You don’t know what tannins are, and you don’t know if you’ll enjoy a full-bodied wine or a blend, but you want to order a bottle of vino to celebrate a special occasion. You’ve heard of a sommelier, but you really don’t know if he’ll be able to help you. What is a sommelier anyway, and what does he do? Perhaps our look of confusion is what prompts a man to approach our table and ask us if we need help choosing a wine. This person, we assume is the sommelier. Sommeliers, or wine stewards, are trained and knowledgeable wine professionals commonly working in fine restaurants and specializing in all aspects of wine services, including food and wine pairing. Sommeliers typically develop wine lists, train the other restaurant staff, and work along with the culinary team to pair and suggest wines to best complement each menu item. Sommeliers also often work the floor of the restaurant in direct contact with customers to suggest options within their taste and budget.
When the Sommelier brings a bottle of wine that has a screw cap, we figure that he thinks we’re real dummies with no taste and a limited budget at best. He probably thinks that we’re not the usual clientele that eats at such a fancy restaurant. When we question him about his choice, he assures us that screw caps or corks in no way define the quality of a wine. Some wineries in some countries use screw caps while others use corks. Which country uses the most screw caps per capita? New Zealand. 95% of wines from New Zealand have screw caps while 80% of wines from Australia have them. Wines from South Africa and Chile are known to be good, and they each cap about 65% of their bottles. The U.S. only caps about 5% of its wine. France closes 80% of their wines with corks.
While many countries have started using screw caps, Portugal, the country with the largest cork tree in the world, can help meet the demand of those wineries still using cork. Whistler, as this famous cork tree is called, averages over one ton of raw cork per harvest every nine years. That’s enough to cork 100,000 bottles! Cork is one of Portugal’s biggest and most important exports, and the country is actually the biggest cork producer in the world.
But why have screw caps become such a popular alternative to cork? Contamination can happen during the cork sterilization process, and this can lead to a number of “corked” or infected bottles. Screw caps help wineries avoid such costly and wasteful mishaps.
So, it’s finally time to sample some wines. But, in which order should we drink various wines? We are told the order in which we drink wines can have a big impact on flavor. We must avoid having any one wine dominate and “throw off” our senses. To make sure this doesn’t happen, we should drink white before red, dry before sweet, light body before heavy body, and young before old. After talking to the sommelier, we may feel like we know more about wine, but we’re still thirsty, so let’s open a bottle and propose a toast, “Cin cin.”
Cin cin is the most common way to say “Cheers” in Italian. This is a casual and informal toast that is commonly used among friends and family. “Salute” is another way to say “Cheers” which is more formal and is often used in formal settings such as dinner parties and business events.
