About

A Wanderer in the World of Wine

Most of us who love wine stay on the beaten path.  We cleave to the wines that first made us love the fruit of the vine, and which remain baselines for everything we drink thereafter.  There is nothing wrong with remaining loyal to the regions and grapes that first opened our eyes to one of the greatest sensory pleasures known to humankind. 

However…

There’s a whole world of wine out there, and so much of it is delicious.  We owe it to ourselves to balance our love for the known with a curiosity that allows us to experience new aromas, new tastes, and a new sense of the soils and people that make up the infinitely varied landscape of wine.

And it’s worth noting that those soils and people are at the very heart of wine-tasting.  Crack open a new bottle, and you will inevitably learn something about the land on which the grapes were grown, and the men and women who made the wine.  Every wine is a reflection of both the earth, and of human culture -- of our history, our talents, and our aspirations.  

Along the way, I’ve become intrigued by the endless possibilities posed by entirely new regions (witness the growth of New Zealand, Washington State, Long Island, and Virginia during the last forty years); newly re-discovered areas (Priorat, Monsant); or the changes in marketing and perception that have allowed the whole world to enjoy wines from nations with a long oenological heritage that had previously been flying underneath the radar (in my lifetime, Australia, Chile, Argentina and South Africa all fit in this category).  It’s also true to say that, in every wine-growing region on the planet, each vintage represents an opportunity for wine-lovers to learn something new.   

People I’ve Met Along the Way

I’ve been blessed to know people who have expanded my vinous horizons in many ways.  Some have been people with whom I’ve worked in the wine trade

(Mike Edwards, Scott Haveness, and Robin and Karen Meredith spring to mind).  Their perspectives have added to my own knowledge in ways both subtle and profound; each has changed my appreciation for the aesthetic experience available in every bottle.

Others have been friends who popped the cork – or twisted the screwcap! -- on special bottles over holiday dinners and shown me new vistas.  How well I remember a dinner hosted by Pat and Koen Loeven, whose friends brought a bottle of mature Vouvray for a New Year’s Eve meal.  Earlier experiences with Chenin Blanc had been with sub-standard plonk; this bottle, however, was a revelation, with a texture that would put satin to shame, and levels of complexity that many Burgundians would envy. 

During the last few months, I’ve made a conscious decision to broaden my tastes to an even greater degree.  This site will detail the results of my experiences.  I will freely admit that there will be frequent detours that take me back to familiar ground, covering the territory of Cabernet, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir; of France, Italy, Germany and California, and the other established stars in the firmament.  Yet, with each mixed case I purchase from my local retailers, I’m determined to tread on some new ground, and try something I haven’t had before. 

Readers of this blog will be able to share that journey, and perhaps try these wines for themselves.  The most important thing to remember is that tasting wine is an inherently subjective experience.   What I like may not appeal to you, and wines I’m not fond of may be just what the doctor ordered from your point of view.  Never let anyone rob you of your own taste! 

How Did I Get Here?

Over the years, I’ve told what I call my “Damascus Road” story on many occasions.  Those of you familiar with the New Testament will recall the story of Saul, who traveled on the road to Damascus in order to persecute a community of Christians living there.  After he had set out on the road, God knocked him off his horse, and revealed the truth of Jesus to Saul, who then became a Christian evangelist, and took the name Paul.

For me, my Damascus Road experience with wine occurred in a small apartment on New York’s East Side in 1981.  My friend Clifford Rones was a young lawyer working with a prominent Wall Street law firm, while I was a law student at Fordham University in Manhattan.  Cliff was an obsessive baseball fan, and when a baseball strike of long duration took place that year, he was bereft.  He looked for something to occupy his attention while baseball’s labor situation played itself out.  Having long had some curiosity about wine, he decided to make this his new hobby.

Once or twice a week, Cliff – along with his then-girlfriend, later wife, later ex-wife Marie – would invite me over for dinner.  Marie was an accomplished cook, with an interest in French cuisine, so the food was always good.  Cliff poured some excellent wines --  mostly Bordeaux, which fascinated him, but with occasional diversions to Burgundy and the Rhone valley.  

