But it’s not a skill that comes easily to me. Not enough practice spitting watermelon seeds as a child, maybe? My brothers all played baseball and chewed tobacco, so there was certainly lots of spitting going on my midst, but I never studied their form that closely. I can do a decent spit take, but the prevailing ethos there is diametrically opposed to the rules of wine expectoration — the point of the spit take is to spray liberally, messily, and with comic effect.

For me, the challenge of spitting is applying just enough force.  Spit too hard and you’re dealing with a seriously unpleasant backsplash situation. Not hard enough, and there’s a little rivulet of red snaking down your chin. As with too many things in life, I’ve erred on the side of timidity — hence the dribble factor. Well no more! I’m about to a parent, and what child wants her mom to be a weak wine spitter?

Therefore, I’ve decided to use my drinking hiatus to improve my spitting proficiency. I will devote the rest of my pregnancy to mastering the art of spitting. (Plus eating right, getting lots of rest, learning how to take care of these things once they arrive, blah, blah, blah.)

I’m starting off with some research, which I’ll gladly share. There are various schools of thought on the matter.

Here’s Michael Steinberger in Slate, interviewing uber-sommelier/importer/wine guy about town Daniel Johnnes on his method:

“It is essential … to put the right amount of wine in your mouth; he recommends between one-quarter and one-half ounce. Once you have tasted the wine and are ready to expel it, you pucker your lips, tighten your cheeks, and press your tongue up against your top teeth, broadening the tongue so that it extends past the molars on each side. This pools the wine between the top of your tongue and the roof of your mouth. The key, Johnnes says, is muscle control and force: You need to generate sufficient power to push the wine out while maintaining your form throughout the process.”

That’s awfully…specific. I’m not sure if I know what one-quarter or one-half ounce feels like in my mouth, but if this effort requires using measuring spoons, so be it.

Of course, there’s Miss Glou Glou, who manages to be both forceful and delicate at once — with extra style points for not sullying her hyper-Frenchie scarf. (I’ve posted this before, but couldn’t help myself. She’s just so charming. And if you don’t speak French, you can still watch and follow along.)

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t quote Jancis Robinson, from her ever-useful How To Taste:

“When it makes sense to spit, you should be proud rather than ashamed to do it. You may associate expectoration with rather seedy old men and pavements, but wine people have perfected the art of doing it with great style. ‘Spit with pride’ might well be the wine taster’s motto. The stylish spit is forceful, an elegant trajectory with not the merest suggestion of a dribble, aimed dead center of the spittoon.”

I shall work on my stylish spitting and report back.

The tasting prodigies. These are people who are absolutely brilliant tasters. They can detect faults with a single sniff, excel at blind tastings, and have astounding recall of every wine they’ve ever tasted. The rarest of all breeds, but definitely the showiest.

The walking encyclopedias. No grape variety is too obscure, no corner of the wine-producing world is too hidden for these wine scholars. Impossible to stump, they are rarely shy about sharing their vast knowledge.

Uber-specialists. In the tradition of Isaiah Berlin’s hedgehog, these folks know one big thing. Often, the one big thing they know is Italy, which seems to inspire more specialists than any other nation. (And who could blame them?)

Varsity bullshitters. Alas, the most common of all wine smarties. Bluster and confidence can carry you very far in some wine circles. This is what happened to that guy in your AP English class who never seemed to read anything but still managed to get a 5 on the exam.

The master senseis. Next to the tasting prodigies, these peeps are the toughest to find. They’re incredibly gifted at sharing what they know in a way that excites, educates–and doesn’t intimidate–the beginner. This is the kind of wine intelligence that I’m trying very hard  to cultivate–and that I’d like to see more of in the wine world.

The “Genius Wine Master” at work in this video — Master Sommelier Tim Gaiser — is probably a combination of the tasting prodigy and the master sensei. There’s some truly helpful stuff here, with a comprehensive breakdown of see/smell/sip, as well as a useful disclaimer that context (where you’re tasting, and who you’re tasting with) has a big impact. The advice to make a mental collage of what you’re tasting, picturing fruits and spices and the like in your mind’s eye, makes a lot of sense for visual learners. At $50, it seems a bit steep for information you could find for $20 in a book (or for $0 online) but if you like video learning and don’t mind throwing money at this problem, you could do worse.

