We smell with our noses and taste with our mouths, right? This truth seems so self-evident as to need no further examination.

Not so fast!

As it turns out, much of the sense that we call “taste” is actually based on what we smell; and you do in fact receive aroma impressions not only when you sniff a sample of food or drink but when it’s in your mouth as well.

This may seem like mere trivia, but it has significant practical implications for wine tasting: By paying conscious attention to what we might call “nose smell” and “mouth smell,” we add another dimension of analysis when we’re paying serious attention to our wine.

Although we speak of “tasting” wine, it’s arguable that smelling plays a much greater role in our enjoyment (which helps explain why it’s pretty much a waste to drink good wine when you have a bad head cold.)

Bear in mind that our taste buds - tiny flavor receptors on the tongue and walls of the mouth - are equipped to sense only four or five specific flavors: Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and, somewhat controversially, a fifth taste that the Japanese call “umami,” a difficult-to-translate term that falls somewhere in the neighborhood of “meaty” or “savory.”

On the other hand, our olfactory receptors (why don’t they call them “smell buds”?) are equipped to distinguish among more than 10,000 separate aromas. Ten thousand smells. Four or five tastes: In other words, we get at least two thousand times more information about food or drink from smell than from taste.

But, returning to the point of today’s dissertation, smell is not all about the nose. The sensory mechanism that tweaks out those 10,000 different aroma molecules and reports, “That one’s rare grilled beef, this one’s toasty pain grillé and that one over there, eeuuuwww,” resides not in the nose but the olfactory epithelium, a little patch about the size of the bar code on a wine-bottle back label, up at the top of a bony cavern inside our skulls at the base of the brain.

Yes, smells reach the olfactory epithelium through our noses. But smells also get there by an alternative route: Inside the mouth, at the back of the palate, an internal chimney called the “retro-nasal passage” delivers another aroma shot straight to the brain, giving us a second chance to smell what we’re about to swallow before it goes down the hatch.

This mechanism likely evolved to give early humans a second line of defense against consuming rotten or spoiled food. But in our kinder, gentler modern times, it gives us another way to enjoyably analyze our wine.

Next time you’re tasting a good wine, take an extra moment to pay attention to what you’re smelling when the wine is in your mouth. I think you’ll find it an interesting way to enhance your tasting pleasure.

 From: 30 Second Wine Advisor

As the old saying goes, life is uncertain: Eat dessert first. It makes sense to start in the only logical place … with dessert.
Dessert wines, in fact, served as my own personal introduction to the appreciation of fine wine. When I first sought to try a wine better than the grocery store jug or box wine that represents many people’s initial wine experience, I went to a wine shop to ask for advice. The clerk at the bottle shop, as they are known in Nebraska, asked the question that strikes fear into the heart of every total wine novice: “What kind of wine are you looking for?”

The only wines with which one is familiar are obviously and embarrassingly absent from a store of this quality, so naming a brand is clearly out. A reply such as “white” or “red” is straightforward enough, I suppose, although handily erasing any pretense of knowledge or sophistication whatsoever in everyone’s mind. There is always the tactic of giving the clerk a price range, although this appears to present dual disadvantages. On the one hand, it commits one to spending more than might otherwise be preferred, and on the other hand, possibly seeming too cheap or crass.

From: Donald A. Dibbern Jr. Wineloverspage.com

Online references indicate that Familia Rutini winery in Argentina’s wine-producing Mendoza region began exporting modestly priced Malbec as early as the 1980s, selling its under-$10 portfolio under the Anglophone label “Trumpeter.” Rutini was quickly joined by quite a few of its compatriots, including such early names as Catena and Trapiche; but it was only more recently that the trickle turned into a flood, and more upscale Malbecs and other Argentine trophies expanded the early identification of Argentina with low-end, affordable wines.

Not that there’s anything wrong with low-end, affordable wines, as long as they’re good. Today’s featured wine, an odd blend of more-or-less equal proportions of Malbec and Syrah, bears the Trumpeter label. Owing more to its Syrah heritage than Malbec and a little more to oak, it’s a hearty if somewhat simple red table wine that fares well with red meat, and a reasonable value in the range of $10 or so.

From: The 30 Second Wine Advisor

Now and then, as we go about the enjoyable process of learning more about wine, it’s useful to go back and re-examine some of the most basic elements of the beverage we enjoy.What do we love in wine? And why do we love it? Reviewing our thoughts about these fundamentals can be an effective way to refocus after we’ve been stretching our minds with technicalities from “terroir” to wine chemistry.

