![]() We had a tussle over how to describe natural wines – not least because there is no official definition of these fashionable liquids whose makers eschew all additions, including preservatives, not always to their benefit in my view. Her questions constantly brought me up short. I was extremely lucky with my editor, Cecilia Stein, who was absolutely the target market for the book: a lawyer-turned-publisher who loved drinking wine and really wanted to know more about it. And of course there are lists, the sine qua non of slim volumes. It was Rose who read the manuscript, reminded me what was missing, and censored the odd word or figure of speech as being hopelessly quaint or obscure.īecause of her the book is less about geographical detail (although there is a gallop around the wine world at the end to supplement the descriptions of the most important grapes) and more about the mechanics of wine lore: how to taste, choose, serve and buy wine, what’s good value, major misconceptions about wine (such as that all wine improves with age, for instance) and a guide to wine jargon. As it happened, a job at Vogue intervened so she never wrote the book, but her input was invaluable, not least as quality controller. Ask her’, they would say.īecause of that, in between jobs, she thought she would write a guide to wine for her age group, with a little help from her mamma, and so she convened a focus group of friends who, lubricated by my wine leftovers, told her exactly what they wanted to know. Her friends are regular, enthusiastic and intelligent wine drinkers but had never had any formal wine training and were always asking her questions about wine and wine lore. Our 24-year-old daughter Rose actually came up with the idea of the book. The optimal serving temperature for white burgundies, for example, is about 15 ☌, very similar to the ideal serving temperature for red burgundies. If the red is too warm, you should ask for an ice bucket, or if the white is too cold, ensure it is left out of one. The most common fault today is the mouldy aroma associated with a tainted cork.īut you are also being given a chance to check the all-important temperature of the wine, which you can do either by tasting it or feeling the glass. ![]() A smell of the wine is generally enough to check whether that particular bottle is one of the nowadays-small minority that is technically faulty. Its purpose is for you to check two things once you have been presented with the label so you can see the wine is the one your ordered. It is not done so that you can check whether you like the wine or not. I suspect many customers, and even waiting staff, are thoroughly confused about it. For example, I spell out the point of the restaurant ritual of giving the host a small sample from each bottle before it’s poured (and it should be each bottle, not just the first one). The main point of wine is to give pleasure, not to generate social confusion and angst. You can learn far more by comparing two wines than by sampling just one at a time. It includes suggested tasting exercises – comparing a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand with a French one, for example – preferably with a group of friends. The idea is that it offers a shortcut to wine expertise, an escape from any potential wine-related embarrassment, and can be fully digested in no more than 24 hours. It’s designed as a distillation of my 40 years immersed in wine into a handbook for those who would never dream of buying a big reference book but want to grasp the most important practical things. My most recently published book is my shortest-ever wine book, one that was in many ways the most difficult to write. Exit the door at the end of the hallway and walk right down the dirt path to reach the Backdoor shortcut.Do you have friends who like wine but don’t know all that much about it? Or perhaps that description applies to you. Interact with the tap to open it, and then head up another flight of stairs.Īvoid the guards and proceed down the hallway to the right, where you will need to duck around another guard. The barrel on the right is actually a door. Sneak through the locker room and enter the room with the massive barrels of wine. To reach it, head to the production room (the room with the big mulcher), and take the stairs north. The Backdoor shortcut is located at the southern edge of the backside path, which runs along the east edge of Level 2. Mendoza shortcut map location // Backdoor // Level 2
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