Learn how to be a wine judge without ruining your reputation

This tasting of wine is a funny business. I find that there is a general reluctance to actually examine, let alone identify flavours and impressions during a tasting. It's as if the messages being relayed from the tongue and palate are lost on their way to the brain..as if there is such social intimidation tied up in the use of descriptive terms during wine tastings that, unless you're an "expert", it's simply not done to comment.

"I don't know a bloody thing about wine, I just drink the stuff....don't ask me, I wouldn't have a clue, just as long as it doesn't burn the back a me neck on the way down"..and so on and so froth.

I find that a real pity. If you or I were served a plate of fish and chips in the local sleazy greasy that smelt of rain freshened violets and perfectly ripened blackberries,... a deep fried flathead fish-cake that caressed the palate with smooth, fine-grained tannins...a couple of kilos of potato scallops that left you relaxed and convivial and emotionally invigorated, then there's a fair chance that you'd have something romantic to say to your local fishmonger. (Bye the way, if you do know of such a "serendipitous" café, let me know and there's an odds on chance that I, and most of my alcoholic friends, would take up permanent residence in such an extraordinary establishment.) However, put those same flavours and impressions into a claret bottle with a smart label, and not a peep. The conspiratorial barrier of silence falls. Why is this so.?

I was conducting a tasting recently when one of the "I don't know anything about plonk" brigade was tormented by me into making a comment on the tired old Shiraz before him.

"Well", lips pursed and limbs flailing about like a someone hand sowing oats, "well, (you bastard you) it smells like Bondi sewer. (So take that you smartarse)".

This noxious phrase may have been meant to embarrass the group. It was certainly intended to end his torment. Undeterred,(sic) my reply came.

"Correct" All sewers smell of hydrogen-sulphide, or at least sulphur derivatives. I would assume that the good bergs of Bondi, and the not so good ones of Double Bay contribute democratically to this end regardless of the provenance of their daily bread.

And the wine? .. well it had a case of bad-handling in its youth, or, at least a brush with a hipster winemaker anxious to avoid the time-honoured appropriate use of sulphur dioxide during vinous gestation. It DID have an excess of that weee-ha, good-'ol-sweaty-saddle so common in certain traditional styles from equally traditional areas.. I'm reliably informed that that same wine taster now associates her memory of Bondi merc with hydrogen-sulphide problems in wine, and impresses, ad-nausea-um, at local dinner parties.

So you see, there's nothing extraordinary in becoming a good wine taster. All you need is an ability to associate the flavours and aromas found in wine with tastes or sensations you've experienced in your lifetime.

It becomes a little more tricky when developing the ability to translate these impressions into word pictures common to your audience .(Try telling a winemaker that his or her newest creation in the grand tradition of Hunter earthiness reminds you of Bondi sewer, and see how inadequate your Medicare insurance is!) But slide into the "observation" with a "can you detect a slight hint of H2S on the nose," and you've made your point with a better than average chance of making it home alive.

To get the ball rolling, the next time you open a bottle of La Romanee-Conti '78, at $3500.00 a throw, see if you can detect a smoked oyster character on the nose. On the other hand, smoked oysters are only $2.00 a bucket at IGA this week.