The experience went something like this: following a very pleasant half-hour of chatting with fellow invitees/bloggers and the supremely charming Jean-Marc Gallot, president of Ruinart, we took our places, which were set thusly:

Each of the 8 vials in the box contained a different scent, which, according to the brain trust (nose trust?) over at International Flavors + Fragrances, was present in Ruinart’s Blanc de Blanc champagne. It was our job to identify each of the smells and match them to the correct answer on a pre-printed list of 16 different aromas. Of course, we each had a glass of the Blanc de Blanc to help us along.

With Gallot teasing/encouraging us, we sniffed and scribbled away. Was #2 lemon…or grapefruit? The table arrangements held clues — like this little pot of pink peppercorns:

You’ve heard of blind tastings? This was more of a “blind smelling,” which put our collective olfactory skills to the test.

1. The folks over at LVMH are some damn fine marketers. Ruinart is the oldest continuous champagne house, and one with a slightly below-the-radar profile here in the U.S. This event was the perfect way to position Ruinart as a “boutique” brand, less mainstream than Moët or Veuve-Clicquot, but more accessible than Dom Pérignon or Krug. Gallot is the perfect guy to lead the charge. He has that all-too-rare combination (at least in the wine business) of American openness and French, well, Frenchiness. When I asked him what he liked to drink when he wasn’t drinking champagne he said he loved Bordeaux but…was beginning to really enjoy Burgundy. In New York, where obscurity is often touted as a virtue, and it’s nearly impossible to keep up with whatever the wine hipsters are drinking (“What you mean you’ve never had Grolleau? That was so 2010!”) it’s refreshing to remember that one can very happily stick to the classics. (If one has the budget for it, that is.)

2. Delicacy and simplicity are not the same thing. The chief virtue of Ruinart’s Blanc de Blanc is its finesse. Made from 100% Chardonnay — that’s what “Blanc de Blanc” means — this champagne is definitely on the lighter, crisper, end of the spectrum, which is the style I prefer. I think of champagnes like this as “lacy,” although I’m not sure how helpful that comparison is for anyone else. Nonetheless, it’s fair to argue that most of the smells they gave us were somehow present in the wine itself. I might take issue with the white peach, and I definitely wasn’t buying the pineapple (not coincidentally, the only one I got wrong), but ginger, jasmine, cardamom? Why not? Just because a wine is delicate or subtle, that doesn’t mean it can’t have a lot going on. I think it’s particularly difficult to detect this complexity in champagne, where texture (i.e., those bubbles) rather than aroma/flavor, makes the strongest first impression. Hence my classification of this wine as “lacy.” If that word doesn’t make intuitive sense to you, so be it: but I’d encourage you to pay as much attention to a wine’s texture as to its flavor. This is easiest to do with the extremes — say, sparkling at one end of the continuum and port at the other — but it’s not too hard to detect the silkiness of a good Pinot Noir or the roughness of a too-young Barolo or Bordeaux.

3. Wine bloggers are a competitive bunch. I’ve been to some fancy schools over the years and live in a city filled with Type A personalities, but nothing compares to a roomful of wine writers trying to out-smell and out-taste each other. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps the subjectivity of wine-tasting makes it all the more important that we state our opinions with authority? Or because an evening of sipping champagne in each other’s pleasant company doesn’t feel enough like work, so we have to be extra-serious in our wine analysis? Whatever the reason, I’ll cop to it as much as the next wine blogger. God knows, I’m still annoyed I only got 7 out of 8 right. Do you think I can turn in an extra-credit assignment?

Anyway, a long way of saying that wine half bottles can be great, but are easy to overlook. They’re usually placed in some obscure part of the wine store and don’t figure prominently on wine lists. (One happy exception in New York City: Landmarc makes a point to include lots of half bottles.) And selection can be limited, as often only bigger wineries put out half bottle sizes.

But they’re worth hunting down, for several reasons. Obviously, they’re a great choice for people who don’t drink a lot at one sitting. And half bottles let you try a pricier wine without fully committing. They also work well if you and your traditional drinking partner have different tastes. When we first started dating, Paul was not so much into the white wine, so occasionally I’d get a half-bottle of white for myself while he’d tuck into some red. (Yes, over the same meal. There are plenty of dishes that go just as well with a white as a red—but that’s a topic for another post.)

But maybe my favorite thing about half-bottles is that they age faster than standard-sized ones. Basically, wine ages through slow oxidation – oxygen entering the bottle through the porous cork. The opening of a half-bottle relative to the bottle’s total size is bigger than it is for a full bottle, which means more oxygen and the wine ages faster. (The corollary: big bottles age more slowly.) Because it can be hard and/or expensive to buy older wines, half-bottles give you a great opportunity to see what impact age has on wine.

I can’t stress how important it is for you to try older wines as you expand your wine vocab. As wine ages, it takes on all kind of aromas and flavors you rarely find in young ones: mushrooms, leather, hazelnuts, smoke…these may not sound incredibly appealing, but trust me when I tell you that they can be amazing. I’ve had more luck with finding good white half-bottles than red, particularly California Chardonnay and Burgundy. Pick up a few bottles (for Burgundy, the 2005 vintage was particularly great) and see if you can detect any of those flavors. If so, and if you fall in love with them, I apologize in advance for turning you on to this expensive habit through the gateway drug of the half-bottle. If you don’t like them, then, well, you dodged a bullet – and you have half-bottles to thank.