RICHARD FRISBIE - Golden Nose Awards Dinner

On a recent trip to the Finger Lakes I became a wine judge at the Golden Nose Wine Judging event, but the most impressive part of the event was the food! (No - the wine . . . no, the food . . . Nevermind -  they were both great!)

Golden Nose Awards

Each year the Finger Lakes wineries get together to have their wines judged by professional judges and talented amateurs in the prestigious Golden Nose Awards. Last week I attended an informal series of instructional lectures and demonstrations preceding this year’s event in order to earn the designation ‘amateur judge’. Who better then a wine consumer (and therefore a wine buyer) to assist in the selection of the best of what are arguably the best wines in New York State? At least that is the premise. By the end of a day of wine tasting I was glad to have the able assistance of professionals, because I barely knew which end of the bottle to pour the wine from.

OK. That’s a small exaggeration, but after 40 or more wines my head was spinning, and it wasn’t just from the alcohol. Even though I spit each wine out, I still absorbed enough for a buzz, but it was the concentration on each taste, on each attempt to pin down the essence of aroma and flavor of complex wine, that left me dizzy. Fortunately, most of my fellow judges-in-training were better at it than I, several enjoying their second year at the Golden Nose awards, so I had plenty of help. Let me share what I learned.

I learned that to judge wine I needed to think of the six “S’s”:

1. Sight - red wines loose color as they age, whites darken – and different grapes contribute different shades of color, so a wine can be aged and the grapes used to make it identified (sometimes) just by the color. The clarity is also important and worth more points the clearer a wine is.
2. Swirl – agitating the wine in the glass (swirling it) will release flavors and scents, and give an indication of the wine’s body.
3. Smell – really get your nose right in the glass and sniff deeply. Most of what we taste is determined by the aroma (you know when you have a cold and congestion that food has no taste or greatly reduced taste) so a good sense of smell is necessary. (more about this later)
4. Sip – take a tiny sip to get your mouth used to the wine, then spit it out and take a bigger sip, holding it on your tongue as you breath in through your mouth over it, drawing the flavors out.
5. Swallow or Spit – depending upon time of day, your preference and how many wines you are tasting. Over dinner you should swallow it. (You wouldn’t spit out the food, would you?)
6. Savor – how does your mouth feel – what flavors linger? Is the wine smooth or harsh on your palate? Are there any residual tastes?

We used a 20 point scale, awarding 1-2 points for clarity, 1-2 for color, 1-5 for aroma, 1-5 for taste, 1-3 for the balance of all the elements, and 1-3 for overall quality. To receive an award the wine must earn 13-14 points for Bronze, 15-16 for Silver, and 17-20 for Gold. We judged in groups of 5 ‘amateurs’ and one professional, and if each of us awarded enough points for one wine to receive Gold, our unanimous rating became a Double Gold.

Sounds simple enough, but – to paraphrase some wag – I don’t know what good wine is, but I know what I like. That was where the trouble lay. Believe it or not, I found it difficult, if not downright pretentious, to describe what I was tasting and smelling. Fortunately, there is a flavor/aroma wheel to help with the descriptive words. It is broken down from a few basic words into a broader list within each category, and then widens out into more descriptive words from there. Basically that means you could taste “fruit” and expand that to “tree fruit”, and that to “peach” with discerning taste buds. Then, if you also tasted “floral” you could follow the wedge that includes other words that might also fit the description, saying – peach with rose overtones.

That’s when it begins to sound pretentious, but after spending an afternoon hearing descriptions like that it started to make sense. If you can taste and describe the flavor (4) and aroma (4) like that, admire the color (2) and clarity (2) and can say that all the elements are reasonably balanced (2) and you like the overall quality (3), you have a gold medal winner!(17) That’s why I am now a certified (some would say certifiable!) Golden Nose Wine Judge.

But you can certify me any day they are serving food this good. There was a breakfast , or continental buffet at 8:30 AM. Lunch was squeezed in between judging wine flights, which means I barely had time to eat, nevermind photographing the chicken breasts and ratatoui, with  fresh salad.  Then, for the banquet, executive chef Brud Holland set up an ice sculpture of a wine bottle with glass (how appropriate) and surrounded it with so many magnificent edibles I forgot how tired wine judging can be and dove in (not literally!)

So, save the date – May 31, 2008 – and enroll in next year’s day-long event. It includes breakfast, buffet lunch and an Awards Ceremony Banquet that evening, all prepared to perfection by the executive chef, Brud Holland, of the Corning Institute. Between the great meals you’ll taste the best of the best Finger Lakes wine, and enjoy the company and comradarie of some of the nicest folks you’ll ever meet – the wine makers and wine judges of the Finger Lakes. 

For more information on Finger Lakes Wine Country visit:   http://www.FingerLakesWineCountry.com  or call (800) 813-2958

Golden Nose Awards http://www.goldennose.com
Hilton Garden Inn http://www.hiltongardeninn.com - in Horseheads, with bar, retaurant and indoor pool - located across the street from the largest mall (Arnot Mall) in the area. Nice facility with really nice people to make any stay a pleasure.

Lakewood Vineyards  http://www.lakewoodvineyards.com

  Richard Frisbie, FOOD Correspondent:

RICHARD FRISBIE is published twice a month to Gather Essentials: Food 
It is a food junkie's take on growing, raising, preparing and - above all else - eating food. Together we’ll explore the trends, addictions, equipment and regional specialties that make up the sometimes mundane and sometimes sublime cooking and dining experience. You can keep up with my other postings and Gather activity by joining my Gather network -- just click the orange “Connect” button on the upper left-hand side of this page --- I look forward to hearing from you.

BIO - Richard has been writing culinary travel articles for more than five years as a columnist for his local newspapers, and as a regular contributor to the many Hudson Valley, Catskill Mountain and other regional New York publications. His most recent addition to that list is a wine column called “Fruit of the Vine” for Life in the Finger Lakes magazine. Online, he writes frequent articles for EDGE publications and Travel Lady, as well as Gather.

You can read all of Richard's articles here  http://rfrisbie.gather.com/
or find him with the other Food Correspondents, plus celebrity chef content and plenty of other Foodies at  http://foodtalk.gather.com