It Tastes Like Pear

Sometimes when I taste wine, especially in the company of passionate wine lovers or accomplished sommeliers, I have a gut-wrenching, anxiety-provoking moment of deja-vu that transports me back to my third year of medical school. 

In that particular, humiliating instance, I failed to recognize what was arguably the world's loudest heart murmur.  (To be sure, this should have been the first red flag that I belonged in pathology, but that is another post altogether!).  As the star regurgitator of medical minutiae, I was tested, and failed, when the cardiology professor presumed a modicum of aptitude with my stethoscope. 

Before a medical posse that included my professor, sundry residents, fellow medical students, and the patient himself, I gingerly placed my stethoscope on the guy’s ticker and listened.  As the professor prodded, "So, what do you hear,” I panicked, groped for words, hemmed, hawed, and hedged.  Actually, his heart sounded entirely normal to me.  Finally, I proffered a squeaky, "a fib?"  "What?!" the cardiologist yelped.  "You can't hear that machine gun roooar?  It's like a Boeing 747 landing in the jungle- a deafening jack hammer.  You don't even need a stethoscope to hear that ‘lub-groosh, lub-groosh, lub-groosh.'" I missed the heart murmur, in front of everyone, including the patient. 

I felt bad, terrible really.

But medicine is not wine.  So, if someone demands to know what you taste as you swallow that initial sip, you have no reason for angst.  Wine is subjective. 

Nonetheless, benchmarks exist to help wine lovers parse wines they might enjoy from ones they will not.  Cabernet sauvignon does not taste like Sangiovese.  Knowing what you like to drink and why might help you navigate a wine list or a retailer’s shelves.  Plus, it’s a satisfying flex to share your favorite wine with a friend and describe that special bottle with confidence and flair. 

If wine tasting with friends makes you anxious, find better friends.

That said, once a type-A overachiever, always a type-A. 

So, for me personally, that dreadful moment of heart-thumping humiliation remains indelibly burned in my psyche.  Even today, fifteen harvests later, my battle with Impostor Syndrome recurs sporadically at blind wine tastings. I savor a swallow only to be faced with that same, expectant look, followed by the inevitable, "So, what did you taste?"  I fear I might let my drinking companions down, or worse, yet, fail altogether. 

They'll realize I'm a phony, and I'll be demoted to box wine for life.  To compensate, I start slowly and build to a crescendo, "Pears?  Ripe tropical fruit, for sure.  Star anise?  Definitely red fruit.  A hint of tobacco?  Maybe some leather?"  Exasperated, I offer, "Violets??!"  For the uninitiated, this particular amalgamation of adjectives covers both red and white wines.  “Ripe tropical fruit” and “leather” would be an unusual combination.

I’ve famously flopped at blind tastings, more than once actually.  I once blind tasted with a group of high-level wine credential candidates.  A colleague kept offering me hints, actually the same hint, over and over again, in various incarnations of pace and inflection.  He said, “pencil shavings and cassis?”  Then “Pen. Sill.  Shaaaaaavings.  And caaaaaaah-sis.”  He echoed the words in a high sing-songy voice and then in deep baritone. 

Pencil shavings and cassis is sommelier code for left bank Bordeaux, a region of France famous for cabernet sauvignon.  This word play is not unlike medicine, when a professor mocks chest pain and groans, “It’s like an elephant sat on my chest.”  Third year medical students wait a beat and then gleefully shout, “MI.”  (medical code for heart attack). 

You see, benchmarks can help.  A typical wine from a specific region evokes that place, just like a precise aggregate of symptoms can be a road sign pointing to a correct diagnosis.  But again, wine is not medicine.  Wine should be fun.

If you’re unfamiliar with a wine or a wine region, explore, taste and play.  Find your own benchmark words.  I have described my rose of pinot noir as reminiscent of Sour Patch kids.  Right?  You know exactly what I mean- tangy, sweetly sour, semi-tropical tutti-fruity flavor.  That would be “fruity with bright acidity” in wine speak. 

But use your own descriptors, ones that solidify a palate memory and will help you remember the wine.  I for one, used the word “pear” an awful lot.  In fact, I relied on "pear" so often that it became an ongoing joke with Brian, the CF(n)O.  I'd sample scallop, a Vietnamese spring roll, or my kids' mac and cheese, only to be taunted with, "Does that taste like pear, too?"  All in good fun, he says. 

These days I lean into descriptors like “gooseberries” and “lemon curd” with good reason. You can find gooseberries at Trader Joes; they are often labeled as “golden berries.”  And I regularly whip up lemon curd since our Meyer lemon trees are crazy prolific. 

Of course, gentle readers, I recount my own angst because with wine there is no right answer.  I might love it, but you think it's swill.  You like the Jura, but it’s not my jam.  But don't fret; it's just a beverage. Instead keep drinking, trying, tasting, pairing and experimenting.  What elevates your filet to carnivorous ecstasy may taste rotten with asparagus, deviled eggs, or a mocha Frapuccino.  Trust yourself, or better yet, just say it tastes like pear.

Looking for more humiliating tales of my blind tasting fails?  You’ll have to book a tasting with me at the winery.  Ask me about the time I sat in on that “Blind Tasting Techniques for Master Sommelier Candidates” course.  Man, I was like so sure that fourth glass was Russian River Valley pinot noir.