A Day of Wines…and More Wine
Our international cooking classes temporarily over, I head off to café ysabel today for an afternoon of wine tasting. I am a bit ecstatic over our session today. I don’t usually take alcohol, but what the heck – today I am determined to try it all out and learn what I have to learn. Following Chef Bel’s advice, I decide to wear something light and comfy today – my brown Einstein shirt and sneakers – brown to cover up any wine stains that might accidentally spill on my shirt.
At ten am, Chef Gene orients us on what we are abouat to do, “You are going to do sensory evaluation before the actual wine tasting,” he tells us as Miss Marilyn distributes the handouts. I look at the list and see a checklist of classified flavors and fragrances. Memories of my sensory evaluation class in my senior year in college suddenly come pouring like chinks of sunlight in between slits of time: Sensory Evaluation. Dr. Mabesa. How we used to evaluate Eight o Clock for different sensory tests every meeting, yes, every meeting, for one whole semester ( except for maybe, three sessions where we had to detect scents and other fruit flavors) to the point of saturation when our tummies and taste buds had no choice but to wave white flags. Today, after several years of being away from the sensory evaluation lab, I am back again – minus the accompanying statistical analysis, the compartmentalized sensory evaluation booths, in a different setting with a different set of people.
Chef Gene gives us the go signal and so, we enter the fine dining area and witness an array of small glasses containing liquids of various colors and hues, carefully arranged on a long table opposite the large mirror. Classified in groups arethe different flavors and aromas: floral, tropical, fruit, oak; yeasty, earthy and moldy, herbal and vegetative, smokey and chemical. I decide to start off with the milk and vanilla based flavors, with most of my classmates trooping to the herb flavored stuff , sniffing away our scent memories, probably having flashes of memories of a certain place or time in the process. We sniff and and recall all the scents in those little glasses – custard, pomelo, tarragon, celery, kiamoi, basil, even gasoline and diesel that my poor nerves couldn’t detect even if my olfactories were the last ones to fail should I breathe my last. By the time I get to the last group of scents, my olfactories are already overwhelmed, inundated by the rush of scents that my brain wouldn’t make out of anymore.
In the afternoon, we go directly to the long table. Mia, Rona and I decide to sit opposite Chef Gene for us to be able to hear his annotations clearly, thereby making note-taking easier. In a few minutes after being seated, Mia feels the chill from the new airconditioner which is practically juxtaposed with her. “Wag kang mag-alala,” I say, “di ka na giginawin later pag nakainom na tayo.” Which is true as alcohol heats your body up. Which is why nature dictates that sex and alcohol are the perfect duo. Well, arguably so. MIa ends up placing a pair of table napkins on her shoulders, that later on is replaced with Ben’s polo.
After a few minutes, Sir Cosme and the waiters start pouring the wine on our respective glasses, with Miss Marilyn handing us the list of the wines we are about to try. I am aghast. The handout shows an extensive list of whites and reds, about 21 of them, all waiting to be assessed, with all their flavors and scents to be jotted down on our notebooks. Hah — good luck, Colette, is all that I could manage to mutter.
We kick off our wine tasting with the whites, with Chef Gene instructing us to aerate our wines by swirling the glasses. This is to allow the oxygen to ripen our wine, he says. We tip it and observe its clarity, taking note if it has sedimentation. We swirl it again to check for the body, swirl it one more time to check for legs, which according to chef Bel looks like cooking oil clinging to the sides of the pan. We then sniff it and detect for familiar scents. Finally, we take a sip and try to note down the presence of various flavors.
Several months ago, I watched Sideways, a film about wine and friendship. I watched it at a time when wine was totally foreign to me, and was amused in one of the scenes where the two male protagonists did a wine tasting, with guy number 1 detecting thoroughly detecting specific scents of edam cheese, boysenberries (or was it raspberries) and guy number two having this “really?” or was it “duh” look. Amusing. Because I’d probably have the same reaction as guy number two had. I think I know how it feels like to be in his shoes.
By the time I reach my third glass, I already feel tipsy, which is much like nursing a slight fever. The great thing about is that we get to enjoy our glasses of wine with good food, which becomes even better with our wines.
First exercise, Chef Gene advises us to take the wine alone. He then tells us, “Okay, now, sip the lemon and follow it with the wine.” We do it, and whoah, am amazed at how acid can really improve the taste of wine – from being a basic, slightly sour, alcoholic liquid – we taste the sweetness that the acid from the lemon contributed to the flavors in our mouths. We sip wine after sprinkling a bit of salt on our lemons and realize how much the flavor has improved: the wine becomes better, the flavor, more balanced.
And off we go with a barrage of wines,starting off with the whites, with Sir Cosme and the Café Ysabel waiters pouring the wines onto our glasses, replenishing it whenever needed, and the appetizers approaching us like a deluge. Honestly, we are overwhelmed by this feast that even Rona, who sits on my right, remarks, “Sana araw-araw ganito!” I couldn’t agree more.
From our Butterly Ridge Chardonnay paired off with the lemon, we go to Monkey Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2005 and Gruner-Veltliner Smaragd 2002 Terrasen both of which are to be paired with Steamed Fish with Lobster Sauce. Heavenly!
We proceed to Ernest & Julio Gallo Chardonnay 2004 to the Prahova Dry Muscat 2003, all with seafood or white meat, and not without us detecting for flavors and aromas and the presence of tannis. Chef Gene calls for the next set of wines at an even faster pace; we are wont to chase after the flavors we ought to detect. “Do you detect cat’s pee?” someone from the PM class asks me. Do I detect it? I munch a piece of bread, snatch a handful of coffeebeans from the nearby saucer and smell it to refresh my overwhelmed sense of taste and smell and go back to sniffing the wine. Still I can’t detect the cat’s pee. “But I can detect the lychee here,” I say, holding out another glass of wine in my hand.
We go to the reds: the Georges Duboef Beajolais Village 2004, the Camelot Pinot Noir 2004, San Valentin Grenache 2004 and so on and so forth, enjoying them with Salmon with Capers, Butter and Pernod. With the pizza, we sip a glass of Valpolicella which has strong leathery/stable smell and yes, kalamata olives but when that student from the PM class remarks that he detects almonds..well, I couldn’t anymore. We check the reds for their body and tannins. Rene Barber especially has strong tannins and a lot of spice.
The most exciting part of the tasting comes – we are now into the dessert wines. The chefs bring us a cavalcade of desserts including a milk chocolate hazelnut mousse which is absolutely heaven on my palate. We pair it with Botrytis Semillon, which according to our chef, is a product of noble rot in grapes. I like it – with its raisiny, fruity and mango notes. I also like the caramel-y, orange-y flavors of the Moscatel, with the caramel/arnibal notes taking the lead.
To my utter amazement, I realize I’ve taken this wine seminar by heart, finishing almost all of the glasses to the last drop. Somebody from our group notices my cheeks and ears flushed. I can only manage to smile. Fortunately, I have Ma Kiko, our driver to drive me all the way to San Pablo. And I have Rona whose ample thighs I can lean my head on in the car while I am off chasing butterflies in my late afternoon dream.