To that end, today we seek to recalibrate our taste buds by returning to a couple of very fundamental questions: Do we prefer red or white wine? And why?

The first question is easy. Most of us know what we like. The “why” question makes things more interesting, because it requires us to stop and think about what we enjoy in wine.

Maybe you like red wine because reds tend to be more full-bodied, rich and complex. Or perhaps the purported health benefits of the antioxidants in red grape skins appeal to you.

Or if you’re a white-wine enthusiast, you may be enthralled by the relative lightness and delicacy of whites; or their affinity for seafood, or maybe the “transparency” of many white wines that allows subtle flavors and, often, earthy minerality, to shine through.

From: The 30 Second Wine Advisor

For many wine lovers, one of the most frustrating things about enjoying wine from a restaurant wine list is the significant markup that management tacks on to the price.

While the practice varies from state to state and around the world, in most states of the U.S. restaurants routinely set the wine list price at three to four times the wholesale price they pay for a bottle. As a result, diners selecting from the list can expect to pay at least twice as much for the wine of their choice as they would for the same wine in a retail store.

Restaurants justify this practice on the basis of cost: Wine inventory, storage, glassware and service all add legitimate costs, and it’s fair to recover that. Indeed, in a free-market system, there’s no use arguing about the restaurateur’s right to take a fair profit.

From: Wine Lovers Page

Why go to the Napa Valley when you can fly to Mendoza, in western Argentina, drink more exotic and affordable wines, and go horseback riding across the magnificent Andes Mountains with sexy Latin meat eaters?

With more than a thousand wineries, including boutique bodegas like Vistalba, La Azul and Achaval-Ferrer, Mendoza has become one of the hottest destinations in South America, even for those who can’t tell a malbec from a tempranillo.

An ideal time to visit is during the March harvest (fall there), when the region turns into a weeklong party. But there are also festivals like the Wine Fair (Feb. 15 to 18 for 2007), when big-name chefs from Europe, the United States and throughout South America (including Todd English, Fernando Trocca and Francis Mallmann) take over the kitchens of big-name vineyards in a Dionysian frenzy of food, wine and much song.

From: The New York Times

The winery is winning in the traditional World-wide Aid “Malbec to the World”, that is made every year in Mendoza. Elaborated by the Winery of Carlos Pulenta, it obtained a Gold medal with 96 points. It is a limited edition wine. ($180).
For the winemaker Alexander Cánovas the secret of its excellence is “the vineyard “, where is the true secret of the excellence. In order to obtain a good wine, it is necessary to have patience”.

This winery continues with the gastronomical program “Top Ches of South America in O´Fournier” and will invite, the first Saturday of every month, to most prestigious chefs from several countries to the restaurant of the wineries. With the later colloquy, it is wanted to share gastronomy experiences between chefs invited and the clients who have enjoyed the events.

Info: turismo@ofournier.com
www.ofournier.com

Well, according to this article by the Wine News Magazine, it might be. Many winemakers in Mendoza pride themselves on finding microclimates at high altitudes. They claim that at the higher altitude, “…the top soil is thin and the sparse subsoils are peppered with stones.” The melting snow also provides more water for natural irrigation than the Mendoza Valley.

Apparently, Nicolas Catena has once again been the trailblazer (he is credited as being one of the first Argentine winemakers to make wine at an internationally renowned level) and claims that, “The lower temperatures and higher solar radiation at these various altitudes make for more concentrated flavors in the wines.” But are the high altitude wines actually healthier for you? The article says that a recent chemical analysis of the grapes revealed, “…a richness in healthful phenols, such as quercetine and resveratrol.” Resveratrol is the chemical that has been found to, “offset the bad effects of a high-calorie diet in mice and significantly extends their lifespan,” according to this New York Times article.

From: Wine News Magazine - New York Times

Approximately 60 minutes south of the city of Mendoza, the Uco Valley encompasses the highest altitude Argentine vineyards (averaging between 900 and 1200 meters above sea level). Known especially for Malbec, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Semillon, and Torrontes production, the Valle de Uco draws winemakers from all over the world (including Michel Rolland). Its striking natural setting - below a stretch of the Andes that includes the 6,800 meter Mount Tupungato. The valley’s dry weather and the wide thermal amplitude between day and night have created its distinctive microclimates that result in wines that are rich in color and ideal for aging.

Recommended wineries in Uco Valley: Clos de los Siete/Monteviejo, Andeluna Cellars, O´Fournier, Lurton, Salentein.

From: The Vines of Mendoza