Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Campbell: “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been
there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one
you are living.”
My bliss was pure honey, the sweetness of a flower blossom that had been kissed by
a honeybee. The more I traveled, the more I collected and researched samples of rare
andexquisite honeyfromaroundtheglobe,each withitsdifferent nectar source,flavor,
aroma, color, provenance, and seasonal and tasting notes. Friends brought me honey
from their trips abroad, and I even found myself asking strangers from faraway places,
whom I'd just met, to send me unusual honeys from their native lands. Each specimen
opened a new world of the cultural, geographic, historic, and culinary delights of a par-
ticular region.
Not long after my trip to the Amalfi coast, I landed a small design project with an
Italian wine importing company. I had the luxury of being trained by a well-known
sommelier and importing partner. Joe could blind taste any bottle of wine and tell you
its life story, including the grape variety, winery, region of origin, and even what year
the grapes were harvested. The sophistication of his palate was staggering. Apparently,
there are a chosen few, many of whom are women, who experience taste with tremend-
ous intensity and detail. (Thirty-five percent of all woman, but only 15 percent of men,
areknowntohavesuperiorsensesoftastebecauseofanincreasednumberof
fungiform
papillae,
whichholdourtastebuds.)Theyarecalled
super tasters,
andtheyaretheper-
fect candidates to judge and evaluate wine. Joe told me that accomplished wine tasters
couldrecognizeandmemorizeflavorsbetterthanmostpeople.HewassurethatIcould
develop my taste memories and a conscious palate after some experience and exposure
to many different wines.
Joe explained that the grapes used to make wine could take on different characterist-
ics from year to year depending upon the French concept called
gout de terroir,
or taste
of place. Terroir (pronounced
tair wahr
) is the sum of the unique combination of geo-
graphic location, soil and its mineral content, climate, annual rainfall, and temperature
during a given season, all of which gives each wine its individual profile and personal-
ity. These unique aspects of a region influence the personality of a wine, which is why
ChampagneistheonlydesignatedregionforChampagne,andChianti,Italy,forChianti
wine. These traditions are protected by European Union laws and are now being recog-
nized here in the United States. Joe and I tasted wines all made from the same variety
of grape grown in different regions, and then different varieties of grapes all grown in
the same region. All of these wines tasted remarkably different from one another.
Joe explained the sensory process of evaluating wines: Before you taste it, you look
at it and sniff it, evaluating it for color and then swirling it in your glass to release
the bouquet. Finally, you swish it in your mouth to release the full flavor and texture.
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