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Robin Garr
interviewed by Brian Hecht on December 14, 1995
"Don't be nervous about this. It's just grape juice."
Robin Garr is a veteran wine critic and journalist.
Tripod: Let's say I'm a complete wine know-nothing and I'm on a date in a restaurant. How do I even start thinking about how to pick a wine?
RG: First thing to keep in mind is that the wine waiter is there to serve you. He's really your employee. So the idea of being embarassed because of your ignorance doesn't really play. He wants you to learn something about wine so he can sell you some. And if his restaurant is a good establishment, you'll have a good time and go away happy and want to come back again. So that's kind of my way of saying, "Don't be nervous about this. It's just grape juice."
Tripod: So ask for advice?
RG: Ask for advice. Don't be shy. And don't assume you don't know anything. You probably know already more than you think you do. White wine with white meat, red wine with red meat. That really works.
Tripod: When we order wine and they come around and let you take a taste -- what are you supposed to be tasting for?
RG: You know, a lot of that is ancient and archaic ritual. Some of the things that you do don't really have very much meaning anymore. They show you the cork, and in olden times the name of the winery was printed on the cork, and sometimes it still is. The theory there is that this shows you they haven't taken a good wine out of the bottle, poured it out, and then put in bad wine and recorked it. The real idea behind it all is for you to swirl it, sniff it, look at it, see if it smells funny, see if there's anything wrong with it. And if you feel the wine isn't what it's supposed to be, you do have an absolute right to send it back.
Tripod: What are the three most basic nuggets of information people should start with when they begin exploring wine. Should they know the different varietals? Should they know a French wine from a California wine?
RG: That's an interesting thing. You mention varietals, which means a species of the grape. Different wines are identified in different ways, and this makes it fairly complicated. If you'll keep in mind that there are about three basic ways to identify wine. One is where it's from. One is what kind of grape it's made out of. And another is who made it. And the significance of these things kind of varies from one part of the world to another, which is something you don't need to worry about too much. A French wine from Bordeaux won't usually have the name of the grape on it. It so happens it probably will be made out of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, which is also a very common place -- red wine in Northern California -- Northern Califronia, there they'll often sell it by the name of the grape. It doesn't really matter.
Tripod: Do you think it's possible, even as a beginner, to learn the difference between the taste of a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Merlot or a Pinot Noir.
RG: Define the importance of that. They have the different grapes and the different country styles -- they have some consistent similarities. And if you discover a kind that you like, you drink a couple of Red Zinfandels from Northern California and discover that you really enjoy that kind of wine. Now first of all, you might want to go back to it and try the same type but from a different maker. But it might also be interesting to you to hold in your mind what the last really good Zinfandel you tasted was like. And then order a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon or a Merlot the next time and think "How does this differ? Do I like this better, do I like this worse? Can I recognize any difference at all? Another time you go out to dinner, try the same thing with a Bordeaux -- it doesn't have to be terribly expensive. Start doing that compare and contrast thing.
Tripod: Maybe write it down? Keep a log?
RG: Some people do. It's a hobby thing. You can either take snapshots or you can become a photo hobbyist and buy a lot of cameras and accessories. That's kind of your call and it depends on whether it's an interesting thing. But let me pursue this for just a minute because I think there's something significant...
Wine as an element of the good life is one of those things -- it isn't really very important in the overall scheme of things. But it has a complexity, it has a level of interest that you don't necessarily find with Pepsi Cola or orange juice. Now if you form the habit of doing something as simple as slowing down at dinner and taking your time to think just a little bit about what you're drinking. Be aware of where it came from and the history behind it. And pay a little attention to the nuances and the complexities of it ...What you're doing in a way is the same thing you did in college when you learned English literature and forced yourself all the way through Moby Dick or Silas Marner. It wasn't really the book itself that was important as much as the process of learning to open up your mind and let it just suck in the things that are going on around you. As I say, it's a trivial thing and it's not what makes the world go around, but it seems to me that if you develop a hobby interest in wine and food and approach it with that same kind of curious and inquiring open mind, it's just basically got to be good for you.
"We open wine around here just about every day."
Tripod: I think that's true. What about the terminology? There's a lot of jokes about how critics identify tastes of leather, or apples. Do they really taste those things? How much of it is just posturing and pomp?
RG: Well, here you're asking a guy who writes this stuff on the Web every day whether he's posturing or not. So, hell no, of course I'm not posturing [laughs]. Let me say this. I try to avoid the excesses of winespeak in my wine writing, whether I'm doing it on the Web or doing in a newspaper or magazine. On the same time -- and this goes back to what I said about complexity and nuance -- a fine wine has traces of all sorts of different things. Part of the process of teaching yourself to become a wine afficianado, if you will -- I'd just as soon not say "connoiseur," it sounds a little snobby -- is to get into that habit of stopping and addressing it somewhat analytically but at the same time almost with your right brain or unconscious kind of thing. There are lots of character of wine that have nothing to do with grapes. They can probably be explained away scientifically on the basis of trace elements and polymerized tannins and things like that. But again, as a practical matter, it's just that if you're of this kind of thing and enjoy doing that, you'll find these flavors in there and fellow wine lovers who share your interest will typically find the same thing. So it's not just all gamesmanship. It's not just something that people invent. But as with any hobby, whether it's bridge or bicycling or anything else, you can get so far into it that nobody comprehends it any more. I try to avoid that.
Tripod: What about the rules of what kind of wine goes with what kind of food? People seem to follow that as often as they break it. Is there any validity behind it?
RG: I wouldn't call it a rule, exactly. Over a long period of time, wine has evolved as a particular beverage to go along with food. A lot of those rules are pragmatic and they're based on real world experience. Now let's take red wine with red meat, for example. A Cabernet or a Merlot, it's strong, it's tart, it's acidic, sometimes tannic, it has that astringency that you think of when you drink black tea. Those characaters, for whatever reason, lend themselves very well for washing down a rare steak or a big chunk of prime rib. If you try it with something very delicate like a Dover sole or a light fish or even poached chicken, the wine's going to almost overcome the food and the balance is not going to seem right. The same thing's true in reverse. You have a very light little white wine and you put it up against peppered steak, the wine is not going to seem to be there. Now that being said, I would go further and say it's hard to really go wrong. A choice that isn't a traditional choice may not ring everybody's chimes with the same volume and tone that the exact best match will, but most wines go pretty well with most foods on any given day. So I'd say it's incorrect to refer to them as rules, or the kind of commandments that musn't be broken.
Tripod: Could you share with us your best wine story? Or the wine you've enjoyed the most?
RG: We open wine around here just about every day. When you're a wine writer and you get to tour and visit wineries sometimes and visit some pretty prominent winemakers, it's always quite a rush to sit down and drink a fairly well-known wine at lunch with the guy who made it. And there's an awful lot of winemakers -- these are an amazingly gregarious bunch of people -- Christian Bizot, who is one of the family operators of the Bollinger champagne house in France, he was in Cincinnati pouring some of his wine for this group of wine writers and restaurant people and industry folks and some local wine snobs. And he pulled out this bottle of 125-year-old champagne that was made from grapes grown from ancient 19th century vines. It was a great experience and yet, at the same, time, I think there was this hush that fell over the room. It was kind of like being in a cathedral when the bishop came in.
Tripod: That's certainly a great wine story.
RG: It's a great wine story, and at the same time I think it makes the point that sometimes people just take this damn stuff too seriously.
You can sample some of Robin Garr's many wine-related Web pages, including his Wine Bargain Page, his Wine Value Archive and his excellent Quick Wine Tasting Course Cheers!
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