Lost for wine words in the Big Apple!

In my last post I shared my wine drinking experience with a Chinese business man in New Zealand. How about another one from the Big Apple – New York?

I was promoting Wine-Searcher.com at the New York Wine Expo this week, where thousands of wine consumers came to taste wines being poured by producers from all around the world. One couple kept coming back to the New Zealand wine table for more after visiting many other wine tables. They admitted to me that they were not wine connoisseurs but the normal wine drinkers who liked trying new wines. They were keen to learn the art of wine tasting but not so much the science, the jargon, the appellations or any of the fancy descriptors.

When I asked them which wines they liked and why, they simply responded by speaking plain English words and adjectives such as: This wine is better than the other, it is sweeter or tangier, it goes to my head faster, I like it very much, nice and fruity, I like the smell, Hmmm etc.

There were hundreds who came to the table where I was, young and old and surprisingly a flood of wine drinkers in the 25 to 35 age bracket. The language spoken by this age group was what I would call contemporary American English that you would hear in a restaurant, bar or at home.
While I did teach this particular couple about the basics of wine drinking which they appreciated very much, I did not even think of bombarding them with a “forced wine jargon” commonly heard in formal wine drinking occasions. Not that I didn’t know such vocabulary, I simply could not see its relevance or its value in the social or cultural context of this demographic.

What I do know is this lovely couple enjoyed the wines they drank. We met as total strangers in New York from different parts of the world – An American, A Polish-American and a Malaysian-Indian from New Zealand. And by the end of that evening we became great acquaintances. We exchanged emails and I promised them one thing they asked me to do. Post their picture I took of them on that night, here on my blogsite for all the world to see.

We enjoyed drinking and learning about wine in plain and simple English. Do you think that the current generation of wine drinkers like the ones in this picture are likely to become connoisseurs of the future and also change their wine language?

Wine and the clash of cultures

I went to Myanmar (Burma) once and stopped by a dusty road-side coffee stall. The locals were squatting on the kerb and drinking boiling hot coffee and tea in the scorching midday sun. What amazed me was the size of the cups which would take possibly 5 to 8 thimbles to fill up. They seem to take ages to take minute sips and chat away for hours exchanging stories of little significance, while their women slogged from dawn to dusk doing hard labour in the paddy fields or breaking rocks into smaller pieces with a standard hammer for building metal roads. The same coffee or chai drinking scene is common in Thailand, India and in the Middle East.

Wine drinking also has a western tradition and etiquette, often accompanied by pomp and ceremony. In formal wine tasting this includes, appearance, nose, palate, the swirling, the spitting and so on.

Now let me take you to a formal dinner I was invited to by a wealthy Chinese businessman. He wanted me to advise him on exporting New Zealand wines to China. He ordered some expensive wines for our dinner. The wine was simply poured into our glasses almost to the rim. My wealthy guest announced, “To long lasting friendship and business success”. (note, friendship precedes business). To my shock and horror, he then downed the entire glass of wine in one continuous gulp and then clinked his empty glass on the dinner table with a smirk. Guess what? He looked at me and expected me to do likewise. To avoid any embarrassment, I simply obliged only to have my empty glass quickly topped up by the waiter. Who needed a course in wine appreciation?

I then wondered whether he would also export this new wine drinking culture to China or was he unique in his drinking style? If there is a culture surrounding the drinking of coffee or tea in Asia, is there a clash of cultures when it comes to drinking wine?

Encounter with the Wine Queen

In the world of wine, there are a few wine experts who have gained international prominence. Robert Parker and his wine rating system is yet to be replaced by another metric or an alternate persona. Gary Vaynerchuk has a totally different approach, almost flamboyant yet well informed and interesting to watch and listen. Some are simply abhorred for their wine egos. Then there are those who are at the top of the pinnacle and almost worshipped like royalty. I recently had the privilege of meeting one such person, the Wine Queen herself. This post is about that encounter.

