To Air is Human – Tasawik 2005 Merlot – Columbia Valley

I’ll apologize in advance.  There’s a good chance I’m going to totally geek out in this post.  Some of what I’ll write may not be accurate, or even close, but it’ll be hard to tell because sometimes I start speaking in chemicaleze or acronyms that are part science, part whimsy.  I first wooed Barb with some love notes that I subtitled Romance for Science Geeks, so she’ll understand.  The rest of you are on your own.

 

When I look into a wine glass, swirl its contents under my nose, or watch a carboy of murky must bubbling away, sometimes I start thinking about chemistry.  I can’t help it, the chemistry of wine and winemaking is a scientist’s fantasy.  You start with a natural organic material (much like crude oil or corn or cow’s milk) and under certain conditions of temperature, pressure, the presence or absence of oxygen containing air and some smart single cell fungi, magic happens.   At the end of the process you get to drink the elixir that can turn a Dr. Jekyll into a Mr. Hyde, can turn a double bagger into a fiancé, and can even make a total nerd with a pocket protector and a slide rule get asked to dance by the cheerleader.  (I suspect Julia Roberts was heavily under wine’s influence during her Lyle Lovett phase).

One of the phases of wine chemistry that is most fascinating to me is what happens when you open the bottle.  Wine is composed of about 85-87% dihydrogen oxide, typically 12-14% ethyl alcohol, and I don’t know, but I’d guess less than 1% “other stuff”.  That other stuff is the magic and is composed of hundreds, maybe thousands, of long and short chain double-bonded, triple-bonded, and ringed organic molecules that started out in the skins of the grape or in the nutrient starved soil next to vine roots and have evolved into maybe something else in the bottle.  They continue to bump and grind, mutate and mature, get excited and calm down the entire time they sit in oak barrel, then the inert glass bottle, whether it be two days, six months, or sixty years.  They have enthalpy, entropy, and potential energy all affected by the cork and the sun and the cool basement walls.  They have color and flavor and aroma.

When the cork is popped and the elixir poured the fun REALLY starts.  Life giving oxygen is reintroduced to this stew that has been slowly brewing.  Aldehydes become ketones, acids become alcohols, esters become ethers, and Henry’s and Chuck’s laws become paramount as the surface tension explodes these chemicals into the surrounding daylight where they flee lighter than air towards the rim of the decanter or glass. What looks like the passive surface of the Moon is really an exploding Sun. 

A nostril or tastebud awaits.    These moments are fleeting but the human receptical can detect these changes in the fluid and the molecules that interact and react on the humanoid detector send signals to its brain.  Memories are evolved from the darkest reaches.  Soil, candy, vegetables, clay, spice, flowers, diesel, rocks, trees, chalk, sewer funk, fruit.  All things that life has trained us to associate with these senses and things we call aroma and flavor can be found.

There’s at least a small probability I was the only one contemplating these variables when I joined the WAmerlot virtual tasting this past Thursday afternoon.   Josh Wade of drinknectar.com had used the power of Al Gore’s toy and wireless communicators to notify, allure, and organize a gathering of wine drinkers from acoss this country, and possibly others around the world, to find a Washington Merlot and tell Miles and Alex Payne to stick it sideways.

Barb was working late, so I was McCauley Culkining it.  I picked a Tasawik 2005 Merlot that we had picked up a year or so ago at the winery’s tasting room, Studio B, Winemaker’s loft, Prosser, Benton County, Washington, U.S. of A.  When we had first tasted this wine there, the server showed us a device we hadn’t seen before.  It was called a Vinturi and it performed magic on a newly opened bottle of the Merlot.  She let us taste the difference side by side.  It is obvious.  Oxidation quickly changes the flavor.  A slow decant does the same or similar thing, but the harsh excited veggie notes of a tightly wound Merlot evolve into the more relaxed creme de menthe.

I fully believe the Vinturi and Soirée work and have their place, but I still like to rely on a slightly slower partial pressure exchange at 14.7 psia and a three or six inch circle of liquid to gas interface afforded by a decanter or wine glass.  From these vessels, the nose can savor the wafts as they slowly change over time; not the wham bam of a venturi scrubber at terminal velocity.

The Tasawik Merlot according to my Twitter notes:

5:25 PDT – Tasawik popped and poured a small one once sip. Decanting rest.

5:27 PDT – Tasawik color is medium dark burgundy. Nose is still opening and changing every few seconds on the sniff.

5:29 PDT – lavender vanilla cherry blossoming on nose

5:50 PDT – Tasawik reaching full octane on nose. Huge Cherry with some spice and mint. Prior veggie blown away

5:55 PDT – Full body silky smooth touch of mint still on finish. 45 minutes decanted.

6:34 PDT – developing some cocoa and mineral notes 1:30 after decant.

In this chronology, you can see my lack of clock reading skills, but you can also track my impressions as I smelled, then tasted this wine.  Barb arrived home around 7:30 and because I had misread a simple note in an e-mail, I forgot to pick up the pizza and I thought she was bringing it.  Oh well, the wine was just as good with cellophane wrapped peanut butter crackers.

If you’ve made it this far find a chemist or geologist or physician or computer engineer.  Ask them how they think about food or music or literature.  When your eyes glaze over, have another glass of Washington Merlot and give them a kiss.