Sommelier Insight for hospitality professionals and wine connoisseurs.

IN THIS ISSUE:

A. Feature: Assessing Wine Quality More Objectively
B. Event Highlights: Upcoming Wine Tasting Dinners and Seminars
C. Wine Elite Philosophy: Why is Wine so Important? 


This is Sommelier Insight, the Wine Elite's update for wine aficionados, luxury consumers, restaurant professionals and event planners.

Each month, we deliver wine event ideas, a schedule of upcoming wine appreciation events, and objective information on wine from the perspective of independent sommeliers.

We are Your Central Resource for Private Wine Events, Wine Education and Sommelier Expertise

www.WineElite.org


We have specialist teams available for your project nationwide.

You can reach us anytime by replying to this email, or at [email protected] and 310 467 5582.



Summer time is wine country time.

It is no coincidence that we associate wine with pleasures that reach far beyond the process of beverage consumption. The great red wines of the world all grow in warmer and balanced climates where spending the days in the outdoors is enjoyable and the nights are mild.

The scenery of wine country is among the most beautiful sights available in nature.

In general, the surroundings of wine are incredibly relaxing. The best part of my days is often the hour I have before a larger group event, alone in the cellar with my wines. Anticipating how great the wines can become as they open up, together with the backdrop of rustic visuals and smells of the location, creates multidimensional well-being.

I look forward to spending the part of July in Napa Valley, not only for wine, but also for the above stated reasons. 

Please take a moment tonight to read the philosophical parts of this month's newsletter in depth. There's a lot in here for those who consciously enjoy wine, or are in pursuit thereof.




A. Assessing Wine More Objectively

I recently was interviewed by Business Insider and released a few reports that generated more than 150,000 readers within a few hours. Here's an abbreviated summary of my last one:

"People talk about quality like a matter of preference and flavor, but while we've found that there are a number of personal preferences that influence what people like and think are best, there are also a number of objective factors," says sommelier Jörn Kleinhans, owner of the Wine Elite Sommelier Company.

Kleinhans and his team of sommeliers, who regularly conduct blind taste tests, have boiled down those determinants of quality into three factors that anyone can recognize:

1. Complexity
"The more different notes and distinct flavor compositions you pick up, the more complex the wine," explains Kleinhans. That's where you get descriptors of flavor profile like plum, cherry, vanilla, or tobacco. The more of those flavors you can taste, the more complex the wine, and the more complex, the higher quality. "Complexity is perhaps the most important quality indicator that people can agree on," Kleinhans adds. "The controversy comes in when they discuss whether they like it or not."

2. Intensity
The more intense a wine, the more clearly the drinker can identify and distinguish between the flavors present. "More intensely showing flavors make it easier to spot, appreciate, and recognize," Kleinhans says. "When you have a very complex wine but all the flavors are fairly clear, the intensity is to the advantage of the wine quality."

3. Balance
In terms of wine, "balance" is "the idea that an optimal wine contains a number of flavor profiles: fruits, vegetables, oak notes, the structure (which includes alcohol), and earthiness," according to Kleinhans. "The well-balanced wine shows the vast majority of all of these five components, integrated to a degree that they're visible, the proportion of taste in harmony and in good relationship to the other tastes shown."

Advanced Measure: Typicity
Typicity defines how typical a wine is of its kind. Does it taste like it's supposed to? Admittedly, recognizing typicity takes experience, meaning wine experts and connoisseurs are better equipped to judge."

 

 


B. Upcoming Public Wine Tastings in Southern California

The Wine Elite Society hosts an ongoing series of sommelier-guided wine tasting dinners for the public, often in our signature blind-tasting format. 

Here are a the summer tasting opportunities for Southern California residents. Email for info and reservations.

-- Wine Elite Society&nnbsp;public tastings in Orange County and San Diego.

Sign up for these groups if you live in the area, and join dinners that include the greatest wines of the world... upcoming topics include aged Opus One, Great Wines of Tuscany, the Top Villages of Europe, as well as our Summer Days in the Vineyard program.

New events are constantly added. The next OC event is on this Saturday, June 21st.

In this July we are also launching our

-- Live Online Wine Seminar

...available nationwide in your home office. The wines analyzed during this tasting course will be shipped to your house, so that everyone is tasting exactly the same wines during this live sommelier tasting course.

Review and sign up for the virtual wine course here.


 





C. Wine Elite Philosophy: Why is it Important to Think about Wine?

Esteemed wine writer Dr. Dwight Furrow has just released his best integration on the intellectual argument for wine obsession. See here some highlighted excerpts, but read the full piece directly on wine educator Dwight's website. Meet Dwight at our public San Diego sommelier dinner shows.

"There are lots of hard problems that require our thoughtful attention—poverty, climate change, quantum entanglement, or how to make a living, just for starters. But food and wine? Worthy of thought?

Most Americans live lives that are highly regulated and standardized, governed by norms of efficiency and profit that crowd out any other value; and these norms increasingly colonize our home life as well thanks to intrusive media technologies. We tend to work long hours at boring, repetitive jobs, that demand our full attention–in order to make someone else rich. That is, if your job is not outsourced to a machine.

Everyone needs a way to resist these demands, a place where beauty, pleasure and attention to things that have intrinsic value occupy our attention. Finding extraordinary meaning in simple things like a meal or a bottle of wine is the most accessible path to a good life in this damaged world. This is not a new thought—ancient sages from the Buddha to Epicurus had similar notions. But it is more relevant now than ever in human history."

 





 

Overview of our Resources for Your Use:


Catalog for Corporate Wine Tasting Events

Catalog of Wine Elite Programs for Restaurants

Topic Suggestions for Private Events

Private Wine Event Checklist

Whiskey Tasting Tips

GrapeRadio Interview

Speaker Profile at GigMasters

Public Speaker Program on Wine One-Sheet

Wine Elite Corporate Event Video

Essential Wine Tips 2pager

Special Events Idea One-Sheet

Program Brochure for Team Building Events


May 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

April 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

March 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

February 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

January 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

December 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

November 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

October 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

September 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter

August 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter






 
Jörn Kleinhans, CSW
Certified Sommelier, Public Speaker on Wine, and owner of The Wine Elite.

The Wine Elite is an independent sommelier and wine expert company -- your central resource for guided tasting and wine consulting.

Our sommelier network spans across all 50 states and the Caribbean, with the strongest presences in L.A., OC, San Diego, San Franscisco and Las Vegas.

Our clients are top hotels and restaurants, Fortune 500 companies, high-end wine collectors, and students of wine.

For more information, go to www.WineElite.org.












































































 
Dwight Furrow, CSW is a San Diego based wine educator with The Wine Elite.

People who are interested in the intellectual aspects of wine read his blog -- three times a day after meals.































 
    



 
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