My only real objection to the video is the name. I don’t know what a “wine genius” is. As I tried to show above, I think there are different kinds of “wine intelligence,” but the idea of genius when it comes to wine seems facile,  somehow too lofty and too limiting all at once. (The other topics of genius study? Getting straight As, sales, and copywrighting.) When I think of a “genius,” I think of either someone who famously deserves the label–say, Einstein–or else someone who has an extremely specific, limited skill, as in “that guy’s a genius at fixing up old Vespas.” (No offense to Vespa mechanics. Or Einstein.)

What I don’t think of is someone who has devoted countless hours to the endlessly rewarding–and occasionally frustrating–pursuit of understanding what happens when grapes become something else entirely. What do you call that? Passionate amateur? Wine-crazed fool? I’ll take those over “genius” any day.

I always think of those whenever I’m chatting with someone who’s new to wine. I mean, really new to wine, as in “I’ve had wine a few times and think I like it…but am not sure what to try next. How do I know what I like?” If you haven’t tried a lot of wines, it’s tough to get your bearings. To tell a newbie that something takes a little like a Carneros Chardonnay means nothing if you’ve never had a Carneros Chardonnay. Instead, I quiz them about what other beverages they prefer. That way, if they tell me they like Tang, I know they’ll love…well, actually, I don’t know anyone who likes Tang. And frankly I have no idea what the wine equivalent would be. But here are some other ones that are much easier to translate:

Lemonade: Easy–German Riesling, which has that same perfect tension between tart and sweet.

Black tea: Tannic, bitter, and a little earthy, it’s the ideal gateway beverage to Barolo, Barbaresco, or pretty much anything else made from Nebbiolo

Black coffee: Syrah, especially from the Northern Rhône. In my favorite Syrahs I always get lots of coffee notes.

Coke: Rioja. Aging in American oak creates all kind of vanilla and spice notes, hallmarks of the taste of Coca-Cola.

Any Starbucks variation on a theme of coffee and chocolate: Ripe, rich California Merlot with a ton of mocha notes.

Cranberry juice: Pinot Noir (outside of Burgundy), Dornfelder, Gamay. Anything with bright, tart, red fruit.

Water: Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

One of the best wine tasters I’ve ever met is from the Philippines. One the face of it, that doesn’t seem like a particularly interesting statement.

But think about it for a second.

Even if you’ve never been to the Philippines, you could probably guess what kind of fruits and vegetables grow there. Coconut, pineapple, banana, mango, squash, taro, bamboo shoots, okra…the usual tropical suspects. And the Philippines being an archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you might imagine it would be tough and expensive to import fruits and vegetable that don’t grow there. So if you’re living in the Philippines, most of what you eat probably comes from the Philippines.

So with that in mind, let’s take a look at some recent Daily Wine Picks from The Wine Spectator:

ZENATO Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2005 (90 points, $70) Pretty aromas of boysenberry and sliced plum lead to a full body, with unctuous ripe fruit. Round and ready.

SANTA BARBARA Chardonnay Santa Barbara County 2008 (87 points, $17) Clean, fresh, ripe and pure. Medium-bodied, with a mix of lemon and citrus-laced green apple, spice and floral scents.

Boysenberry. Probably not a lot of berry cultivation in the tropics. Ditto for plums and apples. None of these fruits are likely to be in heavy rotation (if at all) in the average Philippine diet. The “floral scents” my friend likely grew up with–ylang-ylang, hibiscus, jasmine, etc. –are worlds apart from the rose/honeysuckle/violet aromas that I (and, I’d venture to say, the author of this tasting note) know well.

Not surprisingly, my friend found tasting in the U.S. really hard at first. She had no idea what a boysenberry tasted like. When she moved here, she spent hours training herself on what boysenberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, red apples, yellow apples and green apples tasted like in fresh/cooked/preserved form. She tested herself constantly, and was eventually able to recognize and talk about these aromas and flavors in wine with impressive accuracy and eloquence.

