Monday, August 25, 2008 by Tony Melby.

The first thing you learn when tasting aged wine, is that your nose was probably right. If you smelt green pepper, you can probably taste green pepper. If you smelt raspberries, you can probably taste raspberries. However, once that the wine is in your mouth , you will notice other flavors and sensations. You may notice that the intensity and emphasis of the aromas has changed. Taste usually reveals the quality and the constitution of a wine’s makeup.

Tasting the wine will give you a “feel” of its weight. The weight is usually a reflection of the style of wine. Some styles are light bodied while others are more full. The sense of weight comes from the mixture of all the non-water elements in a particular wine.

More important aspects when tasting quality wines are balance and aftertaste. The greater the wine, the more harmonious the sugar, acid, tannin, and alcohol levels will be. This balance and concentration should give a long lasting flavorful aftertaste that is clean and pleasant.

Balance is more difficult to detect, especially in young wines. Quality reds should have plenty of tannin. This is the preservative that allows wine to age and slowly it will soften, mellow, and seamlessly blend with the other flavors and textures. When tasting young red wines, you are not only looking for sufficient tannins, you are also looking for the ripe fruit flavors behind the tannins and the proper balance between the two.

With white wine tannins are less prominent. It is the acid levels that need to be high in a young wine worthy of aging. This acid will soften with time. Again, the key is to have sufficient fruit to begin with, so that as the acid softens the fruit will again come forward. If there is not enough fruit to begin with, aging will cause a wine to fade or “dry out”.

In this complex mixture, oak can be another component that, like all others, needs to be in balance. Oak, if properly balanced, will add dimension, complexity, and texture to a wine. It also contributes its own seductive flavors. It is easy to know an old wine has too much oak, because it will taste dry like sawdust, and fruitless. But again, it is a bit difficult to know with young wines. The fruit flavors mush be behind the oaky exterior if it is to develop well.

Posted in August 2008 | No Comments »

Monday, July 21, 2008 by Tony Melby.

When you put your nose into a glass of wine and take a deep sniff, there is no telling what you may smell. Wine has over 500 aromatic compounds, many of them are shared with fruits and vegetables like blackcurrrants, pineapples, and green peppers. Other compounds are shared with more surprising scents like stale carpet, cabbage, or kerosene.

There is no correct answer to what a wine smells like. What you smell is your brains interpretation of the volatile chemical compounds found in that particular wine.   Trust your own senses. No matter how outlandish your identification of a smell seems, you may have rightly identified one of the hundreds of compounds.

The primary, and most obvious, aromas of wine come from the grapes. More specifically, they come from the skin of the grapes and the flesh just below the skin. These primary aromas are fruity in nature, but very rarely ever smell like grapes.

The secondary aromas come from the fermentation process, which yields more complex aromas. Commonly described as yeast, butter, oak, and other oak-derived aromas such as vanilla, spice, and toast.

The tertiary aromas come from the complicated and mysterious chemical and physical changes that take place as a wine matures.  These aromas are subtle and difficult to describe and identify, but ultimately they are perhaps the most rewarding.  In white wines the most obvious tertiary aromas are honey and toast or perhaps petrol in Riesling. In red wine maturation aromas are even harder to pinpoint, except that the fruit character becomes mellower and the good wines simply become richer, more gamey, and more profound.

If your wine is in good condition, mature wine should smell clean and fresh as opposed to stale or baked. It isn’t going to have the invigorating freshness of youth, but it should still smell fruity in some way. In older wines the vivid, youthful fruit is replaced by mellower, more complex, less clearly defined fruit aromas. These are sometimes described as dried fruit or autumnal fruit.

There is another scenario when dealing with mature wines. You may not smell anything. This may be because your wine is going through a “dumb” phase. For reasons that have yet to be explained, many good wines that need maturing suddenly “lock-up”. The fruit goes into retreat and not much else seems to be there. This phase often starts after about two to four years and continues for an unknown amount of time. Maybe two years, maybe five. If you have several bottles, you just have to wait patiently until the time seems right to open another bottle. Perhaps in a year’s time, perhaps in three.

