How do we taste wine? Ask Maurice O’Shea

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Steve Shipley

How do we taste wine? How do we appreciate what wine has to offer? As explained in my upcoming book Wine Sense, we taste wine through our senses. The concept of taste is cross-modal, using our eyes, our nose and our mouth. Tasting wine comes together through all the human senses. But four senses prevail when appreciating wine. Sight, smell, taste (specifically through our taste buds) and mouth feel. But our sight is so predominant, it often overrules what we experience with our nose and our mouth. This sometimes causes stimulus errors which deceive us when drinking wine. Wine Sense teaches us how to smell and taste wine better. It provides an understanding and techniques you can use to trust what is in your nose and what is in your mouth. Many believe they can never achieve this, but I do and that is why I have made the effort with Wine Sense in an attempt to help you to gain trust in your nose and mouth.

Maurice O’Shea was one of Australia’s, if not the world’s, best wine makers. He also had bad eyesight. I am reading Campbell Mattinson’s great book on O’Shea entitled Wine Hunter. It tells of O’Shea having just found out he cannot join the French army in WW1 because his eyesight is so bad. Happy about this turn of events (which allowed him to study viticulture and winemaking), he shouts a nice meal out for his friends in Montpellier. They allow the chef to prepare what he likes. They are happy, eating and drinking, but O’Shea realizes the texture and taste of the meat to be different, even though his friends do not. They later find out they have been eating domestic cat as meat is scarce during the war in France.

As Mattinson relates of young Maurice: “he wondered whether his taste and smell had grown more acute as his eyes had dimmed, as if his other senses had become heightened, as if his sense of smell and his sense of taste had developed into his gift.” Mattinson goes on to describe what O’Shea learned about himself that night: “and he knew something in himself that he had not known before – he could trust his mouth. He could trust his nose. He could feel the taste of things that others could not.”

Until you learn to trust your nose and your mouth, you will be sold wine, you will be told how to taste wine, and you will be told what you like by others. When you learn to trust your nose and your mouth to taste wine, you then learn to truly enjoy and appreciate wine more. And as O’Shea points out, by dimming your sense of sight, you can attune your nose and mouth more acutely. You can learn from others, especially when drinking in the presence of others who know more about wine tasting than you do. Learn from them, but learn to trust your nose and mouth.

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, due out July 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2014. Steve Shipley. All rights reserved.
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter: Steve Shipley @shipleyaust; InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

How cooking improves your wine tasting abilities

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Through tasting more and learning more about tasting wine, I have continued to improve my wine tasting abilities and experiences. Yet, I was always surprised how many of my chef friends seemed to have a better palate than mine. I assumed it was because they were super tasters (people with significantly more taste buds and lower sensitivity to certain tastes) than me. I attributed their skills to their in-born capabilities. My wife was taking cooking lessons several years ago and I was highly supportive because I was benefiting from eating better at home. We ate better, more healthily and far less expensively now at home than when eating out (except for a few known restaurants that are among our favorites).

I decided to follow my wife’s lead and took about 10 cooking lessons myself, including a 6-part beginners course for ‘blokes,’ a knife skills lesson, a pasta making lesson, and a Christmas dinner banquet lesson (including ham and turkey). But it was really practicing making meals from beginning to end at home that opened my nose and palate to being able to smell and taste many more flavors and with greater sensitivity. What became apparent to me was importance of sauces, spices, and all the ingredients necessary to alter or enhance the flavors of the primary ingredients be they meat, fish or vegetables. Noticing what a teaspoon of paprika (or smoked paprika), saffron, chili flakes (or freshly cut chilies) or nutmeg could do to enhance flavors became noticeable. Understanding why chopped basil worked better than mint or parsley (or Spanish onions better than spring onions) in certain circumstances also became apparent.

By learning to understand and appreciate various flavors, I was able to more immediately determine when to drink a softer, more versatile wine such as a Verdelho over a Pinot Gris (or vice versus) with the meal, or a sharper, edgier wine such as a Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc worked better. What I really noticed though was that instead of being able to match up broad categories of wines with food, I was now able to much more easily ‘micro-match’ a wine style with a particular meal. I was able to determine which sub-category (young or aged Semillon, for example) and sub-style (Hunter Valley versus Barossa Valley Shiraz) and determine which wine more uniquely was a better match with food, even to the level of individual wine makers (a young Andrew Thomas Semillon versus a Tyrrell’s Johnno Semillon) and vintages.

