LCBO Food & Drink Summer 2016

How wine changes

Imagine you’re making a salad dressing. If you need to add more vinegar to get the right balance, you just do it. Or more herbs or a pinch of sugar… You don’t want to add seasonings to your wine but you can change your perception of it with temperature. Chilling doesn’t just make it feel more pleasant in your mouth. It lessens your palate’s sensitivity to

sweetness and raises your sensitivity to acidity and bitter- ness. But dropping the temperature also diminishes the evaporation of aromas and flavour compounds from the surface of the wine, so you sacrifice those lovely nuances if you cool it down too much. A wine that’s too cold is certainly re- freshing but smells and tastes of very little.     Going in the other direction, the warm- er a wine gets, themore volatile the alcohol in it becomes. So youmaximize the aromas, inmuch the same way that warming Cognac in a brandy snifter brings out its character. Warm it toomuch, however—or leave it out in the sun—and the alcohol starts to get clumsy, upsetting the balance of the wine. It’s all about balance in the end… Finding the point where all facets of your chosen vino are in perfect harmony.

EDUCATING SWEET RED WINES The fashion for sweetish, jammy red blends has been with us for a couple of years. Should someone bring one of them to your house, chill it down. I did this with Black Cellar Shiraz Cabernet ( LCBO 355933, $10.95). At room temperature, it was all fruit juice. Five minutes in the ice bucket took down the ripe sweetness and allowed a hint of tannin, acidity and spiciness to emerge in a much more interesting way. The same with The Dreaming Tree Crush Red ( LCBO 310391, $17.95) from California. Slightly chilled, it suited my palate much better.

AND PINOT NOIR? I still can’t bring myself to chill red Burgundy. So much of its person- ality hinges on powerful but insubstantial aromas. When a sommelier in a restaurant serves it cold, I warm it up with my hands to let it express itself. Some New World Pinots are less ethereal creatures. Stoneleigh Marlborough Pinot Noir from New Zealand ( LCBO 54353, $18.95) has fruitiness to spare and works well a few degrees cooler. I’d do the same to Australian and South American Pinot Noir on a hot day—but not to the more subtle and highly strung Burgundian-style Pinots from Ontario and Oregon.

106  FOOD & DRI NK SUMMER 2016