Confusing snobs and tastebud-clogging cheese 31 July 2006

Martin Moore considers two wine-related problems

O, those pompous snobs!

I have enjoyed so many good times with wine-wise friends who love their wine and constantly work at increasing their knowledge for no other reason but to enhance their enjoyment of it. For that reason I often find it difficult to contain myself in the presence of those wine snobs who cannot wait to flaunt their knowledge of the subject from the moment the wine list is placed on the restaurant table. Then everyone else at the table get an earful of vintages and regions and terroir, with the names of a few well-known vintners artfully dropped in.

Even when the wine has been ordered they use every conceivable opening to bring the conversation back to their favourite topic. Talk about a new property development and your are told what a pity, the land is such excellent terroir for Cabernet; touch on the weather and you have to listen to the effect it will have on the next vintage; try politics and you are regaled with stories of a politician that had an excellent palate.

These pompous idiots would be quite harmless if they did not also proclaim myths as truths and so add to the confusion that often surrounds wine. One such myth is that the more ‘legs’ or ‘tears’ a wine has, the better the quality (The ‘legs’, as the Americans say, or ‘tears’, the preferred term in the UK, are what run down the inside of the glass when you swirl the contents.) Thus it is a very important factor in judging wine. Over the years I have been a judge in a number of competitions and although I have to admit that on occasion I might have been distracted by legs passing by while ruminating on a wine, legs-in-a-glass have never played any role in evaluating a wine, not with me or any of my fellow judges.

What causes this phenomenon? Let me quote the explanation I came across in one of my reference books: ‘The slightly viscous, transparent residue that runs on the inside of a clean glass after swirling the wine proves only two things. Wine contains more water than alcohol, and alcohol evaporates faster than water.’

It all has to do with the surface tension of the wine and the evaporation of the alcohol when exposed to air. When the latter happens the surface tension of the remaining water intensifies, it forms a drop and this then slowly trickles down the inside of the glass. It even has a fancy name, being known as the Gibbs-Marangoni effect.

Here’s another expert view: ‘Legs may be an indicator of a wine's alcoholic strength because the higher the alcohol content, the faster the alcohol evaporates, but they are not a measure of a wine's viscosity, nor do they have any bearing on the quality or the pedigree of the wine.’

Amen.

Cheese and wine tasting – what a bad idea!

I have over the years received a number of invitations to lead cheese and wine tastings and I have without fail declined them. For you cannot taste wines and have cheese at the same time. Let me use the findings of a recent study done at the University of California to explain why. The researchers found that in almost all instances, cheese mutes the desirable and undesirable traits of a wine, from berry flavours and oak to astringency and sourness. Interestingly enough, the butteriness of Chardonnay, which can be related to malolactic fermentation, is the one exception, possibly because of the same bacteria being active in cheese. Personally I find cheese coats my taste buds and clogs my senses when trying to evaluate a wine.

But that the two are made for one another, about that there is no argument either. That great American food writer MFK Fisher phrased it in her own special way when she said: ‘Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures…’ So let’s forget about cheese and wine tastings and rather talk about cheese and wine pairings.

COMMENT

From Clive Sindelman:
Martin Moore says that generally cheese and good wine are bad companions. However, some cynic once said that if you are looking to flog bad wine, cheese fits like Romeo to Juliet.

• We had a bit of discussion on this subject earlier this year, following a 'scientific'  announcement much in line with Martin's doubts, with Jean-Vincent Ridon stoutly defending  some great cheese and wine  matches
 

From Pascal Schildt:
As a personal experience one of my greatest enjoyment of cheese with wine has been the ever classic Compté (with preference for the dryer matured versions rather than young and fruity) accompanied by the naturally oxidised wines from the Jura (north eastern France ex.AOC Arbois).