Six years ago, my friend and phenomenal wine journalist Jon Bonné published a slim book whose title – The New Wine Rules – rightly implies that many alleged rules of wine need shedding. Do they ever!
And sometimes, while the old “rules” need discarding, no useful new ones can take their place, because intuition and serendipity rule the domain in question. On the other hand, I can propose lots of useful rules that didn’t make it into Jon’s list of 89 (yes, eighty-nine!).
How about these, for instance, when it comes to tasting:
- Never (ever!) pour wine into a wet, water-rinsed glass.
- Never (ever!) turn a natural cork upside down and re-insert it into the bottle.
- Whenever possible, in comparative contexts, taste red wine before white.
- Whenever possible don’t serve any wine at what we 21st century Usonians call “room temperature”
Whether you’re an amateur or a professional, I bet you’ve witnessed those rules being violated continually.
Why am I so convinced these are rules? And why am I posing that question here, rather than attempting to answer it over at WineWhys? Unabashed commercial self-interest: Enroll in “Wine 101” or “Pitfalls for Professionals” and I’ll fill you in on many matters – including strictly practical ones – that have, as far as I can tell from more than 40 years of experience, been ignored by those purporting to help folks navigate the sea of wine.
While I cannot disagree with Jon that “wine isn’t something you need to learn about in classes” (my emphasis ;- ) it’s something the appreciation and understanding of which can be jump-started as well as greatly enhanced by the right sort of classes … which, naturally enough, I think are those offered at CWA.