'Cata' Me Down a Size

Last week, I attended my first cata in Spain. A cata is much like what one would call a dégustation in France or a winetasting in English. However, I quickly learned that I was mistaken if I thought that a cata was merely an opportunity to degustar.

Let me back up- degustar in Spanish means to taste or savor; to appreciate a food or beverage. The way I've heard it used also seems in imply that when degustar-ing, one is reflecting on their food or drink as opposed to just consuming it. Déguster, in French, implies the same elevated eating/drinking habit, as opposed to the other eating verbs: manger, se nourir, s'alimenter. And, of course, all of these verbs have their Spanish equivalents. I will now return to my narrative and give you a break from the vocabulary lesson.

So, when Antonio, the gentleman hosting the cata, asked his audience, "What do we do at a cata?" I waited for a few moments of silence to pass before daring to speak [in Spanish, mind you]..."Um, pues, well, it is an opportunity to degustar various wines, no?"

"NO!"

I quickly learned that one does not come to degustar wines, which, to Antonio, would imply a hedonistic happy-hour sipping fest. Instead, at a cata, one comes prepared to analyze and scrutinize. So, here I was sitting in the front row, having dared to respond to the first question and then feeling like the student who everyone is glad not to be: the one who wanted to look like she knew what she was talking about, but instead missed the mark- publicly.

Therefore, I will title this blog post, "Cata me down a size". Because I feel like I walked away with two binary conclusions: A) I learned a lot of new, useful information and B) I knew (and know) less than I thought I did. However, there's never a bad time to be reminded that you maybe aren't the hot-shot you thought you were.





So after Antonio made an example out of me, he continued with his introduction into the wonderful world of wine. He described how wine is capable of engaging all of our five senses. He questioned us again, "what are the five senses?" I'm sure that this question seemed so inane and obvious to an audience of Spanish people that it was probably meant to be rhetorical, however, someone was answering and it was clear that she was eager to redeem herself. Oh, no!- that's my voice! At the very least, I got it them all right and Antonio appeared pleased with me: the accented, overachiever. Little does he know that I once labored over a love-poem to a Spanish man that described each of the five senses...ha! But, he threw me a bone and said, "They say that women even have six."

He poured us each our first wine, 2011 Bodegas Bocopa Marina Espumante Brut, a sparkling wine from the D.O.C of Alicante. He used this wine as his teaching tool that enabled us to understand how each of the senses in engaged during the wine tasting process. *He says all five, however the hearing sense seems rather absent. First, we looked at the color and were made to consider a few things. Is it a yellowish white wine or greenish, murky or clear, how does it behave against the glass, is it bright or dim? Also, a question that seemed interesting due to its subjectivity: does it allure you? Do you like the way it looks?

Then we moved on to scent. Immediately I learned something new. Do NOT swirl your glass before smelling your wine. In the past few months, I have become quite the 'swirler'. So there I was, 6,000 miles away from home with the same swirling vigor that I'd carried from my 'real' life in Portland, sitting in from of Generalísimo Antonio and swirling away.

"NO!"

"Hombre, you have to wait. Smell it before swirling it, then wait and swirl...see how it changes." "Sí, señor." But, of course, he was right. It did change, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.

[I want to pause for a brief interlude and ask anyone reading who knows the answer: what is proper protocol in a restaurant when you've ordered a bottled of wine, the waiter comes and ceremoniously uncorks it for you and pours a bit in your glass for tasting. To swirl or not to swirl? Better to smell and taste, swirl and taste or carry out the entire theatrics of wait-smell-smell-swirl-smell-smell-sip-swish-smell-nod approval.  Maybe someone out there with a little more experience than I can clue me in.]

* I was given an answer by a trusted friend and winesman, you can find it in the comments section below.

