Hi Scotty, It’s great that you bought three bottles. Napa Valley cabernets DO generally age well; I’ve had some fantastic Napa cabernets from the mid-1970s. Additionally, back in the 1970s, Beaulieu was making very fine wine. But your wine is now 50 years old and it would be an achievement for any wine to age beautifully that long. My advice is to set your expectations correctly. The wine is probably a bit frail and it has of course lost all of its primary fruit. Open one bottle carefully (don’t decant it) and try it right away before it gets a lot of air, then watch it open up over the next thirty minutes to an hour. It might collapse after that. If the first bottle is over the hill, you’ve got a second and third chance at something exquisite. Good luck!!!

Hi Sue: You must be referring to isinglass, a gelatinous protein material obtained from the air bladders of sturgeon and other fish. Isinglass is sometimes used as a fining agent (filtering is a different process) to clarify and/or soften the texture of wine. Every study I know of says that protein coagulants such as isinglass completely bind, like velcro, to unwanted tannins and other particles in the wine, and then together the substances precipitate out of solution, so that the wine can be racked off of them. So  it seems unlikely that fining of this sort would produce a reaction.

On the other hand, allergic reactions are serious and the best recommendation would be to consult a doctor. Note that many winemakers prefer not to fine their wines at all, believing that this process removes natural flavor and texture.

Michael, great question. The bubbles (all one million of them in every glass) certainly give Champagne an extra dimension of texture and make it super lively on the palate. But bubbles also contribute to the overall flavor by magnifying a Champagne wine’s aroma. (Flavor is the unified perception of smell and taste). As bubbles form and rise to the surface of the liquid, tiny droplets of wine are released into the air, projecting the wine’s aroma to your nose. Even when the wine is on your palate, the bubbles help project its aromas to your retronasal passages, thereby amplifying the wine’s smell, and hence its flavor.

Douglas, your question prompted me to think about what I actually do, and I realize I do three things:

1. I make sure I haven’t eaten anything that would compromise my palate. Was there garlic in the pasta at lunch? Or onions on the hamburger? Some foods can alter your palate for hours after you eat them. (See Karen’s Risky Relationships blog above on the 8 killer foods to avoid.)
2. I think about what I’m about to taste and think about everything I know about that subject. Then I ask myself what should I expect to find in the wines I’m about to taste. I don’t go into a tasting of rieslings with the same expectations as I do a tasting of Argentine malbecs. Or a tasting of Burgundies with the same expectations as for Oregon, or even California, pinot noirs.
3. I prepare myself to concentrate. I imagine this is a bit like an athlete in the minutes before they start a race, or walk onto a tennis court, or walk out onto a soccer field.

After those three things are done, I dive in!

Hi Victor:  Great question. Especially since, these days, we’re all inclined to grab a corkscrew the minute wine arrives on our doorsteps. The helpfulness of “resting” depends on two things. 1) Was the wine just recently bottled? After being bottled, wines often go into a kind of “dumb stage” where they taste very muted. A wine that’s just been shipped only adds to the chances that the wine’s flavors are shut down. Most wineries post a “bottled on” date on the tech sheet for the wine and you can find that on the winery’s website. 2) What type of wine is it? You mention pinot noir, and pinot is known to be temperamental. Of all wines, I’d worry about pinot noir, sangiovese, nebbiolo and grenache the most. I don’t have any scientific evidence to support this by the way. Just experience. Lastly, just how long should you let a wine rest if you think it will benefit from resting? Two months (as you mention) is too much delayed gratification for me. I’ve heard many winemakers mention two weeks. That seems like a safe bet. Happy tasting!  –Karen

Alison, you’re right. Sometimes water alone doesn’t do the trick when you’re trying to “reset” your palate between tasting wildly different kinds of wine. So, what helps besides time? Some pros find that tiny bites of roast beef work. I’ve also heard that celery can be helpful, but when I tried that, I found that the green flavors threw my palate off more. I’ve also tried various crackers that are specifically marketed as palate cleansers but so far, I have not found any that work (and many taste awful). For me, the only thing that does help is a bite of a plain French baguette and an unflavored sparkling water with aggressive bubbles (like Perrier). Anybody else have any good suggestions? Tell us here.

Walter, I’ve often wondered that myself. And I admit I don’t know the answer unless perhaps the phrasing is derived from a French expression? WineSpeed readers, can anyone provide insight here?

Amy, the answer is: sometimes. This strategy has been around for a long time and, indeed, the second-cheapest bottle on a big wine list is often a restaurant’s best-seller (no one wants to buy the lowest-priced wine). But there’s a problem with this: smart restaurant owners also know this strategy. So, they end up putting their highest-margin wines in the second-cheapest spot. I only order the second cheapest wine in restaurants that are very wine-focused. For sommeliers, it’s often a point of pride to find real “steals” that are delicious. Those steals are often the cheapest to the fifth-cheapest wines on the list.