September 25, 2012
Time once again to peruse the inane and predictable holiday wine and food pairing articles. Conventional wisdom recommends using some sort of formula to pair a selection of wines to complement a menu that might include everything from Aunt Edna’s green beans to friend Jerry’s tofu turkey. Napa-Valley based Master of Wine Tim Hanni, an internationally renowned guru on the subject of wine with food and professionally trained chef, suggests that instead of offering wines based on what’s on the table, hosts at upcoming holiday meals should choose wines based on who is gathering around it.
Hanni has distilled years
of experience and research into a seemingly revolutionary approach to wine
drinking, based on a simple premise: people really do perceive things differently,
and they should be able to discover and enjoy the wines they prefer, including
sweet wines, without apology. Conversely, those who prefer intense red wines
will need no coaxing to savor a glass of their favorite wine style.. Hanni
dismisses the conventional rules of “matching” wine and food as simple
metaphors combined with the overly vivid imagination of the wine experts. “You
do need to know that the sweetness in a lot of the food will make whatever wine
you are drinking more intense, acidic and tannic, and that a little squeeze of
lemon or lime with a tiny bit of salt on the food will restore the balance of
whatever wine you choose, “ says Hanni.
According to Hanni, wine drinkers fall
into four categories, or Vinotypes. Derived from both physiological and
psychological elements in an individual’s make-up, the four basic Vinotypes
range from people who naturally prefer sweet wines to those who relish the
bigger, more robust (tannic?) wines — and what tastes delicious to one person
may easily leave another grimacing with distaste. You remember this from
your childhood dinner table. Discover your Vinotype, and that of
your guests, Hanni says, and, “you will learn how to consistently find the
wines you will love the most and how to get the most pleasure from wine on your
terms.”
Hanni was a pioneer in the art of
food and wine pairings at Napa Valley's Beringer Winery in the 1980s. His
experiences there sent him on a three-decade investigation of why people like
what they like. “I’d create what I thought were magical pairings,” Hanni
said. “And while some people loved them, others could hardly tolerate them. I
went from thinking, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ to ‘What’s going on here?'” Hanni
began work with. Virginia Utermohlen, M.D., from Cornell University, who shared
a deep interest in the subject. Based on their research, Hanni said, “it’s
clear that the range and intensity of sensations we experience varies, often
dramatically, from one person to the next; and these individual difference play
an important role in determining individual wine preferences. Some people have
as few as 500 taste buds while others have over 11,000; this greatly influences
our personal wine preferences - not good or bad, just different.”
A series of questions Hanni
has developed — How do you take your coffee? What do you think of artificial
sweeteners?— are guideposts that help people identify their Vinotype: Sweet,
Hypersensitive, Sensitive or Tolerant. At one end of the spectrum are the Sweet
Vinotypes, people who experience a sensory overload from stimuli: light, sound,
taste and smell. In wines they who crave sweetness to mask what they perceive
as intolerable bitterness. These are people who started drinking
wine with white zinfandel and ones fueling the explosive popularity of Moscato.
They are also the ones who have often been made to feel apologetic about their
tastes. “They and their well-meaning friends suffer from the collective
delusion that, as their palate mature they will be able to appreciate what’s
perceived as more sophisticated wines, the big reds, the over-oaked
chardonnays,” Hanni says. “But it’s not true. If a person likes White Zinfandel
or Moscato with their steak, turkey or seafood, that’s what they should have.”
At the other end of the taste spectrum are the Tolerant Vinotypes. “Tolerant Vinotypes don’t understand what all of the fuss is about with more sensitive Vinotypes – those wimps!” Hanni explains. They take their coffee black and the most likely to enjoy Scotch. “Big, red wines are their favorites and damn the torpedoes, Hanni says. “Intensity is the name of the game and the bigger the better.” The Tolerant Vinotypes are the ones who want the thermostat set colder and the volume on the TV turned up while the Sweet and Hypersensitive demand the opposite.
In between these two extremes lie the
types Hanni terms Hypersensitive and Sensitive Vinotypes. Hypersensitive
Vinotypes are quite sensitive to all sorts of things and, like the Sweet
Vinotypes, they have many pet peeves, he says. They are often artistic and
adamant that they know what they like. “Hypersensitive Vinotypes are very
similar in sensitivity to the Sweet Vinotypes but tend to prefer dry, or
just off-dry, wines on an everyday basis.,” he says. “Their favorite wines tend
to be more delicate and very, very smooth while also being lower in alcohol.
They may even like intense red wines but not with a lot of oak or heavy tannins
smooth and rich.www.timhanni.com
“The Hypersensitive Vinotype is a
bit more likely to ‘talk dry and drink sweet’ looking for those wines that have
a slight bit of residual sugar,” he adds.
The Sensitive Vinotype is the most flexible of wine drinkers. “Sensitive Vinotypes go with the flow,” Hanni says. “Maybe they take their coffee with cream or a touch of sweetness at one point in the day, but they’ll enjoy black coffee if the wind is right. They are open to trying new things, and variety is truly the spice of their lives.” Sensitive Vinotypes love a wide range of mostly dry white and red wines, along with rosés and sparkling wines, Hanni says. “They are among the most adventurous wine lovers and open to all sorts of flavors and wine styles from delicate to robust.” They do have more limitations on bitterness and tannins than Tolerant Vinotypes, Hanni notes. “They are not typically looking for the oaky monsters but really impeccably balanced, smooth and the word ‘complex’ is usually important as a wine description."
"Discovering people’s
Vinotype helps explain a lot of things people disagree on in life, from the
temperature in the room, to the use of cilantro in a recipe, to the volume of
the television, to the sheets that you sleep on,” Hanni says.
“People should be able to
like what they like, and this includes sweet wines,” he concludes, and offering
wines matched to the different Vinotypes who all come together at holiday dining table
just might be your own holiday gift to wine lovers.
To discover your more about the research and philosophies visit Hanni’s website, www.timhanni.com. To find out your Vinotype go to www.myvinotype.com.
Here is a list of Holiday Wine
Recommendations for the Vintoypes at your table or party. These wines were
Platinum or Gold award winners at the Consumer Wine Awards at Lodi, a unique
evaluation event where hundreds of everyday consumers, are grouped into
Vinotype panels to taste and recommend their favorites from hundreds of wine
entered into the competition.
Sweet Vinotypes are usually found sipping
their favorite White Zinfandel or Moscato so try one of these:
- Hagafen Cellars Riesling, Napa Valley $24
- Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi Muscat, California $12.00
Hypersensitive Vinotype
Pinot Grigio or silky Pinot Noir are very
often the wine of choice and the will love one of the following:
·
flipflop wines Sauvignon Blanc, Left Coast, ,Chile $7.00
·
Loredona Pinot Grigio, Monterey, California $10.99
·
Rutherford Vintners Pinot Noir, Napa Valley, California $12.99
Sensitive Vinotype
If you are limited on number of wines to
serve the good news is that the Sensitive Vinotype will probably like whatever
you select for the Hypersensitive or Tolerant but these will be specially loved:
- Picket Fence Chardonnay 2009 Russian River Valley, California16.99
- LuLu B., Malbec, Chile $7.00
- Cupcake Vineyards, Red Velvet, Zinfandel, Merlot Blend $13.99
Big,
bold and intense (and you know who it is that will love these) is the ticket
and here are some that will rock their world :
- Cycles Gladiator, Cabernet Sauvignon, Lodi, California $12.00
- Klinker Brick Winery Syrah Farrah, Lodi, California $20.00