Posted in July 2008 | No Comments »

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 by Tony Melby.

There is a lot you can tell about a wine simply by looking at it.  If you have good lighting (preferably not fluorescent light) and a white background, you can see how clear the wine is, how deep the color is, its hue, and its gradation from the center to the rim.

Wine should always be clear and bright, never cloudy or hazy. If you do find a wine that is not clear, it may be due to sediment that has been stirred up in the wine. Sediment is a good sign. It tells us that the bottle is quite mature and that it was not over filtered in the wine making process. However, the sediment should remain in the bottle and never make it into the glass. It muddies the appearance, changes the texture, and gives the wine a bitter taste.

White wine is, of course, never really white. Its color does however have many variations from almost colorless, with perhaps a hint of green, to a deep yellow. If you start to see a brownish tinge in your white wine, it is probably a sign oxidation and it will have an off-taste. White wines go darker with age.

Red wines shed their color and become paler with age. They change from a deep purple-red, to ruby, to brick-red, to the over-aged palish orange-brown color.

The best way to get a feel for a wine’s age is to tilt your glass at a 45 degree angle  and look at the color of the wine at the rim. The paler and browner it is the more mature it is. Also take note of the gradation of color from the rim to the center. The greater the gradation, the more mature the wine.

A quality red wine intended to be aged should start with a considerable amount of color, because color has to do with tannin content, and tannin levels are a major factor in  red wines ability to age.

Swirling your wine in a glass not only aerates it and releases aromas, but it also gives clues to some other characteristics. A wine that trickles back only slowly and in distinct streams “legs”, is high in alcohol, sugar, or both. A wine with an edge that breaks quickly and raggedly is old, very light, and dry.

Posted in July 2008 | No Comments »

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 by Tony Melby.

A wine collection can be different things to different collectors. To some people it’s all about the size of the collection. These truly impassioned collectors believe you must have enough wine on hand to last a lifetime before you can call it a collection. This type of collection usually suffers a lot of casualties. More wine goes bad from not being opened in time than for any other reason.

To some it’s about the quality of the collection. These connoisseurs don’t believe just any bottle of wine can qualify as a collectible. Instead, a wine must possess a certain level of complexity and have a long shelf life. These collections often go under appreciated unless you have friends with the same level of passion. It would be a shame to pour these rare and expensive treasures to guest who only have a passing interest in wine.

To others, collecting is more about enthusiasm and a state of mind as opposed to the quantity or quality of the collection. They have a passion for learning. Learning about specific regions, about wine making techniques, and developing their palate. This is the category that most new collectors will fall into. It’s also the most enjoyable way to collect.

Most new collectors forget to plan their collections. There is a lot of excitement once you have your own wine cellar and generally ones first instinct is to fill it up. This process usually involves surfing the internet, looking through auction catalogs, and hitting all the retail shops in your area. Although a lot of fun, collectors often find they end up with a hodgepodge of bottles that lack any real cohesion or direction.

Before stocking a cellar, a wine collector should first determine their personal taste and take a look at their lifestyle and drinking habits. There are thousands of different wines worthy of collecting. Each collector needs to find out which ones are right for them. No matter how much it cost or what score it received, you should make sure you personally like it before stocking a case in your cellar. After all, you, not a critic, will be serving and drinking it.

A beginning collector should try to first focus on cellaring wines for the next year before concerning themselves with the next decade.  A good starting point is to try and anticipate how much wine you will need and on what occasions they will be opened.

An easy way to do this is to determine how many bottles you go through on an average month. How often do you have dinner guest per month? How often are you invited for dinner with friends? How often do unexpected visitors drop by? How frequently to you have a casual drink at home with a loved one?
Once you determine the approximate number of bottles you open per month, you then need to decide the quality of these bottles. How many of those wines are simply good “everyday” wines? How many are of a higher quality that you share with other wine lovers? And, how many are great “special occasion” wines?

For new wine collectors, this is generally  25 to 35 bottles a month or approximately  30 cases a year. This first year of wine purchases should help you determine which regions and vintages you enjoy most, which wines match best with the foods you eat at home and allow you start thinking about aging potential.