So, once one has waitled (waited+swirled), it is now time to identify what exactly is going on in the glass. What aromas are bridging the gap between wine and nose? To be perfectly honest, one of my great insecurities when it comes to wine is the fact that while I have devoted a lot of time and studies to it, I remain unable to discern the different scents that should be found in a respective wine. I know that there are ways to train oneself to do this better and I intend to. Particularly after another humbling cata misstep. While tasting a 2011 Torre de Reloj Macabeo, Antonio asked us what we smelled. I responded, "el mar [the sea]", to which he replied,

"NO!"

And then made a clicking noise with his tongue, "tch tch tch", which seems to be as intrinsically European as Rioja or Burgundy. Others postulated scents like manzana, melocotón, heno to which Antonio frowned a bit a made a shuffling motion with his shoulders. Occasionally, someone would name a scent and he would say definitively. "SÍ." This compelled me to ask him to what degree the act of smelling is subjective. I expected him to say that it was, indeed, quite subjective (I would feel redeemed for my 'sea' comment) however, he said that it really wasn't at all subjective. He offered the example of a person who makes perfumes: they are doing so with precision in order to yield a certain smell, not so that people will interpret it whichever way they choose. 

While I tend to eagerly accept the beliefs of 'an expert', which Antonio undoubtedly is, I struggle to get behind this assertion. Why? Because certain smells are evoked by our experiences. How am I to smell hay in a wine if that is a smell I'm unfamiliar with. Instead, won't I discern some other odor? How can I accept that what I am smelling is wrong, when, presumably, we all have different olfactory mechanisms, just as we have different palates? The idea of it being so subjective seems either a bit dogmatic or a bit ambitious. Perhaps it would be great if a label could tell us with 100% accuracy what we'll smell, but also, isn't it a bit limiting to say that we can't conceivably interpret a wine differently?  

Moving on to the taste and touch senses, which, with wine, happen somewhat simultaneously. Touch, in the case of wine, can be better interpreted as mouth-feel. Is the wine viscous, does it dry out your mouth, does it seem to stick to your tongue and the walls of la boca? I once had a professor (by day, wine enthusiast by night) who told me to take glasses and fill them with skim milk, 2% milk, whole milk and heavy cream and focus not on the respective flavors, but, instead, how they felt in my mouth. This was to give me an idea about texture and a better understanding of mouth-feel. This same professor also shared with me that in French, there is no word for 'mouth-feel'. Mes amis, il faut en trouver un, non?

So what about taste? Arguably the most important of the five senses (I suppose, technically smell would be because of it's function as a way to strengthen tastes). However, with technicalities aside, the taste of a wine often is the reason that people drink it- why they elect one wine over another (or maybe they just like the label...¡NO!) So, how does one assess taste? The most popular response: drink a lot of wine. Through tasting several varietals, vintages and regions, one starts to recognize what characterizes each of those categories- simultaneously, one starts to realize their own preferences. Through both mechanisms, one can assess a wine: a) is it a good representation of its category and b) do I like it? 

Antonio, while being strict, was a very generous host. We tasted upwards of 8 wines- all from Alicante. ¡Que bueno! We were able to taste across varietals, while also across vintages and I finally was able to make a three way comparison between Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva. Spain is unique in its concern about the amount of time aged in barrels and the three latter words refer to different amounts of time. It is a Spanish indication of quality and while other wine-growing regions are also interested in various lengths of barrel-aging, nowhere is it present in the wine psyche like it is in Spain. 

By the end of the evening- our group of well-behaved visitors had morphed. All the bottles of wine were open on the table as well as the packs of crackers meant to be palate cleansers. However, we'd consumed a great deal of wine and it looked as though we weren't going to stop. People approached the table and began serving themselves. The decibels in the room started to raise (maybe that's where the sense of hearing finally comes in to play) and the crackers were scattered all over the table. And then Antonio, the man who had so intimidated me, tipped his glass in my direction. Maybe he was just leaning over to join the scramble for the remaining crackers, but I thought I noticed a discernable wink, perhaps just as subtle as the sea flavor I detected in the Macabeo. 

Here is a look at my tasting notes (as you can see, I became less studious at the wines became more numerous)