【龙腾网】我怎样才能更多地了解葡萄酒呢

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How can I learn more about wine?

我怎样才能更多地了解葡萄酒呢?

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Alder Yarrow
How can someone start learning about wine?
Here’s what I call the Five Stages of Self Education about wine.
In the course of putting on wine dinners, attending and hosting wine tastings, and generally just drinking wine in public, I end up talking a lot with people about wine. Increasingly, many of those conversations are turning towards the subject of “wine education.” This means different things to different people, but in general, from novice to expert, people seem to want more of it. They’re not necessarily clamoring for their neighborhood stores to start holding classes, or for me to start an online wine university, but they are frequently asking me: “How can I learn more about wine?”

人们如何开始学习葡萄酒知识？
以下是我所说的关于葡萄酒的自我教育的五个阶段
在举办葡萄酒晚宴、参加和主持品酒会的过程中，通常只是在公共场合喝葡萄酒，我最终与人们谈论了很多关于葡萄酒的话题。越来越多的对话转向了“葡萄酒教育”这一主题。这对不同的人意味着不同的事情，但总的来说，从新手到专家，人们似乎想要了解更多。他们不一定强烈要求附近的商店开始开设课程，或者让我创办一所在线葡萄酒大学，但他们经常问我:“我怎样才能更多地了解葡萄酒?”

After getting over my initial mild embarrassment of being considered an authority on all things wine (yes, I’m still not quite used to it), I have typically answered the question by telling people there’s nothing wrong with taking classes if they’re that interested. Mostly I find myself suggesting that the easiest thing is to simply taste a lot more wine; but I’ve come to realize that while this is a simple way for me to answer the question, it’s only barely useful. I mean, c’mon, my day job is as a business consultant, right? I should be able to provide a little more structured approach for those who are interested in applying themselves to the subject.
Without further ado, then, I present my point of view on the stages through which any wine drinker should pass on their (deliberate or accidental) path towards being a serious student of wine, whatever that means for them. One can begin at any stage, and remain at any stage indefinitely. Some journeys never get past the first, while others determinedly progress to the last; but if you’re serious about it, this is the path I recommend taking. If you’re not serious about it, then perhaps it’s enough to know which stage you are in, and to be content with that.

在克服了最初被认为是所有葡萄酒方面的权威的尴尬之后（是的，我仍然不太习惯），我通常是这样回答这个问题的:如果他们感兴趣的话，参加课程并没有什么错。通常情况下，我觉得最简单的方法就是多喝葡萄酒；但我逐渐意识到，虽然这是我回答问题的一种简单方法，但用处不大。我是说，拜托，我的正职是商业顾问，对吧?我应该能够为那些对这个主题感兴趣的人提供一个更有条理的方法。
言归正传，我就葡萄酒饮用者(有意或无意地)在成为一名认真的葡萄酒学生的道路上所应走过的几个阶段提出我的观点，不管这对他们意味着什么。一个人可以在任何阶段开始，也可以无限期地停留在任何阶段。有些人从未走出过第一关，而有些人则决意走向最后一步;但如果你是认真的，我建议你走这条路

STAGE 1: Red, White, Pink, or Bubbles
One of the first choices most wine drinkers tend to make is whether they like red or white wine. You don’t have to decide in one direction or the other (many love both), but knowing that the two taste different — and deciding if you like one more than the other — is an important first step. Trying your hand at pink wine and sparkling wine also helps to build the foundation of preference.
STAGE 2: Varietal Schmarietal
It’s time to start learning about different types of grape varieties and how they manifest in wine. At the basic level this involves trying at least the following kinds of wines: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet, Zinfandel, and Syrah. At this stage you are just trying to learn the names, remember them, understand that they taste different, and get a sense of how those tastes vary. Order them with dinner, or buy a bottle and bring it home, but try them all and see if you develop any preference. It is especially helpful to try them side by side (several whites or several reds). A friendly wine shop owner or waiter can be useful in steering you towards the right bottle for your price range or the dish you are eating.

阶段1：红色、白色、粉色或气泡
大多数葡萄酒饮用者的首选之一往往是他们喜欢红葡萄酒还是白葡萄酒。你不必选择一种或另一种(很多人都喜欢)，但知道这两种味道不同——并决定你是否更喜欢其中一种——是重要的第一步。尝试品尝粉色葡萄酒和起泡葡萄酒也有助于建立偏好的基础。
第2阶段：葡萄品种
是时候开始学习不同类型的葡萄品种以及它们在葡萄酒中的表现了。在基本层面上，这需要至少尝试以下几种葡萄酒:夏敦埃酒、白苏维浓、灰比诺、黑比诺、梅鹿汁、卡百内、馨芳葡萄酒和席拉。在这个阶段，你只是试着学习名字，记住它们，理解它们的味道不同，并了解它们的味道是如何变化的。晚餐时点它们，或者买一瓶带回家，但试一下所有的，看看你是否有什么偏好。把它们放在一起(几瓶白葡萄酒或几瓶红葡萄酒)品尝尤其有帮助。一个友好的酒店老板或服务员可以帮助你找到适合你价格范围的酒或搭配你正在吃的菜的酒。

STAGE 3: Distinctions
Once you can remember the difference between different varieties, you’ve hopefully started forming preferences. Maybe you like Merlot, but don’t care for Cabernet as much. Maybe you’ve decided that you are more of a Sauvignon Blanc person than a Chardonnay person; it’s at this point that you have a lot of ground to cover. There are lots of things to learn about: producers, vintages, regions, and let’s not forget all the other varietiess of grapes and blended wines out there. The best way to fill out this knowledge, honestly, is to taste, taste, taste. And I don’t mean just asking a sommelier to pick a random wine for you at dinner, or having a glass of something you’ve never heard of at a bar; the best education you can get at this point will come from sitting down with lots of wines and comparing them side by side.
There are two ways to proceed: either going on wine tasting trips (if that’s convenient or attractive to you) or attending or hosting tastings of your own. I much prefer the latter, mostly because it provides an opportunity to try many wines of the same type together (most wineries don’t make five different Chardonnays, for instance).

