Here's what we've learned about wine tasting in the past several days:
1) Visual examination (examen visuel)
First thing's first--isn't that vin good-looking? Or, as they say around these parts, isn't it intense (intensité), brilliant (brillance), viscous (onctuosité), dark (limpidité)? And of course, there's a contiuum for each of these metrics, from pale to deep (intensity), from dull to coruscating (brilliance), from fluid to viscous (viscosity), from cloudy to crystal-clear (clarity).
2) Olfactory examination (examen olfactif)
Now that your eyes have had a taste, it's time to put your nose to work. But don't swirl yet--you don't want to get your noses out of order. Instead, do your sniffing comme ça:
A) First nose (le première nez)
These are the smells you detect first, before you've disturbed the wine too much, before too much oxygen has made it's way beneath the surface. It's your olfactory first impression, and can be broken down, French-style, into two categories: intensity (intensité) and quality (qualite). Intensité ranges along a contiuum from closed (ferme), to weak (faible), to aromatic (aromatique), to strong (puissant), to very strong (très puissant); qualité spans the spectrum from unpleasant (désagréable), to oridnary (ordinaire), to pleasant (agréable), to very pleasant (très agréable).
B) Second nose (le second nez)
Now swirl your glass a few times, and immediately take another whiff. Notice the difference? You might have picked up hints with le premiere nez, but now the wine begins to reveal itself aromatically. Cherries, plums, strawberries, citrus, chocolate, tobacco--all of those tantalyzing descriptors that make their ways onto the backs of wine labels--come to the surface. These are what the French refer to as the wine's "character" (caractère). You may also pick up defects (defauts); perhaps the wine is too old, had a bad cork, is oxidized, vinegary, just plain stinks.
But hopefully the wine's caractere is riche, complexe, or superbe. In that case, and with lots of practice, the French claim you can distinguish three types of aromas within the second nose. (We'll need to spend much more time amongst les vignes Français before we can really perform such viticultural dissections. What a bummer that would be.) Primary aromas are those associated with raw fruit, the odors unique to that particular grape harvest (cépage). Secondary aromas come about as a result of processing and fermentation. Tertiary aromas arise as the bottle is aged, and also as the wine is aerated once the cork is popped.
Speaking of which...
C) Third nose (le troisiemme nez)
As in most creatures, a third nose in wine is a rare thing. Le troisiemme nez refers to new aromas that are detected only after the wine has had time to soak up sufficient oxygen. Typically found in very complex wines, you are most likely to come across a third nose if you are drinking a big red varietal or a blend thereof. Pinot Noir, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre, and, of course, the "Bordeaux five"--Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot--among others, these are all candidates to produce a robust, layered wine whose second impression surpasses its first, and whose third impression leaves you feeling like you've won the wine lottery.
If you want an example, take a tandem bike ride from Carcassone to Beziers. Escape the four-o-clock heat at Le Cave de Les Vignerons, near Pouzouls-Minervois, just off the D11/D5/D67, in the heart of the Minervois wine-growing region. Ask to taste the 2008 Mourvedre, the one that was awarded a gold medal in Paris. Even if you and your partner are living on a strict combined budget of twenty euros a day, we gauarantee you'll fork over the eight euros for a bottle.
3) Tasting (examen gustatif)
The moment you've been waiting for: Take a sip. As the wine first touches your tongue, the sensation is more about feel than taste. Is the wine thin, medium, viscous? Now let your mouth go to town. In addition to the fruity grape flavors, you should be able to sense four characteristics: smoothnesss (moelleux), acidity (acide), tannins (tanine), and alcohol (alcool); and in each of the categories, the wine could be deficient (deficit), balanced (equilibre), or excessive (exces). For instance, a wine that is deficient in alcohol might be described as watery (aqueux); one that is balanced could range from light (leger), to generous (genereux), to strong (capiteux); while a French wine that is overly alcoholic would be called hot (chaud) or burning (brulant).
Tannic wines are very chalky--this tends to be the case with big red wines, especially younger ones. As Paige puts it, "It's like the wine is using the back of your mouth as a chalkboard. Kinda near the masseter muscle."
And just when you thought your nose could take a break, it's time to smell again. L'arome refers to the smells that you detect while the wine is in your mouth. These may be similar, or quite different from the wine's two (or three) noses. Regardless, they are a great excuse to gurgle. As the famous man once said, "I have a dream: That one day I shall walk into a French McDonald's to find not just internet, but wine on tap, and people of every race, creed, color gurgling in unison."
Finally, after all of this sensory input, there is aftertaste (longueur). The French have a precise measure of longueur--la caudelie. Caudelies measure the number of seconds the taste of the wine persists after swallowing; one caudalie equals one second. Mediocre wines (vin mediocre) will have longueur that is too short (tres court), lasting only 1 or two seconds. Simple wines (vin simple)--perhaps a basic Chardonnay, or a red table wine, will produce two to four caudalies, which is considered a short aftertaste (un court longueur). An average (moyen) red will have five to seven caudalies, while a grand vin puissant (outstanding, powerful wine) will have eight to twelve caudalies. And if you ever find yourself with a taste that lingers for more than twelve seconds, it's time to stop and savor the eneological roses--you are in the presence of a fabuleux, legendaire, tres grand vin.
Such was the case for Paige and I at sunset in Cap d'Agde, on a hill overlooking the Mediterrenean, watching families fly kites against the backdrop of an ever-more roseate skyline. We sipped our bottle of mourvedre, deliberately, with that combination of satisfaction and remorse associated with all good things. If ever there was a wine that looked, smelled, and tasted like the best facets of the place it was grown--deep, jammy, ripe colors; myrtille, blackberry, mountain laurel aromas; slow, smooth, velvety fruit--this was it. The mourvedre's longueur persisted until well after dark.
We saved the bottle, just so we could catch a whiff of le troisiemme nez again in the morning.
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