Properly planning your collection will assure you a flow of great wines through out your lifetime.

Posted in June 2008 | No Comments »

Monday, May 26, 2008 by Tony Melby.

Giving your wine collection the proper environment only adds to your enjoyment of the wine itself. There is something very fulfilling about coming home from your favorite wine shop and stashing your new treasures in a room dedicated to bringing each bottle to its full promise. It gives you feelings of pride and anticipation. It also gives you a sense of security. Given the investment a wine collection requires, you could lose thousands if your basement wasn’t cool or humid enough.

Without proper storage, those rare vintages that you’ve been storing for a decade will not deliver the rich fruit and rounded tannins you were hoping for. Instead, you can expect something more like vinegar. A cellar is insurance for your investment.

Every enthusiast and collector can envision a room devoted to wine. A room designed and built for their specific collection. Although private wine cellars are almost always built for the personal enjoyment of the homeowner, they also add to the home’s resale value. They are a functional space and a highly prized amenity in any home. People trying to sell their homes will sometimes have a wine cellar built as a lure for buyers, regardless of whether they have a collection of their own.

An elegant cellar also supplies value as a showpiece. A custom wine room is more than a storage closet. It is a symbol, a reflection of the collector and your friends , with whom you share a bottle, will drink a toast to your dedication.

Posted in May 2008 | No Comments »

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 by Tony Melby.

I know many wine drinkers who would never call themselves collectors. They buy and try different wines and when they find something they enjoy, they simply “stock up” by buying a case or two. This is simply out of convenience (they don’t have to run to the store all the time) and economics (they get better pricing when buying a case). Since they plan to drink all of them, they wouldn’t really call it collecting.

I mean, if you buy a couple cases of beer no one is going to call you a beer collector. Right? So, when do those bottles become a collection?

If wine is nothing more to you than just another alcoholic beverage, you are in no danger of being labeled a collector. But, if you start buying wine out of curiosity, instead of simply alcohol content, it may already be too late for you to avoid the title. It may not happen overnight, but eventually a curious wine lover will become a genuine wine collector.

I know. It happened to me. Someone poured me a glass of quality Rioja and in the middle of telling a story I quickly sniffed, swallowed, and was completely overwhelmed. “What is this wine?” “Where did you get it?” Curiosity took over. I had to taste the differences in crianza, reserva, and gran reserva. I then had to know how other Spanish reds compared like Ribera del Duero and Priorato. This only led to more curiosity of Tempranillo based wines from Argentina, Chile, and even Washington State. And similar scenarios have unfolded with ever great wine I try.

Once this intrigue takes over, you will find yourself on a path that lead to having your own stocked cellar. Having a stocked cellars leads to having many many friends. And at this point you will proudly call yourself a collector.

Posted in May 2008 | No Comments »

Saturday, May 10, 2008 by Tony Melby.

It is said that most Americans drink their wine within 24-hours of buying it. Wine has become more and more popular in the U.S. and here in Springfield, MO we can buy wine almost anywhere. It’s not only available in liquor stores and wine shops, but you get a bottle in supermarkets, drug stores, gas stations, and even our local saddle and tack shop has a huge selection of good wine.

So, with wine so readily available, why would you need to collect it?

It is an odd collectible I must admit. I don’t know of anything else that people collect only to later consume. Many people collect antiques or art, but wine differs from all other types of collecting.While paintings hang on the wall for everyone to enjoy. Wine is usually stored out of sight (ideally in a temperature & humity controlled cellar) until it is disposed of by opening it up and drinking it. Until that moment when you open it, wine has no real value. It only has potential. The value of the wine is in its color, its aroma, and its flavor. You must empty the bottle, rendering it worthless, in order for it to have any value at all.

Unlike other collections, this one is always being depleted and in order to have any collection at all, you have to keep replenishing it. For a wine lover, like myself, its an endless source of enjoyment. I collect wine simply to find out what a specific bottle taste like. I collect wine to create special occasions. I collect wine to share with others. It’s a passion for the experience of wine, not just the possession of wine.

Posted in May 2008 | No Comments »