So why am I telling you this? To call attention to the Eurocentrism of wine tasting notes? Hardly. I’m sharing this for two reasons. First, as a reminder that every person’s palate is different, due to biology, culture and experience. If your wine-savvy friend is waxing rhapsodic about the aroma of green papaya emanating from her glass of Chardonnay and you can’t smell it, don’t freak out. Maybe she backpacked around Thailand when she was 22 and dined on green papaya salad every night. There’s probably  something you’ll be able to spot that she never would have noticed.

And second, I want to assure you that it’s possible to train your palate. Cook with a new spice or fruit or vegetable. Eat at that Ethiopian/Nepalese/Honduran place down the block you’ve always wanted to try. And don’t just do it once. Come back to these different aromas and flavors repeatedly, talk about them with your dining companions, take notes on them, whatever it takes to get them fixed in your mind. You’ll accumulate a store of sensory experiences you can refer to when you’re tasting wine. You’ll find that some of these new aromas, particularly the ones you really love (or really hate), are easy to suss out, while others will elude you. That’s OK. Keep at it. Be patient, don’t be too hard on yourself–and remember that building a great palate is just as important (if not more so) than building a great cellar.

Take, for example, Bonarda. Several different grape varieties are known by this name, but chances are if you see the word “Bonarda” on the label, you’re drinking a wine that’s not made from Bonarda at all.

I know. I know. Let me ‘splain: there’s “Bonarda” from Italy and “Bonarda” from Argentina. Three different grapes go by the name “Bonarda” in Italy. There’s the Bonarda that’s planted in north central Italy, particularly the Oltrepò Pavese and Colli Piacentini regions. That’s actually the Croatina grape. (If you see the word “Bonarda” on the label of an Italian wine, you’re likely drinking one of these wines.) Then there’s the Bonarda that’s planted in Piedmont, in northwest Italy, that’s really the Uva Rara variety. Finally, there’s the real, and very rare, McCoy: Bonarda Piemontese (also, somewhat obviously, from the Piedmont region). As you can probably guess, nomenclature in the wine world can be imprecise, and nowhere more so than in Italy.

Now for “Bonarda” from Argentina, which you’re much more likely to see at your local wine store. This is–surprise!–a completely different grape. It’s actually Charbono (also known as Corbeau in France, for those keeping score at home). Nonetheless, we’ll call it Bonarda here because, well, that’s what they call it in Argentina, where it’s the second-most-planted red variety after Malbec. And like its much more famous compatriot, Bonarda is a terrific value. I’ve never seen a Bonarda for more than $20, and they often come in around $15 or less. However, Bonarda provides a very different taste experience than Malbec, whose primary appeal is its deep, chocolate and plum flavors and soft, smooth texture. Bonarda, on the other hand, offers bright fruit, spice, and earth. What it lacks in body, it makes up for in acidity. Bonarda produces straightforward wines, meant to be drunk young. I can vouch from experience that Bonarda-and-burgers is a winning combo.

Paul and I enjoyed this Colonia las Liebres 2008 Bonarda along with some hamburgers straight from the grill. Made by Malbec mega-producer Altos los Hormigas, this Bonarda is a bit softer and rounder than most other versions I’ve tried. Still, the characteristic red fruit and spice flavors are there. It reminds me of one of my favorite quick desserts, strawberries macerated in some balsamic vinegar and topped with a few grindings of black pepper. If you were to distill the essence of that dish — fruity, tart, and peppery — you’d have this Bonarda. This is not a remotely complex wine, but it is a satisfying one. I found it at my local wine store for $12, but I’ve seen it online for as little as $9.99.

It’s understandable. The wines are rarely cheap. The word is hard to pronounce (Vee-o-NYAY, for a rough approximation). And the flavor profile isn’t an obvious sell for people who like their whites crisp and refreshing. These are wines with meat on their bones. The aromas are rich and honeyed, and what the wines may lack in acidity, they make up for in body and alcohol. The relatively low acidity of Viognier means it’s never going to be my absolute favorite variety of all time. As I’ve said before, I’m a sucker for acidity.

Viognier shines in the northern Rhône, particularly in the tiny Condrieu appellation. The small size of Condrieu, as well as the difficulties of growing this grape (its yields are low) help to explain the high prices these wines fetch. Fun fact: Viognier can also be blended with Syrah to create the powerful, intense red Côte Rôtie wines that are close to my heart–a very, very rare example of white variety being allowed in a red wine.

