Wednesday, December 27, 2006
I will drink no wine....
before it's time. A good quote and Orson Welles delivered it with majesty and gravitas on commercials years ago. I need to amend it a bit for my own personal use: I will drink no wine when my nose is not in full operating condition. And the more expensive it is, the better reason to pass.
Why is the nose key? Easy. You can taste a handful of flavors: salt, bitter, sweet, sour and what the Japanese call umami (what makes meat "meaty"). Five. Millions of tastebuds, they can only light up to one of 5 options. Your nose, however, is hardwired straight into your brain, which can process many many more. Good wines are complex and you experience that much more through your nose than your tongue (as you do ANYTHING you eat or drink).
At Christmas with the in-law's, FIL opened a nice bottle he'd received as a present from co-workers. A fairly famous label that I've not tried because I don't normally buy $30+ bottles of wine. From what I could smell and taste, it was really good. I think I only "got" about half of what the wine had to offer because I've been sinus-y. He likes wine, but is the only person in his household who drinks it. So our visits tend to be his main "tasting time". He was excited about the wine, so how could I say "save it until I can really taste it" ? I'm the family expert, so I was asked for my opinion. Was a weird position to be in..."what little I can taste of it is great"??? Can't say that.
Unfortunately, my sinuses bother me enough that this isn't the first time I've had such an incident. One year, The Boy got a NICE bottle of wine from a vendor. Yes, this was back in the day when venture capital flowed like water for anything tech-related. We cooked Valentine's Day dinner and he wanted to open THAT wine. We were both sick. I actually said "you know, this won't taste much different from what's in our water glasses", but to no avail. AFTER dinner he says "we really should have saved that until we both could taste it". Uh, yeah.
So it looks like I'll be dry for a few days. I'd picked up some nicer than normal wines for us to have with family and just us together. Looks like they'll get us through January......
Why is the nose key? Easy. You can taste a handful of flavors: salt, bitter, sweet, sour and what the Japanese call umami (what makes meat "meaty"). Five. Millions of tastebuds, they can only light up to one of 5 options. Your nose, however, is hardwired straight into your brain, which can process many many more. Good wines are complex and you experience that much more through your nose than your tongue (as you do ANYTHING you eat or drink).
At Christmas with the in-law's, FIL opened a nice bottle he'd received as a present from co-workers. A fairly famous label that I've not tried because I don't normally buy $30+ bottles of wine. From what I could smell and taste, it was really good. I think I only "got" about half of what the wine had to offer because I've been sinus-y. He likes wine, but is the only person in his household who drinks it. So our visits tend to be his main "tasting time". He was excited about the wine, so how could I say "save it until I can really taste it" ? I'm the family expert, so I was asked for my opinion. Was a weird position to be in..."what little I can taste of it is great"??? Can't say that.
Unfortunately, my sinuses bother me enough that this isn't the first time I've had such an incident. One year, The Boy got a NICE bottle of wine from a vendor. Yes, this was back in the day when venture capital flowed like water for anything tech-related. We cooked Valentine's Day dinner and he wanted to open THAT wine. We were both sick. I actually said "you know, this won't taste much different from what's in our water glasses", but to no avail. AFTER dinner he says "we really should have saved that until we both could taste it". Uh, yeah.
So it looks like I'll be dry for a few days. I'd picked up some nicer than normal wines for us to have with family and just us together. Looks like they'll get us through January......
