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Sip and savour
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How does one become a connoisseur of wine? Eric Sabourin, director of Falcon Vintners Ltd., London, was there at the Taj Coromandel to give delightful tips on how to appreciate a glass of red or white wine. GEETA DOCTOR writes...
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IT WAS a journey of discovery into a secret world. As a sorcerer of smells and taste and colour and legends of wines, past, present and future, we had as a guide, Eric Sabourin, who made each one of us his willing apprentice. A director of Falcon Vintners Ltd., London, and a partner and lecturer of the Connoisseur Wine School at the Taj Coromandel, Eric Sabourin had a tough agenda. In the course of an hour and a half, he had to teach us to be our own connoisseurs of wine by placing before us six different types of wine — three white, three red — and urging us to smell, sip, swill around in our mouths with delight and enjoy the experience. Never has hard work been quite so rewarding.
"The only rule in wine tasting" he told us, "is that there are no rules, except one. Enjoy yourself!" In no time at all, he had us hanging by the ends of his elegantly cut coat, gliding into the sunlit slopes of golden vineyards of Italy, brushed by the icy touch sometimes of the winds sweeping down the mountains of Alsace, the premier wine growing region shared by France and Germany and landing by surprise in our own backyard clutching a glass of Sula wine, like the best of them.
"No, you do not clutch a glass of wine, you hold it gently by the stem," admonished Sabourin, "so that the warmth from your fingers does not heat up the wine." Though there were more than enough European experts amongst the audience, the majority were neophytes wondering whether the deadly brew concocted by their grandmothers in stone-ware jars hidden in the secret recesses of ancient family store-rooms could qualify for a degree in wine-appreciation.
It was perhaps exactly for such people that Sabourin had provided a highly evolved diagram of different tastes, named an Aroma Wheel. Old granny's marigold wine would probably qualify for the category that comes under the description of "wet wool, wet dog" or "Burnt Toast." There's no doubt about it, the Aroma Wheel provides for all contingencies.
Since we were aspiring to be in the connoisseur's league, we had to concentrate only on the best. Having taught us to hold our glasses, Sabourin indicated how we should gently tilt the wine filled glass, against the starched white tablecloth and contemplate its appearance or colour. The Muscadet Ormeaux 2000 that he had chosen was the very palest of pale yellows, hardly any colour at all, but clear and crystalline like a drop from a mountain stream running through a bed of pale topaz. He showed us how to very gently swirl the wine around and delicately raise the rim in the region of the mouth and nose. "Inhale!" he commanded. It was difficult for us good South Indians not to behave as if we were at a yoga lesson, determined to immediately descant the wine, through our nostrils.
The essence, we realised soon enough, was to treat the wine gently, to allow the wine itself to make its presence felt as if it were a note of distant music sent to awake each one of our dormant senses.
As he directed our attention to the Aroma Wheel, he showed us how from a dozen or so of basic categories that could range from Spicy to fruity to Floral and Earthy, our range of smells might progress to ever more refined distinctions.
In a fully evolved wine taster, or wine sniffer, the range can include the fragrance of orange-blossom, black pepper, anise and liquorice, not to mention moldy cork and boiled cabbage.
"When you're asked to taste the wine at a restaurant, it's quite enough to just swirl the wine around and sample the aroma," advised Sabourin. He implied that to actually take but the smallest sip was quite unnecessary. Just looking at the colour and sampling the aroma would be enough for most connoisseurs to decide whether a wine was good enough for serving to the guests.
"Sometimes, they will ask you examine the cork. Don't bite the cork. Just take a quick look at it," he advised us. The main purpose of examining a cork, with the close attention of a Sherlock Holmes, he explained, was to determine whether the wine bottle had been stored properly, in a semi-reclining position.
Properly stored, the cork would be lightly moistened and not dry, thereby making sure that the cork had not had time to shrink and allow the air, "an enemy of wine" into the bottle.
Further details of the critical role played by the humble cork in a bottle of wine were revealed when Sabourin showed us a small video clip of how the famous champagne named after its celebrated patroness Veuve Cliquot of Ponsardin was made. Madame Cliquot hit upon the idea of removing the fine sediment that collected at the bottom of the champagne bottle by gently turning the bottle by hand, every couple of days and inclining the angle of the bottle.
As the film showed us after the sediment had settled at the top, the champagne was chilled to -30 degrees Centigrade and when it was uncorked, the small block of ice was ejected simultaneously, leaving the wine clear and sparkling. By this time, we had progressed from the minutely more yellow white of the Sula wine made in Nasik, to the somewhat more sunshiny white of the Gewurstraminer 1999 Mure that Sabourin demonstrated to us was "spicy". Even if we could not actually make out these distinctions, just know that they could exist, allowed us to swirl, sniff, sip and look wise.
The reds that came under the names of Barbera Di Asti "Fiulot" 2000 Prunotto from Italy and Fleurie 1999 La Madonne, from France and the Shiraz 2000 Cranswick Estate that is a wine that travels in its raw state all the way from Australia to be bottled here in India challenged our still very confused taste buds in completely different ways. But we could make out why Sabourin referred to some of these wines as "full bodied" even if some of us imagined that he was actually talking about a Sophia Loren, or a Gina Lollobrigide walking down the Tuscan hillside arm in arm with Marcello Mastriani. A general rule of thumb, he told us when looking at the labels of some of the wines was to remember that while the old world wines, used the names or regions where the wines were produced to signal a particular variety, the new world wines, that is those grown and made in countries of South America, or California or Australia were generally identified by the variety of grape.
Finally, there was one more lesson to be learnt. In close consultation with the Taj Coromandel chef Nataraj, Sabourin had chosen six different types of Indian dishes, a tiny sliver of pepper fish for instance, a dash of red Allepey fish curry, small pellets of fried Chettinad style chicken, with corresponding dishes for vegetarians to complement the six wines. As a further method of shocking our palates into paying attention, he urged us to suck small segments of lemon and then tasting each one of the wines that immediately became sweeter, or more markedly sour as we kept trying them out. As a general guide line Sabourin advises Indians to combine a sweet tasting wine with spicier varieties of food. For those, who like what he describes as fortified wines, Port or Sherry, for instance, he adds that these are a good accompaniment for the strong flavours of Asian food. He is also certain that the cool touch of a well chilled wine (there's a whole chapter to be learnt on how to chill wines) would be the ideal complement to a subtly spiced Indian meal, as the Moguls might have agreed with him, drinking down their goblets of fine Shiraz Wines, in jade cups, while dipping their finger into the tantalising flavours of an Indian biriyani, or pulao served from a chased silver platter. Sabourin had done his homework so well, that he even told us about an Ayurvedic potion that sounded remarkably like good wine.
"Remember it's just grape juice, there's nothing mystifying about wine. It's the context that matters. You don't have to agree with anything that I may have told you about wine tasting, but once you enjoy it, a whole world of experience is there, waiting for you."
As though to underline his message, P.K.Mohankumar, the general manager at the Coromandel, assured us that the hotel had made it its special endeavour to educate and elevate its guests in the fine art of wine appreciation.
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