There are also some good Viogniers stateside, from California and Virginia in particular. This 2007 Praxis Viognier ($20) from Lodi, in California’s hot and sunny Central Valley, is one example. (Full disclosure: this wine is carried by wine importer/wholesaler Todd Wernstrom of Ice Bucket Selections, an avid STBNY commenter and newish Twitter friend. Todd recommended that I try the wine, which I paid for myself.) The Praxis, which is a side project from Napa Cabernet specialist Bill Arbios, has a pretty golden cast, a distinctive feature of the grape. The nose is orange-blossom honey and grapefruit, with a hint of musky fruitiness too, a little like unfiltered apple juice. There’s more honey on the palate, plus some apricots (a tell-tale sign of the grape), as well as some almonds on the lengthy finish. The wine is fermented entirely in stainless steel, which provides some welcome restraint. (Fermenting the wine in oak barrels would make the wine more unctuous — and increase the price.) It’s full-bodied, and it wears its 13.6% alcohol well enough. This an unabashedly pretty wine, and one that would go nicely with, say, scallops in cream sauce or a pseudo-Moroccan chicken dish with dried fruits, nuts and cinnamon. I opened this wine on a Thursday night and it tasted just as good when I pulled it out of the fridge on Monday evening. In part because it’s sturdy enough to hold up nicely for a few days, but also because after a weekend of tasting racy, high-acid and light-bodied Finger Lakes Rieslings, this full-bodied, lush wine was just the ticket.

One final fun fact: Viognier is the sole grape allowed in Château-Grillet, one of the only French appellation that consists of a single wine estate.

Many of these wines are, like sherry, made with deliberate oxidation. That means the winemaker intentionally, and very carefully, exposes them to oxygen during the winemaking/aging process. (Too much oxygen is usually the enemy of wine–think of how a cut apple browns when it’s exposed to air and you get the idea.) But if you carefully manage the wine’s exposure to oxygen, you get a nutty, tangy, almost salty quality to them. The fanciest and most expensive Jura wine from the Savagnin grape is called vin jaune — literally, “yellow wine.” From reputation, I know that these wines are incredibly long-lived and oddly spicy. Sadly, I have never had the opportunity to try one (although if anyone out there has a bottle in their cellar they’d like to share, don’t be afraid to drop me a line). Happily, though, I did have a chance to try this Côtes du Jura Les Chassagnes Ouillé ($28) from Phiippe Bornard, a biodynamic producer. A few things to know about this wine before you dig in: first, it has this very cool wax seal, which you can easily cut through with the little knife attachment on your corkscrew.

Second, the wine is not crystal clear. There’s definitely some cloudiness, here but it’s nothing to worry about — it’s typical of the wine style and this producer’s non-interventionist wine making approach.

The wine itself is tangy and saline, like the aftertaste of spending the day at the beach. There’s some citrus and stone fruit and honey here too, but it’s really the sherry-like twanginess that stays with you. It’s a terrific match for cheeses, particularly one of its mountain compatriots, such as Comté, or an aged Gouda.

Whether you’re at the symphony, in a room full of Rembrandts, or even watching a baseball game, it’s way too easy to let your mind wander. You start out with the best of intentions, but before you know it, your head is somewhere else–you’re thinking about organizing your receipts, whether you need to buy more Brita filters, what to delete from your Netflix queue. We get easily overwhelmed. A great solution is to just focus on one thing. What the cellist is doing, the artist’s knack for capturing an expression of wry amusement, or, yes, the way that wine smells exactly like mushrooms.*

Sometimes if you try to take everything in, it just becomes too much. By isolating one fact, or one sensation, you’re able to really get what’s going on. So the next time you’re feeling undue pressure to Appreciate a Wine — whether that pressure comes from a waiter, your wine geek friend, a favorable review from a critic, or, God forbid, me — take a deep breath, block out the noise, and think about one thing only. It could be anything: the color of the wine, how it feels in your mouth, the fact that it reminds you of cherry cough syrup. Keep it in your sights as you continue to taste and drink the wine. Does the wine taste more or less like cherry cough syrup as time goes on? Has that flavor melded into another one, say, strawberry jam? Or freshly laid tar? There’s often so much going on in a glass of wine — and in our own heads when we’re trying to evaluate it — that this helps to quiet the noise. Our own expectations (“I’m supposed to love this!” “I’m never going to understand wine!”) can be our own worst enemies. Beginners are most susceptible to this, but even people who have been tasting and studying wine for years (ahem) are not immune. Try it — and tell me what you think.

