To clam or not to clam ? - a question of wine & terminology for the wine novice

I was at an entry level wine appreciation class, during the tasting session, I thought a Chardonnay that we were tasting smelled like a just-opened can of clam. clam? but the instructor never told us that clam was part of our wine descriptions...what was I to do?
My turn came and I gathered enough courage, risking embarrassing myself in front of the class, and came forth with my finding. True enough, the entire class of 15 cracked and went off on me.....clam? ?
Well, Mr. Lawson, our instructor took a sniff at the wine and another, and concluded that the wine did in fact had a clam nose ! Hehe...who's laughing now sh-heads !!

Gooseberries, basement, wet dog, cat pee, cedar, oak, musk... these are scents wine afficiados have detected in wines and adopted as part of wine vocabulary. Here's the problem, most of us everyday folks are clueless as to what these scents are. What does a wet dog smell like, and is the wetness result of a cat peeing on it? did the incident take place in a basement and was the basement floor made of oak or cedar wood? Hence giving it a musk odor? All foreign to many of us lah !!

Unfortunately, there is no crash course to becoming a wine expert. You can read one of those compact pocket wine book and start sounding like you know it all...and that's about all you are I guess ! For those of us who are serious and interested, certain amount of studying, memorizing and learning is essential; learn the basics of wine and the proper methods to enjoy it, memorizing words and terminologies, and experience new smell, palate and taste. If you have too much change in the pocket, you may want to look into getting a scent reference kit from France. A 54 scent kit from Le Nez du Vin by Jean Lenoir will set you back about RM1500 before shipping from the UK !

Enjoyment of wine is a dynamic & evolving life long process, just like a wine that continue to evolve years after being bottled and cellared. A bottle of wine and the subject of wine is never static. Every vintage is different, and the same wine evolves over the years for better or worse. New wine regions are opening up all the time, not only in the old world, but also in new places like Thailand, China, Cuba and India !! who knows, Chateau Tanahrata 2008, AOC Cameron Highlands?

So how does one get started ? 2 parts to make it simple;

theories & practical

Theories

the www, wine for dummies and many books are everywhere and information is aplenty on the net. Read up and just learn the basics one step at a time. You probably will never get to a point where your become completely knowledgeable on the subject. You might become more informed about wine compare to the person next to you but as I said, studying and appreciation of wine is a life long process.

Practical

Like riding a bicycle and many other things in life, you will not fully appreciate the experience by just reading and without actually doing it ! So the next thing to do is to go out and get yourself a hot*, charmimg* and full bodied* women.....opps I meant wine, and get started, and remember, a long finish* is good ! ( * these are actual wine terms ! btw). There are also wine dinners and wine tastings taking place around town from time to time. You probably have to pay for the wine dinner, but these are usually very well priced as the wine merchants are trying to promote their wines. Wine tasting are not that frequent compared to the early 2000s when there were a great number of small size importers. Nevertheless, keep your eyes open and get yourself on the mailing lists of wine merchants around town and they will inform you when there's a wine event taking place. I like wine tastings, as they allow me to work at my on pace, and usually, I get to taste no less than 30 wine at a session. Fact is, the more you taste, the more your olfactory senses will learn, and in time you will become a sharper taster with experience.

Our local supermarkets actually carry a good and affordable selection of entry level wines, which is good for the consumers. I suspect our wines on the retail shelves are cheap due to certain inadequacies in the enforcement of the laws that govern the importation of liquors and wines, but we wont dwell on that. From the wine merchants' point of view, cheap wines are good for the industry overall in the long run, as it makes wine drinking affordable as hence enticing potential wine drinkers to experiment. If you have a few friends that are just discovering wine, make a point to experiment wine pairing with our ever day cuisine. To me, wine and food pairing experience is not necessarily a formal fine dining set up with stuffy etiquette. I remember having a fantastic gastro experience with my friend Mr. Lim at a roadside seafood hawker place in Kepong. We'd have grilled mud crabs, Kum Heong Lala, Grilled Belachan Stingray, all paired with some excellent white wines from South Africa & New Zealand. We did look kind of odd, sitting there with our thermo bag, fancy wine glasses and our bottles of wine with a couple of stray cats hanging around our table looking for food scraps but we had some jolly good time ! Cheers !