tasting notes

IF LIKE me you are a regular restaurant person, you will have noticed the steady climb of wine prices and I believe that this Everest-like rise remains far from the summit.

So, if paying such prices you must ensure you demand your rights as a patron. By this, I don’t mean recruiting hoards of unkempt, hirsute professional protestors. Simply arm yourself with some wine knowledge to boost confidence when dealing with Sommeliers. Wine-wisdom becomes your modern suit of armour – an intimidation and waiter-proof vest.

There are dangers in discovering this “Holy Grail” of wine intelligence. The newly acquired wonder has highs and lows.

It will take you on a magic carpet ride of taste discoveries but on the downside, think of the expense. I say costly, because you will have an automatic reaction generated by the learning.

Almost immediately, because you know your subject, you will want better quality wines and they invariably sit at the higher cost level of the Bacchus list of charms.

I’ll also bet a case of Grange to a bent corkscrew that you will suddenly notice wine faults and the most prolific of these is the rotten, mouldy, dirty rugby sock nose of a “corked wine”.

Not only does this taint spoil the fragrance of the wine, it reduces the vibrancy of the flavours as it casts its foul character into the tastes of the wine. Incredibly, some sources place the incidence of cork spoilage at one in a dozen. Others even suggest frighteningly higher statistics.

This evil spoilage of a wine maker’s marvelous craft comes from a bacteria which taints the cork during processing (after all, the seals are only the bark of the humble cork-tree). The wine maker has no way of detecting a bad cork prior to it going into the bottling line.

When acute, the taint of a corked wine is easily detected. On the other hand, the spoilage can be faint and hides within the characters of the wine.

No doubt, the villain’s greatest form of camouflage is in the icy-chill of a white, revealing its vile character as the wine warms. A perfect reason to drink whites chilled rather than blizzardly cold.

Should you detect a corked wine or not – the victim is the wine industry. On complaint, the restaurant should return that bottle for replacement.

This brings me to the lazy waiter syndrome – a human blight almost as common as the corked wine epidemic in Western Australian restaurants and a bad habit that needs to be deleted.

A lazy wine waiter is the person serving you after you have selected a splendid wine and are enjoying the fruits of your brilliance with your companions.

Along comes the waiter. “More wine, Sir?” they rightfully enquire as everyone is talking, enjoying their evening.

“Same again?” is usually the next question. This acknowledged, the waiter correctly returns with another bottle of the same vintage and label.

This is when things go wrong. Without further reference to you, the lazy sod pulls the cork and pours the contents of bottle two into the residual wine in the glasses.

Considering the scourge of corked wines, our lazy waiter has just endangered the initial wine by pouring the second into the glass without the host’s permission and him taste checking the condition.

The latter wine will surely spoil the first if it has corked taint. And if that is the case, both should be struck off your account.

The waiter should have issued new glasses and offered you a taste for approval; or issued a single new glass to the host, poured a sample for approval and then served into the original glasses.

The latter of the two options is generally suitable in the modern restaurant scene. So I implore you not to be intimidated, do not tolerate this poor practice. Help me stamp it out.

Where to discover the “The Holy Grail”

The Wine Education Centre, Claremont Showgrounds.

Evening classes, bookings 9385 1699.