introduction to wine tasting

today we went to the wine tasting course that i gave p for xmas. it was in french, so it was good practice for me. i was pleased that i mostly understood, though i definitely missed some things. the teacher was a middle aged lady and there were around 20 of us along a long table in the cellar of the wine museum which was an old church and monastery – right on the banks of the seine. she spoke of the 4 or 5 senses used for experiencing a wine, from the color of the wine, the taste (of course), all the way to the “sound of a cork popping”. she talked about how to hold a wine glass and then we did the swirling, sniffing and tasting with the slurping in of air or “aerating”. we tasted 5 wines – 2 whites and 3 reds and it was very good and interesting. i loved p’s comments about the class afterwards. his impression was that the teacher felt that she was training us to go to high cultural events. it was all about the traditional french class system, finesse, culture. she made snide jokes about how nicholas sarkozy (the french president) went to dinner with the queen of england and “clutched” his wine class – totally incorrectly and implied his lack of culture. she told us how yes, it’s fun to pop the champagne cork and we love that “sound” of the wine cork coming out, but in fact, to be truly cultured, you should make as little noise as possible. it was all about society. funny.

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