I have read her wine pages, wine encyclopaedia and communicated with her by email but to meet with her and learn more about who she really is was something else. I expected to see a bespectacled, ostentatious, snooty and aristocratic lady who spoke wine glossolalia like so many other top wine gurus. My experience was pleasantly different.

We had never met each other in person and I had arranged to meet with her at the Auckland Airport. Her plane landed earlier than expected. Suddenly I heard a soft spoken lady ask me, “Are you Adon Kumar? Yes I am”, I responded. “I am Jancis Robinson”, she introduced.

Soon we found a café and my encounter with a renowned wine Queen began. Jancis chose to drink a bottle of mineral water and I chose coke. How odd to skip wine! We spoke about the wine world, doing wine business online, wine economics, wine culture and a little about why she was in New Zealand (for a Pinor Noir event). During the hour long chat, we talked about the ordinary things in life.

Jancis came across as a genuine non-egotistical person and spoke with no plum in her mouth as some aristocratic British do. She was so down-to-earth, unassuming and fun to talk with. She was not pushing her barrow nor extolling her fame. The indigenous people of New Zealand, the Maori (Tangata Phenua or People of the Soil) have a very special word to describe the quality that Jancis exuded. The word is Mana. People and inanimate objects can have mana or a spiritual quality, often considered to be of supernatural origin. People with mana command authority and respect without asking for or seeking it. Such people have a “presence” which is experienced by being with them or imparted by the way they talk and act or when they simply walk into the room.

Mana is a quality that is rarely found in the snobbish world of wine. Yet I found mana in the Wine Queen – Jancis Robinson. That day we exchanged mana because it is possible.

What has been your experience with your Master of Wine? Would you have expected Jancis to be such a person had I not shared my rendezvous with her?

If shitty Durian is King, who is the Queen?

I was reading the producer’s description of a Gold Medal winning wine and this is how they described it: “On the nose our wine shows aromas of stony apricot, mandarin and white peach. This wine bursts in the mouth with a mingling of stony sweet fruits including apricots, papaya, mangosteen and hints of durian. With extremely long finish, this well-structured wine begs for the accompaniment of food – anything needing a slight hint of sweetness to offset spicy or succulent foods, including Thai, Indian and Chinese cuisines”

Can you guess what wine this is and where it is produced? This description caught my eye instantly because it is an innovative and culturally sensitive one. I could identify with a number of oriental fruits referenced in the description and I salivated even without tasting or smelling this wine. In my earlier post I wrote about the Asian King of Fruits called Durian. Now I want to introduce you to mangosteen whose flavour is said to burst in the mouth of the consumer of the aforementioned wine. Are you any closer to guessing the wine or the grape varietal?

When I lived in Malaysia some 30 years ago, we used to eat Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), also known as the Queen of Fruits. It is a delicious aromatic fruit. Its outer skin (exocarp) is deep purple with high levels of tannins, xanthones and polyphenolic acids. When a ripe fruit is squeezed between two palms, it breaks open and exposes the edible cluster of white flesh which is wedged-shaped like cloves of garlic or tangerine. This succulent endocarp is extremely delicious with a distinct sweet and tangy flavour, a bit like a golden peach. Mangosteen’s nutrient and health properties especially when combined with the properties of the outer endocarp are astounding and claims about its healing capacity may at times be exorbitant.

I am pleased however to say that mangosteen is now beginning to appear in the flavours of wine, not because the favour is a new discovery but because the Queen of Asian Fruits has been tasted by wine connoisseurs.

Now to get back to my wine quiz, the wine description in this post is not an Asian wine. It is a Napa Valley Estate Bottled White Riesling from Hagafen Cellars at Mayeri Vineyard. I commend Hagafen for their fortitude in using Mangosteen and Durian (the Queen and King) to describe one of their best wines.

From my readings, I understand that Mangosteen is now available in some parts of USA and Canada. Why not try eating some Mangosteens and let me know if you can experience this exotic aroma and flavour in your Riesling or any other wines.

The more fruits we taste, the richer our wine vocabulary. The more culture we experience the greater the transformation in our wine culture.