November 15, 2007

The Perfect Pour
How to pick wine for holiday gatherings
By Rich Tango-Lowy food@hippopress.com

What’s the big deal about wine and the holidays?

Wine goes way back. Although grapes never grew in Egypt, winemaking scenes appear on tomb walls dating to at least 2700 B.C. and there are signs that it might have been enjoyed in Mesopotamia as far back as 3500 B.C. It’s not just the history, though. Wine’s unique in that it’s nearly universal. Almost every culture has wine or some similar fermented drink, and almost every culture consumes it communally. Wine is an inherent part of our social structure. It comes from the earth; represents harvest, bounty, festivity.

Hmm, festivity.

The history of wine, briefy
Father George lives a few doors down toward the other end of the Alley.

He learned to love wine, particularly Bordeaux, while studying in France in 1968. A religious scholar, he can surely contribute insights into the spiritual history of wine and celebration.

“It starts with the Hebrews,” he offered. “For them, wine was a symbol of community. It celebrates their existence as a people. It binds them together as one people, one family. But the family wasn’t inclusive. Others, not just Hebrews, could be a part. From that came the Last Supper — a new kind of family — 12 Jews and Jesus, also a Jew. That became the basis for the Liturgy, and bread and wine is at the center.”

Isn’t it all just a large circle, I asked? Bread and wine is also at the center of the harvest, and harvest festivals far predate the Hebrews.

“The harvest is in many ways the basis of community,” he answered. “The Hebrews came to the land of Canaan. They planted. They harvested. Vines produced. The first harvest in Canaan is a thanksgiving meal. The Pilgrims consciously reproduced this meal when they came to the New World.”

Harvest festivals — the celebration of death and rebirth — date back to pagan times. The word “harvest” itself derives from the Anglo-Saxon “haerfest,” meaning Autumn, which makes sense, since these festivals are traditionally celebrated at or around the autumnal equinox in late September. In fact, it’s thought that Halloween evolved from Samhain, the Gaelic festival that celebrated the end of the harvest season. In nearly all agrarian cultures, this was the time when grain was made into bread and fruit was made into wine. It was a time of hospitality, feasting, and celebration.

Wine given, wine received
Thanksgiving is nearly upon us — a time when Americans from Maine to California to Alaska celebrate the Pilgrims’ harvest by consuming hearty New England Autumn fare: turkey, squash, sweet potatoes, cranberries.

For Thanksgiving and the holidays after, we host gatherings and parties, and we are invited to gatherings and parties. And with the gatherings and parties come the questions of wine etiquette: What wine should I bring? What should I do with the bottle someone brings to me? We’ll start with the first.

“I always choose several bottles of wine for my sister and her husband,” said Nancy, a relative newcomer to the Alley. “A red and white for my nephews and champagne for my sister because it’s festive.”

Nancy’s a schoolteacher with a background in French Literature.

“The wines vary according to what strikes my fancy,” she said. “When I bring a wine, I usually bring the same old thing I like to drink at home. One of my favorites is Chateau de la Chaize from Brouilly. It’s not a great wine, but it’s a hearty table wine that I enjoy drinking. This year I’m thinking of bringing some Graves. I love Graves. The taste is like the accent ‘grave’ in the French language; not sharp, but soft.”

Mike and Kitty, across the Alley, are easygoing outdoorsy folk with a slightly different take on the question.

“There are a few special gatherings we’ve attended for many years,” Kitty said. “I know the hosts and I want the wine to match the food. It’s a whole different game if it’s a gift. We’d almost always take a bottle of red; it’s more versatile than white. It’s fun to take wine to someone who really appreciates it; we’ll take something new or that they haven’t had in a while.”

How do you select the specific wine, I asked?

“We usually have plenty of drinkable wines collected, and we’d take one of ours,” Kitty said.

“Make sure to take something you like, in case you end up drinking it yourself,” Mike said.

I asked my good friend Paulette Esrich how she chooses the perfect wine to take along to a party. Paulette sells wine at The Wine Society, a high-end wine shop in Nashua. She’s sampled wines across Europe, and loves to entertain and share her finds.

“First, know your budget,” Esrich said. “You can purchase a good bottle of wine for less than 20 dollars and an excellent one for less than 30. Second, it helps if you know the guests: are they aficionados or do they only drink on special occasions? For the latter, I might recommend an approachable wine rather than something — not necessarily more expensive — but more unusual. For $25 I can give you a good easy wine; for the same price I can give you something really different.”