第3阶段：记住这些区别
一旦你能记住不同品种之间的差异，你就有希望开始形成偏好。也许你喜欢梅鹿汁，但不太喜欢卡百内。也许你已经决定，你更喜欢喝白苏维浓，而不喜欢喝夏敦埃酒；在这一点上，你有很多事情要做。有很多东西需要了解：生产者、年份、地区，让我们不要忘记所有其他种类的葡萄和混合葡萄酒。老实说，最好的方法就是品尝，品尝，再品尝。我的意思并不是让侍酒师在晚餐时随便为你挑选一杯酒，或者在酒吧喝一杯你从未听说过的酒；在这一点上，你能得到的最好的教育将来自于坐下来品尝大量葡萄酒，并将它们并排比较。
有两种方式可以进行：要么开启品酒之旅（如果这对你是方便或有吸引力的话），要么参加或主持自己的品酒会。我更喜欢后者，主要是因为它提供了一个机会，可以一起品尝许多同类型的葡萄酒（例如，大多数酒厂不会生产五种不同的夏敦埃酒）。

Here’s how it works: Get a bunch of (at least six) friends rounded up and have them all come over for a tasting party. Everyone should bring a bottle of wine made from the same variety, and all the bottles should be roughly in the same price range. When people arrive, one person should wrap the bottles in individual brown paper sacks or in aluminum foil with just the neck exposed, write a number on it with permanent marker, and pull the cork. Sit down at a table or in the living room, give everyone a piece of paper, a pen, a wine glass, and start tasting the wines one at a time.

下面是它的工作原理：召集一群（至少六个）朋友，让他们都来参加品酒会。每个人都应该带一瓶用同一葡萄品种酿造的葡萄酒，而且所有的酒瓶价格应该大致相同。当人们到达时，一个人应该把瓶子单独用棕色纸袋或铝箔包好，只露出瓶口，用记号笔在上面写上一个数字，然后拉上瓶塞。在桌子旁或客厅里坐下，给每个人一张纸、一支笔、一个酒杯，开始一次一杯地品尝葡萄酒。

Tasting involves a few basic steps: Look at the color of the wine, swirl it in your glass, smell it, sip a little, swish it around in your mouth, and then swallow or spit (now is a good time to learn to spit — you’ll learn much more if you do, because you’ll be able to try more wines). Write down what you think. You can give the wine a score, you can give it a thumbs-up or -down, you can write what it tastes or smells like, it doesn’t matter. Go through all the wines, then talk about them as a group and see what people liked and didn’t like. Once you’ve tasted all the wines, take them out of their wrapping one at a time, and next to the notes you made about that wine, write down the vintage year, the winery, where it’s made, and how much the bottle cost. It doesn’t really matter what you do with the notes, though I recommend hanging on to them (or better yet, keeping a notebook where you save them all) but the important thing to try and get from these activities is a growing ability to remember what style of wine you like, along with what wineries you think make good wine. You are building a sense memory for what different wines taste like.

品尝品酒包括几个基本步骤:观察葡萄酒的颜色，在杯中旋转，闻闻，啜一小口，在口中旋转，然后吞咽或吐出来(现在是学习吐出来的好时机——如果你这样做，你会学到更多，因为你可以尝试更多的葡萄酒)。把你的想法写下来。你可以给酒打分，可以给它点赞，你可以写下它的味道或气味，这都没关系。浏览所有的葡萄酒，然后作为一个小组讨论它们，看看人们喜欢什么和不喜欢什么。一旦你品尝了所有的葡萄酒，就把它们从包装中取出来，一次取出一个，在这款酒旁做注释旁，写下年份、酒庄、酿造地以及瓶子的价格。你对这些笔记做什么并不重要，尽管我建议你坚持下来（或者更好的是，把它们都记在笔记本上），但从这些活动中尝试和获得的重要东西是，你越来越有能力记住你喜欢什么样的葡萄酒，以及你认为哪些酒庄酿造出好的葡萄酒。你正在建立一种不同葡萄酒味道的感官记忆。

Tastings like this are the best way to really understand a variety or a particular region, as well as to decide fairly conclusively whether you like a particular type of wine. Obviously, the more flexibility you have in the dollar amount you can spend on these tastings, the more you have an opportunity to really understand the range of possibilities in a given type of wine.
At this stage it’s particularly useful to join a wine club, which will result in a couple of bottles being delivered each month for you to try. Drink them and use the ones that are good as launching pads into new regions, producers, and varietals.

这样的品尝是真正了解一个品种或一个特定地区的酒的最好方法，也是确定你是否喜欢某一特定类型的葡萄酒的最好方法。很明显，你在这些品酒上花费的美元金额越机动性，你就越有机会真正了解特定类型葡萄酒的各种可能性。
在这个阶段，加入一个葡萄酒俱乐部是特别有用的，这将导致每个月都会有几瓶酒送给你去尝试。喝下它们，用它们作为跳板，尝试新的地区，新的生产者和新的品种的酒。