tuesday night, after art class, where we learned about the history of color for 3 hours, i got to visit my friend's host family for a minute, which is so neat. we practically spend every day swapping stories so it was nice to put faces and places together. then we met up with a bunch of other americans in our program for our classy night of wine tasting. we went to this adorable italian restaurant called pasta cozy. its everything youd expect a quiet and quaint and charming french italian restaurant to be. our 2 instructors for the night were 2 americans from the west coast who have a mad love for wine and its culture. the lady even graduated from wine school .. i really didnt even know that was possible. we sampled 6 different types of wines .. 2 whites, rose, 2 reds and a dessert wine! here are some fun things i learned
- france is the most visited country in the world
- and most renowned for its wine (obviously)
- they only export about 20% of the wine produced in france though. they keep the rest for themselves
- it doesnt matter how much schooling you have in the wine industry .. its all about experience
- they dont label wine bottles with the type of wine it is - chardonnay, pinot noir, etc.. because most french wines are blends of different types of grapes and so it is far too complicated to label it as just one type. so they label it by the region where the wines are grown. and you should just know which grapes are better in which climate/geographical regions of france. interesting
- rose wine .. not to be confused with white zinfandel .. is the best wine. it is basically a white wine.. where the skins of the grapes have remained in the vats for longer periods of time..
- if you let the skins soak with the grapes and juices for a few hours .. you have a white.. a few days .. a pink rose.. a few weeks or more.. a beautiful red
- "drink as much rose as you can while youre here"- direct quoted advice from our experts
- and really, rose is SO good. not too sweet or fruity.. just right
- there are people who's profession it is just to sample and eat things to pick out fragments of ingredients .. they have exponentially more tastebuds than the average human and get paid millions of dollars and are insured for millions
- NEVER put ice in a glass of wine.
- the different types of cork make a lot of difference on the oxidation and hence the flavor and quality of the wine
- a lot of vinoculturists can predict the type of season theyre going to have MONTHS before it starts
- wine is best consumed ... ALL THE TIME