Virtues and Necessities
by Martin Field

Wine is all about the senses. About sensory evaluation, sensuality and consensual enjoyment. And wouldn't it be awful to lose your sense of taste, of smell, of touch, of sight?

It happens. Years ago, a wine-loving colleague went through a devastating course of chemotherapy to treat cancer and was cured. Afterwards he told me he had permanently lost his taste for wine. He sold his not inconsiderable cellar soon afterwards. Another friend had an operation on his nose that left him without a sense of smell. He'll drink a glass of wine with dinner but admits to being indifferent to its finer points.

I was reminded of this aspect of wine and the senses recently while listening to a wine expert banging on about the unimportance of colour in wine. If I heard him correctly, his thesis was that if the wine smelt and tasted good you shouldn't worry too much about its colour.

I couldn't disagree more. I love the colour of wine in the morning, or the evening. The crystal clear, green-hued glisten of a young riesling; the black cherry colour of a young shiraz; the vibrant inky purple of a Coonawarra cabern? [enough already! - Ed.] The visual appeal of wine in the glass is to me an unmissable part of wine drinking.

The banging on wine person finally admitted to being colour blind! They used to call this attitude making a virtue of a necessity.

And talking of sensory evaluation
Long due for reassessment is the ancient scoring system used at most Australian wine shows. The one where wines are scored out of 20 - with a possible three points (15%) awarded for appearance, seven (35%) for bouquet and ten (50%) for palate. Anyone who's ever had a cold will tell you that smell is probably the most important sensory sensation where wine is concerned. When people have colds they typically complain, ?I can't taste a thing.' What they really mean is, ?I can't smell a thing.' It's their noses that are blocked up - not their mouths.

I realise that many judges just award an intuitive score out of 20 rather than individually scoring each component and then adding up the total. Nevertheless, I'd re-jig the weighting thus: three points (15%) for appearance, nine (45%) for bouquet, five (25%) for palate and three (15%) for overall finesse and balance. Whether the scoring system is out of 20 or 100, or whatever, the percentage weighting would remain the same.

Sainsburys Taste the Difference Sancerre 2004 £8.54 has a round, fruity, open nose with a touch of minerality and a clean freshness. The good, underlying fruit with its tantalising honeycomb edges was somewhat hidden by the very high acidity on the palate. So I thought perhaps what it needed was some cheese to round it out...

First up Organic Wensleydale. This crumbly white is more texture than flavour but did fill out the wine and brought forward the fruit -peachy aromatics. The lightness of the almost cottage cheese texture really complemented the delicacy of the wine. There was a hint of a salty tang too.

Then Woolsery, http://www.woolserycheese.co.uk , this is a medium hard goat's cheese from Dorset and is so tasty. It was the best in combination with the wine too. The slightly salty creaminess perfectly cut the acidity of the wine down to size. The cheese had a decent level of acidity to it as well. It was grassy and had a goaty note but was not overly pungent. Great stuff.

Next up Vintage Gouda, the label didn't give a year or age though - perhaps this is cheese parlance that someone can enlightenment me about? This had a wonderful flavour, nutty, earthy, hay aromas, very fruity in fact. It is a dense and creamy cheese which cancelled out the acidity in the wine altogether and made it seem almost flabby! Not quite right together.

Finally Doux de Montagne, very like a Spanish Manchego with its subtle flavour and rubbery texture. It tasted slightly soured too but in a good way. The wine overwhelmed this cheese though and it had very little impact when tasted together.

Wine2.0 Facebook group. Its definitely an association that has potential but I wonder if the FB group that was created for the purpose of perpetuating Wine2.0 hasn’t done a disservice to the movement itself.

What I have found in the past is that FB groups are simply glorified bulletin boards. A community needs interactivity, networking opportunities, offline events, party hats, balloons…ok, maybe not party hats and balloons but you get my drift.

So, on day 2 of my reign (or is it 3?) here is what I find - the group is still active (there are still people joining), but it won’t be for long. What I also find is this - the group needs a purpose. Here are some suggestions:

* Create a standard for wine entries that facilitates eCommerce

* Become a resource for wine companies to learn about web technologies

* Create a venue to review new companies and award the best company with funding or business or both

I’m completely open. There is alot of potential there. I guess a basic tenet of the group will be to promote and evangelize the use of Web2.0+ technologies throughout the wine industry.

Thoughts anyone?

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Best of the wine blogosphere for April 13th through April 18th:

• Does Taste Have a Price?
• Perhaps We Should Just Call It All ?Sparkly-Stuff?
• SFGate: Wine : The Chronicle Wine Selections: 2006 German QbA and Kabinett Rieslings
• Does Expensive Wine Taste Better Than Cheap Wine?
• SFGate: Wine : Pairings: A sweet and sour match for German Riesling
• Rioja Grapes: The 6 Treasures that Make Rioja Wine Sing!
• Vin de Napkin: I?m all a Twitter
• The Best New Wine Writing Talent Is Found On Blogs
• A Celebration Due To A Big Announcement: CHAMPAGNE Time! - Episode #444
• Stormhoek Wine: ?On a Mission from God??
• Catavino?s Rioja Report is Finished!!!!!!
• Ignorance & Quality: The Big Wine Question
• Alcohol Is Not The Demon
• Vin de Napkin ? The California Equation

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