Most people believe they are limited in their ability to taste and appreciate good wine (and often as a result, buy wine based on price, thinking a higher price is better quality), but this is simply not true. There are rare exceptions of people who were born or through a severe illness, have lost the ability to smell. However, for the most part and within usable tolerances, almost every one of us is able to with a high degree of accuracy be able to smell and taste wine. Through practice and learning, any one of us can influence our abilities to taste and enjoy wine more so than through our natural abilities. And by learning some basics of cooking and what ingredients are used to make meals, you can learn much more quickly.

“Learning to cook has improved my ability to taste wine more than any other activity over the last several years!”

My book Wine Sense helps you understand how to train and use all of your senses to improve your wine tasting experiences. But on its own, learning to cook (even a little as in my case) has greatly improved my ability to smell and taste. I am able to much more quickly identify flavors and nuances and determine why I like one wine over another with a particular meal, whereas before I would have thought they tasted pretty much the same. Do not limit your ability to enjoy wine far more than you currently do, and make learning to cook an important part of that training.

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013. Steve Shipley
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter: Steve Shipley @shipleyaust; InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

Great Chefs of the Hunter Valley and Surrounds

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Steve Shipley

When I was on Food in Focus several weeks ago, we were discussing how difficult it is to make a restaurant commercially successful, especially in the prolonged economic environment we currently face. Natascha Moy, our radio host, mentioned with sadness the closing of one of her favorite Sydney restaurants. We talked about how important it is for a chef to be the face of the restaurant and truly hands-on to infuse his or her passion and quality to give the restaurant every chance of success. This made me think about how those of us in the Hunter Valley are fortunate to be able to have some access to some great restaurants and superb meals by some of the finest chefs Australia has on offer.

My wife and I took two weeks vacation in early July. It was great to get away. For the most part, we took the time to cook every meal at home, had some people over for a nice meal, and really spent the time writing, learning new technology and blogging. However, we did have four meals out, all which were exceptionally good. We have a few restaurants in the Hunter Valley we frequent regularly, but none with more enthusiasm than Bistro Molines, up Mount View Road and next to Tallavera Grove winery. It has beautiful views, but most importantly is one of the few hatted restaurants in rural NSW and under the ownership of Robert and Sally Molines who are Hunter Valley icons. If we want a good meal or a special celebration, this is where we go about 80% of the time.

However, we were anxious to try a few new wineries and restaurants this trip and were able to combine both by attending two great meals hosted by McLeish Wines. We really fell in love with their 2012 Rose, 2007 Reserve Semillon (numerously awarded internationally), and the 2009 Reserve Chardonnay. Jessica McLeish, proprietress of McLeish Wines, also has a fine taste for good food and introduced us to two excellent restaurants, Two Naughty Chooks in Singleton and Paymaster’s Cafe in Newcastle. Both were outstanding restaurants with great chefs that we are certain to go back to. The meals were on back-to-back nights and were two of the best meals we ever had.

The next week, we visited Restaurant 221 in Cessnock for another outstanding meal, even though, I must admit that I had a bit of a ‘concept conflict’ with such fine dining in a pub environment. And the following day we ate lunch at the restaurant at Margan Wines in Broke.

Four new restaurants with four great head chefs (actually five as Two Naughty Chooks is a husband / wife team) which we are certain to visit again. Each restaurant and their great head chefs deserves their own write-up, so I will be writing a post on each of them over the next month or so. You may feel this has more to do with food than wine, but food and wine go together so well and each of these restaurants has a great wine list and close relationships with wineries in the region. They all have some ‘special’ wines for consumption and make every effort to provide the best food and wine dining experience available. That is why I want to introduce you to them as you deserve to know about such outstanding places to eat and they deserve your support.

I wrote a review of the great meal we had at Two Naughty Chooks already. So I will be reviewing Paymasters Cafe next and their outstanding long-term chef, Rodney Scales. We did my first ever Australian Christmas in July meal there and it was magnificent. Rodney is passionate about cooking and serving and is also well versed in social media, so feel free to connect with him and follow what he has going on in terms of upcoming events and new menu items.

