Wine Comedy Show

We had signed up to attend a "Wine Comedy Show", presented by Mark Phillips, author ("Swallow This"), PBS host of "Enjoying Wine with Mark Phillips" (6 years on PBS, most watched wine show of all time), and new resident at our park, Venture Out in Mesa. It was not particularly a comedy show, though he did tell a couple of jokes, but more of an informative, enjoyable session about wine.

He started by sharing that "experts run the wine world", full of rules and being intimidating to those who aren't "in the know". He prefers the "Who cares?" approach, enjoying the wine you enjoy, and not being forced into thinking you like some expensive wine when you really could not care less!

His book was available for purchase at the event. It is also on Amazon in its second edition.

He did the show 4 times as the amount of people who wanted to attend were too many for the venue he was booked into (Oasis room) -- he tried to get into the ballroom but it was not available for him to use. We attended the last of the 4 scheduled shows.

One of the things he shared with us was an "impressive" way to open a champagne (or bubbly wine) bottle by knocking the top of the bottle off with a champagne flute! He invited members of the audience to come up and demonstrate and two ladies went up to give it a try and were successful!

The majority of his talk was about "Why buying expensive wine is not worth it:" 

There are 5 characteristics, all of which must be right, to make the expensive wine "worth it" -- the probability of all 5 being right is low.

1) Vintage: You need to be knowledgeable about the vintages of the wine. Every vineyard makes wine every year, but some years have too much rain, or not enough rain, or hail -- which can damage the taste of the wine. He gave as an example a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild -- he had purchased a collection of wine from a collector who was moving out of the US and could not take it with him. The collection included several bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, including from 1991 -- a bad year. The bottles of this wine would normally sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars and he knew that in purchasing the collection, he was getting some very very good years, and some bad - like 1991. I just did a search online (to make sure I was spelling the winery correctly) and found that there are bottles available of the 1991 vintage priced from $400s to over $1200 -- for a single bottle of, what is said to be a poor vintage, of wine! He indicated that there are charts online of vintages that you can use for guidance, but it is a lot to have to research if you just want to pick up a bottle of wine for an occasion.

2) Maturity date: Expensive wines (the 2%) are meant to age to maturity, for the ingredients to meld and the flavor to develop. 98% of wines are meant to consume right now, "on the drive home from the store!" 

For the wines that need to mature, sometimes there is a big window to maturity. If you open a bottle and it is "too young" (the flavor hasn't evolved), you can let it breathe - contact with air will hasten aging - put it in a wide carafe (in the bottle is not sufficient - "a sink or a bathtub would be better!"). It may mature sufficiently in a matter of minutes or maybe hours.

3) Taste of older wines: You need to ask, "Do I like the taste of older wine?" 95% of people prefer box wine and won't enjoy the taste of older wines, an acquired taste, no fruitiness, but "complexity".

4) How has it been stored?: "If you have a bottle of wine that you've been saving for a special occasion, you might as well drink it this evening. You'll probably never come to an occasion that you think is *special enough* to drink it, and you probably have not been storing it appropriately and it will taste like vinegar anyway!" 

Wine should be stored at a constant 53-55F, in a dark environment. If you don't have it stored at 55F, for every 18 degrees warmer than 55F (such as at 72F, our normal household temperature) the wine will age 8 times faster - so if it was supposed to age 8 years to reach maturity, it could do that in just a year at our normal household temperature.. "Go ahead and drink it now!"

5) Who you have it with: the company you are with when you consume it. He talked about going out with his "future ex-wife" to The Inn at Little Washington for a fancy meal. They had a special wine on the menu that he ordered for this special occasion - but she was not impressed. He gave another example of taking a fine wine to share with a friend and the friend mixed it with Red Bull (horrors!). 

He told us a story of being on a show where he and another wine connoisseur were being interviewed. The host asked as a last question, "If you were given a great bottle of wine, with whom would you share it?" Neither of them had been prepared to answer this question, but they both immediately said, "No one!" They recognized that the lack of enjoyment by the other person would diminish their own enjoyment, and therefore, they'd rather have it alone!

Other points:

At what temperature should wine be served? The classic answer is that white wine should be chilled and red wine at room temperature. He said:

• 40F - too cold for wine - masks the flavor of any beverage. "You know the beer cans that change the color of the mountain when the can is ice cold? That means that their inferior beverage is now cold enough that your taste buds won't be able to tell how bad it is!"
• 50F - target temperature for white wine, cheaper wine can be served colder. More expensive wines more toward 55F. Lower temps will enhance fruitier wines.
• 65F - target temperature for red wine. Drink cooler than "room temperature" (maybe "room temperature" in the climate of the "wine experts" is generally cooler than what we are used to!). Boxed Merlot serve at 60F. Over 70F will get the heat of the alcohol (I'm not sure what he meant by this!)

Don't buy air removal tools to preserve wine after it is opened; his opinion is that they don't really work. An argon layer works a little to keep it from aging. Another option is to put the leftover wine in a smaller container to exclude as much air as possible (Ziploc bag, Tupperware, plastic water bottle) -- make sure the whole container is full. Still minimize how long you keep it - one day for white wine. You can keep red wine 2-3 days in refrigerator -- microwave it 15 seconds to bring to the correct temperature for consumption -- yes, microwave! He said that high quality restaurants do this to bring the wine that has been kept in the wine cellar (53F) to the correct temperature for serving. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KWfL6KW_A4)

If you've had a party and multiple bottles have been opened and need to be stored, they can be frozen. Make sure that at least 5 ounces are taken out of the bottle (room for expansion in freezing), re-cork, and freeze for up to 6 months. You can also use ice cube trays to freeze wine - a standard ice cube tray produces 2 oz cubes -- good for use in recipes. Don't bother using expensive wine for cooking - even expensive restaurants use box wine for cooking.

At a restaurant -- not a good idea to order a single glass of red wine -- you don't know how the bottle has been taken care of since it was opened -- it may have been sitting behind the bar with the cork in it, not being temperature controlled. If red wine does not taste good, you may find that putting ice cubes in will improve the taste as they will chill the wine. Since red wine should be served at 65F, you may need to put it in an ice bucket to keep it at an ideal temperature based on our ambient temperatures (in Arizona).

If you order a bottle of wine, why does the server uncork it in front of you and provide you with the cork? What are you supposed to do with the cork? He said that there was nothing particular you should do with the cork to determine that you should send the wine back (all possible observations of the cork (dry, moist, moldy outside) could have an explanation that would not damage the wine). Rather, the server uncorks it in front of you so you know that you are getting the wine you asked for. Evidently, there was a situation years ago where a restaurant was found to be re-filling bottles of an expensive wine with a cheap wine and serving it as if it was the expensive wine -- by you seeing the server uncork the wine, you know you're getting what the outside of the wine bottle indicates it to be.

A couple of other videos I found online from Mark Phillips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw1lu_ztScI, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wif7iGs91V4

Probably more about wine than anyone wants to know! The net of the talk was, if you have a wine that you like, enjoy it, and don't worry about what other people like or what you are "supposed" to like!