I’ll admit that the quality of the wines were, at first, utterly lost on me.  I had been a beer drinker of long standing, and while I was certainly willing to try something new, most of the wines rolled by me like water off a duck’s back.  I was happy to eat Marie’s excellent meals, happy to have them accompanied by alcohol, and happy to have the company of friends as I struggled through my first year of law school. 

One night, however, Cliff poured a wine that should not have had the effect it had.  It was a 1977 Chateau Prieurie-Lichine.  Anyone who knows Bordeaux will tell you that Prieurie-Lichine is a fine classed-growth Bordeaux; anyone who knows anything about Bordeaux will also tell you that 1977 was an utterly wretched year.  Yet somehow, despite the challenges presented by nature in that troublesome vintage, Prieurie-Lichine, owned by the visionary American wine importer and educator Alexis Lichine, bottled a wine that captured something of the magic of Margaux, the commune that produces some of Bordeaux’s most elegant wines. 

That night, inhaling the perfume of Margaux, with its sublime floral aromas, I suddenly understood why people felt that wine was an extraordinary beverage, worthy of our serious attention.  I was hooked, and have remained so ever since. 

In the weeks and months to come, Cliff continued to pour fascinating wines, accompanied by Marie’s excellent dishes.  On every one of those occasions, I began to discern what separated the good wines from the mediocre.  Cliff’s taste and instincts were such that we rarely if ever dipped into the realm of bad wines, which were more common then than they are now.  He may disagree, however, as he was always a more discriminating taster than Yours Truly.

Subsequently, I discovered the virtues of wines from Italy, Spain, Germany and the New World.  After learning that the law was not for me -- and during brief breaks from my new career as a playwright, actor and theatre professor -- I’ve worked in the wine trade, both in high-end retail outlets and at the Tasting Room in Peconic, New York, where I poured wine and conducted educational sessions for several boutique wineries on the North Fork of Long Island. 

And now it’s time to continue the journey.  I hope that my further explorations will help you to discover what wine has been to me for so many years: a transcendent source of inspiration and solace.

How I taste wines

Having worked in the wine trade, I have sometimes attended large-scale tastings at wine distributors, or conducted large tastings in wine stores and at charity events.  On such occasions, one learns how dodgy a business tasting can be for professionals.  After tasting many wines in a row, the palate can grow jaded; in these circumstances, it’s no wonder that wines with powerful structure or vivid fruit components tend to stand out.  Only the very finest wine critics can avoid the perils of palate fatigue associated with these mass events.    

However, there’s more to life than power or fruit.  Most of the best wines are blends of different qualities, and among the most important of these characteristics are balance and elegance.  Wines that feature these qualities don’t necessarily show at their best when tasted in the company of bottles that focus on power or fruit.

Unless otherwise noted, the wines I’m evaluating on this blog are tasted in my home, and they are typically accompanied by food.  Although I’d like to think I’m pretty good at matching food and wine, I’m certainly not infallible (nor is anyone else, for that matter!).  Readers should rest assured that I will let them know whenever a pairing of wine and food results in a failed match!

I always start by tasting each wine on its own, eating only a bit of bread to cleanse my palate.  Then, after forming an initial impression of the wine’s intrinsic quality, I’ll move on to try it with an entrée that I think / hope will show off its best elements. 

Often – particularly if a wine & food pairing has been less than successful, I’ll try the wine later, again with bread as an accompaniment. 

(There’s an old saying in the wine trade: “Buy on bread, sell on cheese” – the starch in bread will refresh your palate and give you a good idea of what the wine really tastes like, whereas the protein in cheese will coat your mouth and make almost any wine taste better than it might be otherwise. As in the rest of life, beware of flattery!)

I make notes on all wines as I taste them.  As many of the best wine critics (Michael Broadbent and Hugh Johnson among them) will tell you, making notes forces you to focus your attention, and record as much information as you can about what’s really in the glass. 

Hopefully, this approach, which is far removed from the hub-bub of huge tastings conducted for those in the wine trade, will result in a bit more detailed evaluation.