier Association (http://www.ussommelier.com) took the mike for a quick intro, thanking South Beach Wine and Food Festival and Southern Wine & Spirits, which provided all the wines for the Festival.

Garced then introduced our guides, our own four Master Sommeliers: Laura DePasquale, national sales director for Palm Bay Imports in Boca Raton; Virginia Philip, chief sommelier at The Breakers in Palm Beach; John Blazon, manager of beverage standards at Walt Disney World Resort, and Eric Hemmer, educational director of Southern Wine & Spirits of Florida.

They spoke about the requirements for tasting like a master, each taking a turn at describing the process. We'd need to improve our palates, our focus on the wine, our wine knowledge, our appreciation for the wine (that got a laugh. We all knew we appreciated the wines in front of us even before we tasted), our ability to sell wine, and ultimately, as masters, our ability to improve our income and our lifestyle. Sold! I marked my calendar for Aug. 13-15, 2006, at The Breakers, when Virginia Philip would offer the next introduction to becoming a Master Sommelier.

Then we worked our way through the steps we would follow in tasting each of the wines: Sight, nose, palate and conclusion. It sounds simple, but you have to know what you're looking for. How does age or climate affect the color, the aroma, the flavor? Listening in, it seemed that these were incidentals to most of the group, things they already knew. I took notes furiously.

The nose, we were told, makes up 85 percent of tasting. A trained "nose" at a perfume shop can detect 10,000 different scents. Great wine tasters can distinguish about 1,000 smells, our master guides tell us. Virginia Philip said she once spent time in the produce section of a grocery store, smelling fruits and vegetables, to learn to identify and name exactly what she was smelling in wines.

And we still hadn't tasted our first wine. After the visual, the nose, the tasting (spit as needed, we were told), we would draw initial conclusions about whether the wine was "Old World" (Europe) or New World, and whether the grapes had grown in a cool or hot climate; we'd guess the grape variety, and try to hit the vintage within a range of five years.

Then, we would reach a final conclusion, actually trying to name each wine specifically, finishing by nailing its maker, grape, and the specific vintage.

Right.

Oh, and to make it realistic, by wine number eight, we'd be given just over four minutes to go through all those steps.

We started in on the first white, as comments from the audience quickly confirmed my suspicion that most of these folks had way more experience than I. But the Masters were patient. As they took us through each step, their gentle suggestions led us to calling out at least three fruits in the nose. When Virginia Philip said, "Do you get that smell of wet gravel? That's minerality," I knew what she was talking about and knew I'd be able to identify it from now on. This suggested an Old World wine, she said; not exclusively, mind you, but most likely. After they slowly walked several participants through the stages, a brave soul wearing a baseball cap stood up and declared the wine to be Sancerre, a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley. He was bang on: It was Sancerre "Chateau du Nozay" 2004, Pascal Jolivet. There was the minerality, the tartness, from a maker called "one of the new 'young Turks' of the Loire's central vineyard appellations." Retail: $32.

After that, we got down to business, with each of our "Masters" nudging us closer to reaching initial, then final conclusions. We were all in complete awe of one student who quickly nailed wine No. 2 in what seemed like less than four minutes. After we greeted his correct answer with silent admiration, our instructors introduced Rob Bigelow, another Master Sommelier.

Much to my surprise, the process gradually built my skills. By wine No. 8 (I was spitting for the most part), I was pretty much spot on when it came to the initial conclusion for the wines. I still got hopelessly lost when I had to reach a final conclusion, but I convinced myself that this could come with practice. Philip, DePasquale, Hemer and Blazon showed so much enthusiasm for their work, humor about our success and our mistakes, and confidence in our abilities that left the room determined to get started on my own road towards Master Sommelier certification.

I'll spare you some of my own bumbling conclusions; here are my tasting notes and the Masters' descriptions (given to us as we left) for the other seven wines we studied. These were treats that I never expected when I walked through that door, but certainly appreciated as I left.

