Taste test

Depending on the restaurant and its wine list, ordering wine can be daunting and fraught with anxiety. Some restaurants might list their wines by varietal and origin, whilst others might list by price, allowing the guest to decide on a wine within a specific price range. In either case, your server is familiar with the house list and will be able to describe the wines and their suitability to your choice of food.

Once you have selected the wine, you have to play your part in the ritual of the wine service. It is a simple, yet important, process to determine if the wine is correct.

The first step is to present the bottle, showing the label and vintage to determine if this is, indeed, the wine that was ordered. This is important, as a restaurant might have more than one vintage of a particular wine—or even different varietals produced by the same winery. Check the label for vintage, varietal and producer.

Once this step is complete, the server will remove the seal and uncork the wine. The cork is then presented to the guest, who should ensure that the cork displays the imprint of the producer, and examine the cork for telltale signs of seepage in the cork that might indicate the wine is flawed. The guest might also choose to feel the cork to confirm its elasticity, which indicates a proper seal has protected the wine. (If the selected wine has a screw-cap closure, however, the previous steps are unnecessary, as this style of closure was developed to prevent spoilage.)

The next step is the most important, as it determines whether the wine is in any way flawed. Within this step, there are three common, yet easy, ways to confirm the wine.

• If the wine is corked, it will smell like wet, musty basement cardboard.

• If the wine has high notes of stewed jam, it might have been incorrectly stored. The wine could be “maderized” with nondescript flavours, and flat on the palate. (Don’t confuse big West Coast zinfandels or southern Italian primitivos, or wines of a similar ilk, with maderized wines.)

• If the cork or closure is not correctly sealed, the wine will oxidize and manifest sharp acid flavours akin to apple cider vinegar.

If, however, the wine survives the taste test—pour and enjoy.

THIS WEEK’S PICK
There is so much to taste in the County: an increasing number of wineries, new (and old) breweries, fantastic dining, cheese producers, wonderful boutique food stores, new bakeries and dessert and chocolate shops. Very soon, we will be able to enjoy the bounty of freshly grown vegetables.

All this, along with the sublime vistas and so much more, define why the County continues to be a draw for visitors from points near and far.