I posed the same question to Maureen Adams, the owner of The Wine Studio in Manchester.

“Before I opened the wine shop I brought big bottles; the more the better,” Adams said. “Now that I’m in the business I know more about wine. It’s not about what matches the food per se, it’s more about what you like. Holiday gatherings tend to have a whole range of food, so you really can’t go wrong.”

Receiving wine is another matter entirely. More than once I’ve wondered if I’ve mortally insulted a guest by stashing their carefully selected gift rather than serving it. Emily Post’s usually eloquent Etiquette (HarperCollins, 1997) had little to say on the matter, so I turned to the locals for opinions.

“We usually put it away,” Bill said. Bill and HB have lived in the Alley for 31 years. They love to entertain, though Bill isn’t particularly fond of wine.

“If it’s brought as a hostess gift we’d probably put it aside,” HB said.

“I’d like to say I’d serve it,” said Kathy, a retired school nurse, “but I really put it away. Anyway, I usually plan the evening’s wines in advance.”

Nancy was on the other side of the issue: “I put all the wines out there and ask a guest to open a bottle of red and a bottle of white. That way I don’t have to choose and nobody gets offended.”

Welcome (or unwelcome) guest
I think people worry too much about whether a wine will be any good. If there’s one thing everyone I spoke with agreed on, it’s that no one likes a wine snob.

“Pretentiousness is bad for business” said Laurie Laizure, the owner of D’Vine Wine. “People have a hard enough time walking into a wine shop without having to feel intimidated by it. We [shop owners] love wine, and we want you to love it. We don’t want you feeling uncomfortable.”

Then again, just a touch of self-deprecating pretension isn’t too bad, provided you avoid all-out wine snobbery. Tom and Kathy are a pair of retired educators who live across the Alley and a few doors down.

“I’m known in the wintertime to buy a box-o-wine,” Kathy confessed. “It’s Australian and it’s actually pretty good, but I’ll go to any length to hide the box!”

Claire used to live in the Alley. She still has a home here, but now she lives in the restaurant she bought out in Lincoln.

“What does wine mean to you during the holidays?” I asked over a glass of dark sweet Port.

She was a bit pensive, then answered, “I have to go way back. We used to entertain a lot. After one particularly stressful Thanksgiving, when everyone had gone, my daughter and I just sat together in our long, elegant dresses and relaxed. We just sat and enjoyed what we were drinking. That’s when I really enjoy wine; after the party. During the party I’m too busy hosting or socializing. You could serve me a hundred-dollar bottle of wine and it would be lost.”

Claire brings up an interesting point. What purpose does wine actually serve at a gathering?

“Wine is relaxing,” HB remarked.

“And it’s intimate,” Bill added; “It’s something that can carry you through an occasion.”

Kitty’s opinion was similar: “This culture seems to like to celebrate with beverages. The wine is even more important than the food sometimes. It’s a no-brainer that most people are more relaxed with a bit of alcohol in them.”

“Or a lot,” Mike said. “The conversation is freer and looser when everybody imbibes a bit.”

As Claire put it, “everybody lets their hair down.”

There’s a fine balance between letting the hair down and donning the lampshade. Every non-drinker has experienced the discomfort of socializing with “relaxed” people who think they’re a heck of a lot wittier than they really are. When I asked one of my acquaintances what wine and the holidays meant to her, I was somewhat surprised to receive the following response: “Good food. Good company. Celebrations. Indulgence. Arguments. Someone drinking too much wine. Means I’m driving.”

Finito Incognito
Mid-December each year, the Alley ends the season with its annual holiday stroll. Appetizers at one home, soup or salad at the next, on through dinner and finally dessert. The food is spectacular, the wine elegant. The company couldn’t be better. Wines are brought and shared; wines are brought and stored for another day. The hair is let down, the conversation free, and sometimes there’s even a lampshade. But we’re among friends, celebrating another harvest and another year.

About the author: Richard Tango-Lowy writes the “Wine in the Alley” which runs each week in the Hippo. In it, he talks about the reaction of the folks in his neighborhood — the Alley, as his stretch of Manchester town homes is known by its residents — to wines available locally. For help finding wines mentioned here, go to www.nh.gov/liquor.