Congratulations on your wine knowledge!! I know very little of wine (I like the smell and the taste of most wines but just cannot handle alcohol), probably not enough to ask any sensible questions, so these might be a bit odd, feel free to ignore. But these came to mind:
- What's the most surprising thing you learned about flavour notes?
- How usual is it to mix different kinds of grapes?
- How does age factor into taste? (I hear there are "good years" as well, does that have to do with weather conditions etc.?)
- Do you have any specific recommendations for more unusual-tasting wine?
- and if someone, hypothetically, wanted to pour a bit of wine into their coffee, could you imagine one that would work, perhaps even harmonise?
I guess one surprising thing is that when you smell strawberry or liquorice or whatever in a wine ... you are smelling the same chemical you would get in REAL strawberry or liquorice or whatever. aromachemicals are super complex and get created and broken down in wine over time but they ARE identical chemically to the aromas you'd get in ... any other thing you smell out there.
- How usual is it to mix different kinds of grapes?
it's very usual to mix grape varieties! To add complexity or complementary flavours, to balance wines' acidity or tannin, lots of reasons. Certain types of grapes are known to be very complementary blending partners, eg. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Champagne-style sparkling wine is typically a blend of multiple varieties which bring different qualities, as is Port. Some varieties tend to stand alone eg Pinot Noir, Riesling. Sometimes cheaper / easier to grow / higher yielding varieties get blended in with varieties that have more name recognition, eg. Colombard with Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay.
Usually the grapes are vinified into separate batches, bc they ripen at different times, and then they get blended at a later date but fermenting wine with more than one variety at once is a thing too - it's called co-fermentation, and is linked to the historic practice of 'field blends' - vineyards planted with mixed varieties that get picked together. Not that common nowadays as people seek more precision.
-How does age factor into taste? (I hear there are "good years" as well, does that have to do with weather conditions etc.?)
AGE...... so first off the vast majority of wine is made to be drunk upon release. A tiny minority of wines, volume-wise, can age well. It's not just a matter of the variety and region - the winemaking choices will determine whether it's made in a style that will improve with age. The structural qualities of these wines - high acidity, high tannin, very concentrated - can make them quite difficult to drink when they are young, not "approachable", particularly red wines. For example, higher level red Bordeaux, Vintage Port, Barolo. White wines might not be actively offputting but just won't have the complexity they'll have later - eg. higher level white Burgundy or Riesling.
I mentioned some of the flavours you can get with age in this post. Fresh fruit flavours gradually develop into more cooked and dried fruit flavours, and eventually vanish altogether. At the same time, strange and complex flavours such as cured meat, soy sauce, honey, nuts, tobacco, chocolate, coffee, cedar, petrol, dried flowers, olives, earth etc can develop, and these flavours are very highly prized. The ideal moment to drink an old wine, for most people, is when you have a lot of these complex aromas but still have some nice fruit flavours left. Otherwise it just tastes old, like licking the back of a cupboard.
these flavours depend on the varieties as well as the winemaking, eg Nebbiolo the grape of Barolo is known for 'tar and roses' aromas, Riesling for 'petrol', Chardonnay for mushrooms and hazelnuts, Pinot Noir = forest floor and mushroom, Syrah = cured meat, black pepper, Cab Sauv - cedar, savoury, gamey, dried fruit.
'good years and bad years ' In the historic European wine regions there are often significant differences in weather conditions year to year. this is called vintage variation. This is particularly the case in France and parTICularly in Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne. They all evolved different ways of handling it but essentially 'good' years historically were more consistently warm, so the harvest was larger, the grapes were riper, and the wines were better quality and had more longevity/ lasted longer in the bottle. & thus a wine from a 'good' year was worth more money. speaking VERY generally, new world vineyards have less variation year-to-year in average temperatures, though they have other hazards, so good and bad years are less of an issue. Good and bad years are not much of an issue unless you are buying wine with the intention of ageing it.
- Do you have any specific recommendations for more unusual-tasting wine?
I mentioned some of the 'unusual' aromas/flavours you get with ageing and those are worth checking out, although if you set out to go and buy aged wine it may cost more than if it was just released, bc of the scarcity, because of the storage costs for however many years it's been, or bc it's in some way desirable.
possibly easier to get hold of and also definitely unusual are fortified wines such as sherry in particular Fino and Manzanilla Sherry, which aged under a thick layer of a yeast called flor which gives the wine very distinctive aromas - bruised apple, olive brine, seaweed, hay, chamomile - and a slightly tingly feeling in the mouth. Very savoury and super dry, very good in small amounts with olives, manchego, salty snacks. other types of Sherry are also very very interesting.... but fino sherry is the one that really divided a bunch of people in my class lol. anyway, nowhere else in the world makes wine like this! There are other flor-aged wines, but the flor doesn't grow nearly as thick.
- and if someone, hypothetically, wanted to pour a bit of wine into their coffee, could you imagine one that would work, perhaps even harmonise?
i actually think that your best chance would be to go for one of the fortified wines. I know you said you're not keen on alcohol BUT - these wines are more likely to harmonise I think, it'd be closer to putting a liqueur in. They have the intensity, they often have some sugar, and they often have nutty or coffee/chocolate aromas that would harmonise perfectly well. So a sweetened aged sherry like Lustau East India Solera or a Pedro Ximenez, or a Tawny Port or a Madeira.
eg. age-indicated Tawny Port (tawny port that either says 'reserve' on it or has a number of years marked on it eg 10, 20) often has a coffee-walnut-caramel flavour profile and it stays good for ages after you open it.
someone came up with the espresso mar-tawny - cocktail made from espresso, coffee liqueur and Tawny Port, which looks like a good idea to me tbh
the official Sherry website has a couple of cocktail recipes that combine coffee and sherry eg. Cold Brew Fizz with Amontillado sherry and Cheese'n'PX which uses a very rich sweet Sherry called Pedro Ximenez.
here's a recipe for Cortado, a Madeiran hot drink made with coffee and sweet Madeira wine
and here's a tinto de verano recipe that uses cold brew coffee with sweet sherry and Spanish Garnacha wine
