Date: Fri 15-May-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAM

Quick Words:

wine-vocation-Small

Full Text:

WINE WISDOM: Turning A Leaf: Enjoy A Glass of Wine With Dinner

By Steve Small

As you have all probably realized, wine is both my vocation and my avocation.

Obviously, I need to know about wine for my job. Reading about wine and

tasting new wines are important parts of my ongoing wine education. It is

important for me to know and understand wines so that I can stock and

recommend good wines to my customers. However even if I was not in the wine

business, I would still be enjoying wine and trying to learn more about it.

Some experiences out of the store recently led me to really wonder about the

importance of wine in everyday life.

To celebrate my wife's birthday, my two children, my wife, my sister-in-law

and I recently went to a national chain restaurant for dinner. Three wine

bottles were sitting in the lobby, so I knew they had wine in the restaurant.

The question was whether I could actually get a bottle or glass to drink.

The menu and the many promotional items on the table gave no hint as to the

availability of wine in the restaurant. Our first inquiry to our well

intentioned waitress informed us that they had White Zinfandel and that it

wasn't actually white but pink. Whew!, I am sure glad she cleared that up for

me.

Eventually my wife and I were able to order a glass of Turning Leaf Chardonnay

and Turning Leaf Merlot. The wine was fine and we went on to have an enjoyable

evening. The restaurant was quite busy that night. It is quite obvious that

most of the people were not going there to have wine with their meal.

The next day found us in New York City. We were there to watch the filming of

the "Emeril Live" television show for The Food Channel. Emeril is one of the

country's top chefs. His creative dishes cry out for a nice bottle of wine to

go with them. Unfortunately, given the time limitations of a half-hour show,

there was no mention of a wine to match Emeril's outstanding cuisine. I can

not help but wonder if wine had a more important place at America's table,

then every cooking show would mention wine as naturally as side dishes and

dessert.

After smelling Emeril's dishes, we needed to find a restaurant, fast!

Fortunately, New York City, for all of its faults, cares about wine. Walking

around the city and reading menus in windows provided us with a large number

of restaurant choices. Most of these restaurants provided wine choices not

only by bottle, but also by the glass. Some restaurants also offered tasting

menus where they matched a different glass of wine with each different course

of the meal for one fixed price.

In my ten years in the wine business, I've witnessed a huge growth in the

people's appreciation of fine wine. Unfortunately, based on my recent

experiences, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully as time passes, more

and more Americans will appreciate a glass of wine as a complement to a meal

rather than reserving it for special occasions.

(Steve Small is the proprietor of Steve's Liquor Store, at 71 Main Street

South/Route 25 in Newtown.)