The noble art of spitting
In a continuing series on how to be a great wine taster, we look at why you don’t actually need to drink wine
IT’S heartbreaking but true: there are no tasting faculties in your throat, so you don’t need to swallow wine to taste it.
In fact, the less you swallow, the less clouded your perceptions will be by the haze of alcohol and the better you will be able to taste. You may think that only after you swallow do you get a proper perception of its aftertaste. But that’s not taste; it’s an afterglow – the simple and non-too-subtle effect of ethyl alcohol. If you spit out every mouthful, you will be amazed at how much more legible your tasting notes are at the end of the tasting.
I am not suggesting that you expectorate on social occasions. In fact, spitting out good wine seems as much a waste to me as it doubtless does to you. There are, however, some circumstances in which it is wise to spit out the alcohol, if possible, when you want to keep sober either because you are driving or because of other commitments after the tasting – when you are tasting a dauntingly high number of wines, more than half a dozen say, or when you are tasting very young wines that don’t give a great deal of pleasure.
Losing inhibitions about spitting in public is one of the first things to be done by the embryonic wine taster. It is sad but irrefutable that wine, that wonderfully intriguing and uplifting liquid, contains a potentially toxic substance. When it makes sense to spit you should be proud, rather than ashamed, to do it. You may associate expectoration with rather seedy old men and pavements but wine people have perfected the art of doing it with great style. ‘Spit with pride’ might well be the wine taster’s motto. The stylish spit is forceful, an elegant trajectory with not the merest suggestion of a dribble, aimed dead centre on the spittoon.
Any old jug or an empty bottle with a wide funnel in the neck can earn itself the smart appellation of a spittoon, though to avoid nasty splashes it makes sense to put some absorber like torn paper or sawdust into the bottom of it. A wooden wine case, such as those used by the better Bordeaux châteaux, filled with sawdust is a smart spittoon, though a spittoon with running water is even more efficient at disposing the unsavoury evidence. If you can taste near a suitable sink the business of spitting is easy. On anything but the most prosaic floor coverings, it is wise to spread plastic sheeting underneath and round any spittoon.
Finally, a word of warning. Even if you carefully spit out every single mouthful you will probably not entirely escape the effects of alcohol. Come what may, alcoholic fumes will travel around your mouth, up your nose and retro-nasal passage and you may feel slightly light-headed. In any case, you will find it extremely difficult not to swallow a single drop of wine. To spit with confidence, practice spitting neatly in the bath.
Wine of the week
2001 Leonardo Fikardos Winery Cabernet Sauvignon. Alcohol volume 12%, Price £5.50
This column has featured Theodoros Fikardos several times. On tasting Leonardo, his oaked in new barrels, Cabernet Sauvignon and a small quantity Mataro (Mourvèdre) you taste Fikardos’ pride and passion in making this wine. So passionate about it that he named it after his youngest son. Dark red in colour, it is bold and sophisticated, earthy with a touch of spice on the nose, the red-berries flavours edged by blacker tannins, this wine builds to a powerful length. The smoky scent of flint and the complex animal aromatics add to the wine’s mystery. The elegance of the wine is placing it in the Old World. Serve at 18ºC with your favourite red meat barbequed.
