Wine as a hobby
While on a shopping trip yesterday afternoon, Jacquie and I slipped into the Home Outfitters in Whitby with the intention of looking around and, hopefully, finding a couple of all-purpose wine glasses big enough for properly tasting wines. After leaving the store with a couple of wine glasses (big enough to slosh wine around in them, unlike the other glasses we have), a decanter and a vacuum wine pump (for removing oxygen from a wine bottle), I realized just how much of a hobby wine can be.
After all, there are all sorts of wine paraphernalia that a connoisseur could buy, including red wine glasses, white wine glasses, Chianti glasses, Burgundy glasses, Champagne flutes, stemless wine glasses (the purpose of which eludes me), artistic and non-artistic corks, vacuum wine pumps, several different types of cork removers, temperature gauges, wine racks, decanters, wine chillers, wine buckets and various books, magazines and DVDs on the subject of wine.
It seems like an awful lot for what is essentially fermented grape juice, no?
The Accidental Connoisseur
After Jeff McIlveen's wine seminar at the Ajax Public Library a few weeks ago, he recommended several books on wine, but the one that most interested me was a book called
The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through The Wine World by Lawrence Osborne. I signed out the book that evening, took it home and began reading about Osborne's travels in the wine world.
Unfortunately, I had several other things occupying my time, so it took me a couple of weeks to finally finish reading the entire book (completed as of last night). Through his writing, Osborne shows that he is a far cry from the Robert Parkers of the world while at the same time proving he knows enough about wine to strike up conversations with the movers and shakers of the industry.
As he travels from California to France and then on to Italy, Osborne paints a picture of a man lost in the world of wine and trying to find his way. He struggles with the tastes and smells of wine, but what he seems to push back against the most is the elitism that follows vino everywhere.
The Accidental Connoisseur is a no-nonsense, humorous book about discovering the wine world, and I'd follow Jeff's lead in highly recommending it.
Black Tower Dornfelder Pinot Noir
Early in January, I tried Black Tower Dornfelder Pinot Noir for the first time. My parents served it with dinner, although I don't remember what food was on the menu. At the time, I found that I liked it, so I headed to the LCBO to pick up a couple of bottles a week or two later. I cannot be sure what changed, whether it was because I was drinking it with food the first time or some other unknown atmospheric change, but I was much less enthusiastic about the wine the second and third times.
Although I didn't keep tasting notes (something I'm not really sure how to do properly yet), the thing I remember most about the wine was how weak it tasted and smelled for a Pinot Noir. While Pinots tend to light-bodied, the Black Tower Pinot was far too light, with a very fruity taste, mostly reminiscent of the grapes wine is made from. Certainly not a complex Pinot, Black Tower was a recent vintage (I'm inclined to say 2005, but I neglected to write the year down before tossing the bottles in the recycling bin) that I probably will not buy again. As a table wine, it was acceptable, but the quality was only a notch or two above some of the do-it-yourself wine-making places. For the same price tag (about $12), there are better Pinot Noirs.