Corton Grand Cru, "Chateau Corton-Grancey" 2001, Domaine Latour, Burgundy, France
A lighter red than the other reds on the table, perhaps a bit older than the others, too. "Day bright" according to our masters, clear enough to qualify as a "low" color concentration. Rob Bigelow named ripe, jammy fruits, signifying a warmer climate. This is 100 percent Pinot Noir. "Only the best parcels of Grand Cru are selected for this wine, aged 18 months in new oak casks." Retail: $65

Chardonnay "Sbragia" 2003, Beringer Vineyards, Napa Valley, California
Clear, star bright, which means it's throwing off lots of sparkling light, a nice gold color. Lemons, apricots, pears in the nose. A creamy, buttery taste. Tart enough to evoke green apples, with some good alcohol, low acid and a long finish. There are only 2,000 cases of this made each year from select lots of Beringer's Gamble Ranch Vineyards. Winemaster Ed Sbragia calls it "extract of Chardonnay," meaning they "leave the grapes on the vine until Mother Nature says, 'take these now or I'm taking them back.'" Retail: $43

"Insignia" 2000, Joseph Phelps, Napa Valley, California
Clear, bright, ruby black color. High concentration of color, meaning we couldn't see much through the wine in the glass. The nose brought berries, cherries and plum, chocolate and clove. Tasting revealed the cherries and jammy, rich flavors. Medium tannins, high alcohol. Insignia is "California's first 'Meritage' wine…based on Cabernet Sauvignon and blended with varying proportions of the other black Bordeaux grapes." This wine was aged in new French oak for 20-26 months. Grapes come mainly from the Phelps vineyards in Rutherford and Stag's Leap. Retail: $125

Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru 2002, Domaine Latour, Burgundy, France
A clear, straw yellow with green hints. Bananas and lemon in the nose, oak and spice on the palate, slightly floral. High acid and a long finish. This wine is 100 percent Chardonnay, aged in all new oak casks. Retail: $88.

Pinot Noir 2002, Domaine Drouhin, Willamette Valley, Oregon
Ruby red color, low color concentration. Thick legs. Fruits on the nose include red currant and cranberry, red cherries-slightly tart yet fruity smells. Some mineral on the palate, nice tartness, complex blending of flavors and long finish. Grapes for this wine are hand-picked and sorted and the wine is created in Burgundian fashion, aged in French oak, of which at most 20 percent is new oak. A "rich, elegant wine." Retail: $51 (This wine seemed to be one of Philip's favorites, and as she passed our table as we tasted, she nodded approvingly of the wine and commented on it being a great wine to buy right now.)

Sauvignon Blanc 2004, Rudd Estate, Napa Valley, California
Well, maybe I'd sipped more than I'd spit by this point, because my own tasting notes are skimpy on this wine. For these last two wines, the masters asked volunteers to try the identification process in the four minute time frame. Jason, one of my tablemates, quickly noted the pale straw color of the wine with some fresh fruit on the nose and the palate. No minerality at all led Jason to a New World guess, and he honed in on the Sauvignon Blanc designation. This wine is made of Sauvignon Blanc with 3 percent Semillon for a richer flavor. Aged in new and used Frenchoak as well as stainless steel. This vintage was bottled with screwcaps "for consistency of quality." Retail: $38

Amarone 1998, Bertani, Veneto, Italy
This rich, ruby red wine had overtones of jammy fruits and figs, a very earthy and "dirty" (in the best sense of the word) nose. Plenty of oak. Its fruitiness prompted one volunteer to decide, definitively, that it was an American Zinfandel. But as we were guided down the path a bit more, others were convinced it was a lovely Italian. One volunteer finally pegged it as Amarone. The grapes are dried first to concentrate the sugars and then fermented. (This process is called "passito.") Amarone was styled in the 1950s, as a new, drier version of Valpolicella. Bertoni Amarone is aged for five to eight years in oak before bottling. This wine was full of complex flavors with a long finish and should have long aging abilities. Retail: $87

February 2005

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