Big Wine Myths
Written By: Anonymous on Thu, Jan 31st 2008
Brian Freedman: Welcome to the Classic Wines Minute brought to you by ClassicWines.com; I am your host Brian Freedman. Join me as we explore the world of wine with the Sommelier instructors here at the Wine School of Philadelphia.
Keith Wallace: Hey folks, I am here today with Frank Ciparrone, one of my personal, actually my very favorite Sommelier instructor today.
Frank Ciparrone: Favorite! Well Keith I wish you should begin to pay me as if I were your favorite.
Keith Wallace: Family discount, Frank, family discount.
Frank Ciparrone: Well that's what I keep hearing and I guess I can live with it, Keith.
Keith Wallace: Well, today we are talking about Wine Myths. So Frank, talk to me about these "legs".
Frank Ciparrone: Well, people talk about legs in wine, all they mean is there is little tear droppy kind of formations that forms inside the glass when you do the all important swirl. Really they are indicating nothing except the amount of alcohol that's in the wine which, believe it or not Keith, I would rather experience on my palate than looking at it swirling around in a glass.
Keith Wallace: I can understand that. A lot of people talk about getting headaches when drinking a glass of red wine or a bottle of wine.
Frank Ciparrone: Well if they are drinking a bottle, they are obviously drinking way too much, that could be a problem. But most people describe this to the sulfates that they think are in wine. However, that's not the problem; the problem is they are probably having an allergic reaction to the histamines that they are contained in wine grapes.
Keith Wallace: You are smart, aren't you?
Frank Ciparrone: I try.
Keith Wallace: Oh that's sweet. Now Frank, a lot of people go out when they see a 92, 94 rated wine, they go out and run, buy, no matter what the price is. Is this a good idea to do?
Frank Ciparrone: It's something that I try and tell people to shy away from because too many times the people who are rating these are looking for specific things and they are rating the grapes according to what we say they are varietally correct. In other words, do they express the way that wine should be from that particular region or that particular place, or that particular grape?
Keith Wallace: I want to think of myself as a wine expert. I mean when I think that all these wine experts, whether the sommeliers or wine buyers or writers for certain magazines, don't they have some sort of extraordinary palates, so much better than anybody else.
Frank Ciparrone: People who drink wines for a living and rate them what they are doing is, they are like people who missed the beauty of the forest because they are looking at each little particular piece of bark on the tree and miss a lot of the really fine points about wine.
Keith Wallace: Well Frank, thank you for taking me down a few pegs, and folks I hope we arranged your mind knowledge up a few pegs and we look forward to you joining us again as we continue our journey through the world of wine.
