An education in fermentation.(Rhyming is good, right?)

Sorry, mom and dad...
I lived in Utah for eight years, ages 18 to 26. Prime beer-drinking years, right? I guess. I only went on a booze run up to Evanston, Wyoming, one time, and although I had the world's best fake ID, I was so terrified of getting busted on the way back to Salt Lake that I never went again.

I didn't do much beer-drinking after about age 20. Not because of any kind of moral calling or righteous superiority, I just... didn't. A guy who I was with for a long time didn't drink at all. When I did buy a six-pack, four or five bottles often languished in the fridge for months (gross, absolutely; maybe even borderline criminal). I was so, soooooo boring.

At the beginning of 2008, I moved near one of the state-run wine stores downtown, and began cooking the ethnic-inspired meals nearly weekly for my friends. When possible, I bought wines from the appropriate country. Feeling kind of goofy for the last event, Morocco, I bought one wine from Spain and one from South Africa, and we roughly (very roughly) decided to split the geographical difference. There was no method, usually just madness.

Since moving here, and living with wine drinkers, I've been drinking much more thoughtfully. Which is to say, now I do more than buy whichever bottle has the more interesting label.

Right on Main Street in happenin' downtown Beacon is the Artisan Wine Shop, and these folks have helped me immensely. Although I work nights and weekends and therefore have yet to make it to one of their tasting events, the owners have steered me toward some great bottles. Also, I always assumed that good wine equals expensive, and they have shown me that that doesn't have to be true! I owe so much to these people, and they don't even know it.


A couple of weeks ago I walked in with a blank look on my face, and walked out with three bottles of grapey goodness. One was a white zinfandel, my boyfriend's mom's fave; one was a Spanish red with a dramatic label (I'm not totally out of the woods yet) that my boyfriend had bought before; and the third was a sauvignon blanc to pair with dinner's scallops. I'll be honest: I loved it for the cool label, and I was intrigued by its claim to having citrus notes.

But we opened it, and it really, really did have those citrus notes! It was like grapefruit (or, more accurately, grapefruit's cousin pomelo) slapping you in the tongue. In a good way, of course.

So when I walked in there a few nights ago, I knew at least one thing I wanted. But I know that I know nothing about wine, so I kind of crafted an experiment. "Would it be really lame," I asked, "to get another sauvignon blanc so I could compare them side-by-side and maybe learn more about that family?"

I felt really dumb asking. Like, really dumb. Luckily, Mei Ling So (one of the owners) is either used to dumb questions or good at hiding disdain for their askers... She told me it was actually a pretty good idea, and gave me a couple of choices. Most from France, either the Loire Valley or Bordeaux. I asked her what caused the differences, and finally learned how to pronounce "terroir." (The thing about food editing is that although I've learned to spell unusual words, I haven't always learned how to say them right, if at all. For a long time in Salt Lake, "tart-ees tate-in" was a running joke about tartes tatin...)

So I got the Mason Cellars' Pomelo 2007 sauvignon blanc, and a biodynamic sancerres from Bordeaux. She mentioned that it was citrusy, too, and I got all excited about them being similar, but she shut me down: "They're really different." Apparently the biodynamic winemakers don't "mess with" (I swear those were her words) the winemaking process as much. She described the French one as "yeasty," because fewer preservatives are added. Also, the biodynamic guys add infusions of chamomile and nettles, which is really interesting but I don't really get. Yet.

Oh, boy. Have I got a lot to learn...

Picked up sushi on the way home, and cracked open - well, unscrewed, anyway - the Pomelo. Because it was a school work night for the boyfriend, getting though two bottles of wine was out of the question and the sancerres is still chillin'.

Which means, you know, that I have to go back and get another bottle of Pomelo for an advance-planned tasting. It'll be rough, but I think I'll get through it. Here's to more sushi and wine this Tuesday!