The SOMM Journal

April / May 2017

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18 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } APRIL/MAY 2017 { one woman's view } A FEW YEARS AGO, I read a study that analyzed the terms most commonly used by Americans to describe flavor. The three top words were: crispy, crunchy, creamy. No surprise then that these are the kinds of words companies like Kellogg's, General Mills and Post use to describe their products in the multi-billion-dollar breakfast cereal category. Rice Krispies isn't positioned as having great toasted rice flavor. It's all about the Snap, Crackle, Pop. I think there's a lesson here for all of us in the wine indus - try. We like to describe flavor in specific flavor terms—we say that a wine tastes of, say, cherries or limes or chocolate. But I suspect that what most people initially love about a wine is the way it feels. And we tend to describe a wine's texture only after the fact, if at all. Cravings, for example, are often texturally based. If you're in the mood for steak, you're not just in the mood for "steak the flavor ;" you're in the mood for "steak the texture," the whole gustatory experience of biting into and chewing something mouthfilling, dense and meaty. Similarly, I'd argue that if you're craving Sancerre, you're in the mood for the way that racy, bolt of acidity feels. There is now some interesting thinking on this among winemakers and academics. In a book recently translated into English, Geosensorial Tasting: The Art and Manner of Tasting Wines of Origin (Terre en Vues, 2015), Jacky Rigaux, a professor at the University of Burgundy, writes, "The palate is much more sensitive and reliable when it comes to the 'taste of place' than the nose, which can easily be misled by the arti - fices of industrial aromas. By feeling a wine from a particular climat in the mouth, one can appreciate its particular contours, its curves and rough patches, its depth, texture, greater or lesser viscosity, its liveli - ness, minerality and length . . . which are all descriptors of its flavor." This reminds me of the recent uncomfortable buzz created when Professor Gérard Liger-Belair of the University of Reims suggested that larger bubbles actually propel a Champagne's aroma toward the nose more efficiently than small bubbles. I called several Champagne makers in France to ask their thoughts. Every one of them said that the aroma of Champagne was not of singular paramount impor - tance. Rather, the complex finesse of how a fine Champagne with tiny bubbles felt was, in the end, more significant. So, a toast to texture. And to a way of describing wine that honors it more. A Toast to Texture WHAT BREAKFAST CEREAL CAN TEACH US ABOUT WINE by Karen MacNeil Karen MacNeil is the author of The Wine Bible and the digital newsletter WineSpeed. She can be reached at karen@ karenmacneil.com.

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