*Note: these analogies do not mean I think that wine is art. Wine is many wonderful, beautiful things, but it is not art. A topic for another post.

A final programming note: don’t forget that this Friday is the deadline for the ZAP Zinfandel tasting giveaway! Submit your haikus, people!

Yes, white wine should be cold — but probably not as cold as you think. A good rule of thumb is to take the bottle out 10-20 minutes before you’re going to drink it, depending on the kind of wine. (The one exception here is sparkling wine, which is at its brightest and bubbliest right out of the refrigerator.) Crisp, high acidity, lighter bodied wines that are all about refreshment — Sauvignon Blancs or northern Italian whites, for example — are better on the cooler side, say from 45-50 degrees. Heavy chilling is also a great way to mask flavors in case you’re stuck with a mediocre bottle. Fuller bodied wines like California Chardonnay, white Burgundy, or whites from the northern Rhone show best when they’re a bit warmer, for example between 55-60 degrees. Cold mutes smells and flavors, and since these wines aren’t intensely aromatic, they need to be warmed up a bit to show off their character. Feel free to cup the wine glass in your hands and swirl to warm up the wine if it still seems a little shy.

For reds, try sticking them in the fridge 10-20 minutes before drinking. This is especially important in winter, when many of us crank up the heat. The idea of serving a red wine at room temperature comes from an era when room temperature was closer to 65 than the toasty 75 or so where we like to keep the thermostat now. As with whites, lighter, higher acidity wines, like Beaujolais, a lot of Loire reds, Pinot Noir, Dornfelder, Lagrein, Zweigelt and the like, really shine when they’re cool, as in 60 degrees or so. More complex and tannic wines taste better when they’re a bit warmer, closer to 65 degrees.

With both the whites and the reds I encourage you to play around with this. Experiment, and see what temperature makes the wine tastes best. And by temperature, I mean time in or out of the fridge. No need to invest in one of those wine thermometers — I usually discourage people from buying fussy wine accoutrements. One of the few exceptions: a temperature controlled cellar unit if, like me, you don’t have a cool place for long-term wine storage. And by cool I mean somewhere in the range of 50-60 degrees.

And, finally, a temperature-related programming note: I’ll be in Puerto Rico in vacation next week. It’s my goal to do a video or two while I’m there, including a mini tasting tutorial, but expect the pace of posting to be light.

Austria’s most popular red grape, it’s a crossing of two other varieties, Blaufränkish and St Laurent, that was created by one Dr. Zweigelt in 1922. Austrian and German researchers have long been at the forefront of this kind of tinkering, breeding new varieties that can cope with their frigid climates. Some crossings sacrifice quality for hardiness, but Zweigelt, thankfully, is not one of them. The grape produces spicy, plummy, peppery wines that tend to be low in tannin and high in acidity, with only moderate alcohol levels. While there are some examples that will age, most of what you’ll see in the U.S. are simple, refreshing, versatile wines that are meant to be drunk young. As I’ve tried to indicate from this photo, they’re also great with a little chill on them (20 minutes in the fridge should do the trick.)

All of the above applies to this 2008 Martinsholf Zweigelt, which we served with a day-after-Christmas spread of spicy roast pork loin and herbed potatoes. The acidity helped to cut through the fatty pork action, and the spicy, earthy flavors in the wine played up the cumin rub and the red chili and garlic sauce we served on the side. Zweigelt and sausages are another winning combination. If you’re not a pork fan, then how about some Buffalo chicken wings? Or a black bean quesadilla? In fact, as Bowl season approaches, I can’t think of a better wine accompaniment to a football-themed feast. It comes in at a very beer budget price of $14 for a full liter bottle and even has a flip top cap.