Tasting, not Drinking – Intoxication, not Drunkenness

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Many people drink for the sheer ‘pleasure’ of getting drunk. I don’t understand that, or why becoming drunk would even be an objective for anyone, but I have seen it occur many times. I gave up hard alcohol by the time I was 30 because I could not handle it, nor did I enjoy it. I still drink the occasional beer, especially on a hot summer day, but beer bloats me if I have more than a few.

Wine is my drink of choice for many reasons, and I almost exclusively drink wine now. I have never been drunk from wine, nor would I want to be. I enjoy drinking wine for the taste and flavor and for its diversity of grapes and styles. I can drink multiple wines in an evening, and sharing time and food along with the wine with friends for a great experience.

But I ‘taste’ my wine, not indiscriminately drink it. I take the time to swirl it to open the bouquet and increase the pleasure of nosing it, fulfilling my sense of smell. I then pour it onto my palate and experience the taste as it impacts my taste buds – but I do not swallow immediately! I enjoy the wine as it warms up further in my mouth, releasing more new flavors and sensory (if not sensual!) perceptions. I let my tongue and taste buds pick up on the sweetness, bitterness, or whatever flavors it finds. I might keep the wine in my mouth for 1 – 3 minutes before actually swallowing it!

I also love to match up wine with foods, or just chocolates or cheeses, and having some food nourishment along the way helps to reduce the impact of alcohol also.

This process and experience intoxicates me, and it constrains me from getting drunk. I drink less because I get more flavor and satisfaction out of each sip of wine and I slow down the amount I drink over any period. This is similar to the advice of chewing your food 25 times before swallowing. You pick out much more flavor and nourishment from your food, become more satisfied and ultimately, eat less.

Drunkenness is not a state I enjoy during or after drinking, and I avoid it. Avoiding drunkenness comes easily for me since I taste my wine while drinking and before swallowing, combine it with food which further absorbs and disperses the alcohol content, and enjoy it and let it satiate me along the way.

I recommend you do the same. You will enjoy your wine far more and treat your body far better along the journey! Remember to taste, not drink (or guzzle) your wine to become intoxicated, not drunk!

Wine education – Lesson 1

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Steve Shipley

There are a lot of ways to learn how to appreciate wine drinking more, but there is one lesson that stands above all others, and that is to keep on tasting different wines. I could have you read books, attend courses, read wine reviews and participate in a number of other activities, but there is no better means to learning about wine than by trying a number of different wines.

I have a lot of author friends and they sometimes get distracted focusing on marketing, social media, taking classes on creative writing and participating in a number of other activities that seem like writing, but are not really writing. They have to keep reminding themselves that there is no other activity that makes you a writer than to just sit down and actually write!

Therefore, wine education Lesson 1 is to taste a variety of different wines and understand what you like and what you don’t. And Lesson 2 will be on the difference between tasting and drinking. I want you to taste wine, not just drink it. That would be an incredible waste.

Having said that and gotten Lesson 1 out of the way, there are a variety of different things that comprise a simple wine education that should increase your pleasure of drinking wine. These include:

Reading a variety of different books on wine
Attending tastings with other people and sharing your tasting experiences
Trying different wines with different foods, including different wines with cheese and chocolate
Writing down tasting notes
Participating in vertical and horizontal wine tastings
Attending some specialty sessions on glassware, decanters and other wine paraphernalia
Learning a bit about how to make wine
Experiencing and thinking about what wine does to your senses

I have written over 125 blog posts in the last year and plan to write plenty more. Many of my posts have been about reviewing specific wines, matching wine with food, and enjoying the wine lifestyle more. Some have been educational. Therefore, I am not going to label any of my future posts as ‘educational.’ many will be, but hopefully many of those already written have been also.

The key thing is that with a little more understanding of wine, you are likely to enjoy tasting and drinking wine a lot more. And it makes it easier to share the experience and talk about it with others who enjoy drinking wine also. I have certainly found that to be the case for me and many of my friends. Let’s learn a bit more together.

SAZ in the Cellar

Wine appreciation and enjoyment

Tag Archives: tasting

How do we taste wine? Ask Maurice O’Shea

How cooking improves your wine tasting abilities

Great Chefs of the Hunter Valley and Surrounds

Tasting, not Drinking – Intoxication, not Drunkenness

Wine education – Lesson 1