Next in wine knowledge for the beginner

(Want real, first-hand knowledge about wine? Try a few glasses.)

In my previous article about wine knowledge for new servers, I went over a lot of strategies for helping you start off on your journey as a server with absolutely no wine knowledge. If you're anything like me, you might be asking, "what comes next?"

Well my friends, there's quite a bit more to know about wine. There's no substitute for tasting the wines yourself; you can often get a lot of products in one go by visiting an organized tasting event. But again, that's all fine and dandy, but it still doesn't help us out as much as we'd like, does it? Personally, I sometimes have trouble finding the details of flavors, as I'm an asthma and allergy case and I always get stuffed up once I start smelling things a lot, or having drinks that are bitter. I often have to read the palette of aromas on the back of the bottle, or on the internet before I can actually sense the full flavor of the wine. So even though the best way to get knowledge is through personal experience, as is the case with me, there can be various problems with that.

(Knowing the aromas, and tasting notes of wines can be a huge advantage.)

One of the more obvious problems to come with the experience method is that it takes a long time to get said experience. This can cause some problems if you're trying to learn a lot of things in a short period of time, so much akin to my first article on the subject I'm going to give you the advice to take a step back, have a breather, and see the bigger picture. Have patience, and realize that the experience will come over time, and that the more you taste, the more you'll see patterns in certain varieties of grapes, and regions.

If you've gotten this far, you may be asking "What gives Thomas. You gave me a lot of ideas in your first article on this subject!" Okay folks, I'm holding out on you in a sort of way. But there's a good reason for that! I really, truly believe that along with the basics I suggested in my first article, you can strive as long as you are patient and diligent.

But as it happens, I do have something of more substance for you, too.

Wines are grouped into two main categories, which are based on firstly the species of grape, and secondly the region that the wine is produced in. These two things are the primary source of the wine's flavor. I'm going to go a bit deeper into this information about grapes and regions for you, but first we're going to touch a bit briefly on flavor - which should not be confused with taste.

(Taking blurry photos of wine isn't necessarily a good way to learn. But at least it shows that you're trying!)

Flavor is an interesting concept, and generally speaking, you most likely picture it as being synonymous with taste.  It isn't though. There are only five basic tastes, and every other taste is a combination of those five; sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savory. These five tastes don't make up for really complex flavors though. In fact, the combinations of the five tastes don't have much more depth than the basic tastes to begin with. Flavor is a combination of all of the senses. The most important ones are taste and scent, but touch is rather important too, and let us not forget sight and hearing, which are more important in your psychological perception of flavor. Taste and scent make up the primary palette of flavor in all things - not just wine. Taste is what you would describe as the initial flavor, and scent is the lingering aroma that follows. You have only five types of taste receptors but scent receptors (rather, olfactory receptors) number in the hundreds. In fact, 3% of your entire genome is devoted to scent receptors. As mentioned above, touch is quite important too. Touch provides texture, and spice (which is not a taste, but rather, a form of pain that reacts with chemical and temperature sensitive pain receptors). The remaining two senses play a pivotal role with perception of flavor, but this is merely a psychological effect, and not necessarily the classical meaning of flavor.

So friends, if you're still with me, note that the jargon above is important. It's important, because it describes ALL flavor, and not just wine, but it's particularly important for wine (or alcohol in general). There's a huge number of wine products out there, so it's impossible to know about all of them. However, as I mentioned above, there are a couple of keys to help you out. Grape species, and region.

And I think I have the perfect anecdote to help you understand.

Pinot Gris. Pinot Gris is a common species of wine grape, whose Latin name is Vitis vinifera. It's used in the production of Pinot Gris white wine, but a lot of confusion is caused in the fact that it's also used in the production of Pinot Grigio. Which isn't, the same wine. Now don't get all up in arms! The two wines are produced from the same species, but they aren't the same, and there's a very good reason for that. You see, Pinot Gris is from France, while Pinot Grigio is from Italy. But it's more than that, too. The climate, water, and soil quality make a huge difference in the flavor of the wine from those regions. But moreover, you should realize that the fermentation and aging process are also going to be different because of environmental differences between France and Italy. Even more confusion can come from the fact that a lot of Pinot Gris and Pinot Grigio aren't from France or Italy! So what gives?!

(Sake is often referred to as 'rice wine'.  Now that's some grade-C wine knowledge!)

Well, wine regions aren't only limited to the old world, but sometimes they carry over to new world wines as well. New world wines are essentially wines produced anywhere but Europe, and in the case of wines produced using the Pinot Gris grape, they can take whichever name the producer of wine chooses.

If you were wondering what the point of the anecdote is, allow me to clarify. Different regions and species produce different flavors. Simple as that. The trick to finding out about them all is by tasting them for yourself, and seeing the patterns, but never forget the lesson I tried to teach with my first article about wine knowledge: keep it simple.

Update: I stand corrected on my statement than vitis vinifera is the species name for the Pinot Gris grape. I've incorrectly understood varietals as being interchangeable with species, in this case. Varietals can be understood as a large pool of domesticated grapes of the same species.