{"id":3617,"date":"2020-01-31T08:20:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T13:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2020-01-24T10:47:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T15:47:42","slug":"lessons-from-a-sommelier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2020\/01\/31\/lessons-from-a-sommelier\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons From a Sommelier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kim Hebert Simone \u201998 uncorked her interest in wine during her gastronomy graduate program at Boston University, but the Colgate classics<\/a> major has always been interested in the social history of eating and drinking. \u201cI remember sitting in the history of wine class studying the differences between Burgundy and Bordeaux and realizing, \u2018I can make this a career,\u2019\u201d she says. Now a corporate sommelier for Boston\u2019s Legal Sea Foods and owner of wine education business Vinitas Wineworks, her vision has become a reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simone gives her tips for finding the right vino:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/span><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The white with fish, red with meat rule is antiquated. <\/strong>\u201cMy rule of thumb for pairing food and wine is to think about the weight of the food and the weight of the wine. Lighter wines with lighter foods, heavier wines with heavier foods. There\u2019s such a wide variety of food and wine that there are very few bad pairings. A lot of it is choosing styles you like and things you like to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/span><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t have to break the bank. <\/strong>\u201cI usually select bottles ranging between $12 and $25 retail price for most of the Vinitas Wineworks events I do, unless it\u2019s something special like a champagne tasting. I stick to that price point because you can get really good wine that tastes the way it\u2019s supposed to taste. Less expensive than that, you get more commercially produced wine \u2014 more expensive than that, sometimes there are wines that need to be put down for a little while and age before they taste their best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/span><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After opening, drink up.<\/strong>\u201cIt\u2019s most likely going to start going downhill fairly quickly. It\u2019s not like leaving milk on the counter, it\u2019s not going to make you sick, but the flavors will start to diminish. For white wine, it will lose its fruit, and it will start turning a little brown if it\u2019s been more than a week. Some reds will actually get better after a day or two open. My tip for keeping wine bottles open is to stick them in the fridge and bring them back to room temperature when you\u2019re going to drink them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4<\/span><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get some gadgets. <\/strong>\u201cThere are a lot of things on the market that you can buy as little preservation systems for your wine. There are some that pump the air out of the wine and others that have an inert gas you can squirt in the bottle.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/span><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an app for that. <\/strong>Simone likes Vivino: \u201cYou can take a picture of the bottles you\u2019re tasting, it\u2019ll pop up information about the wine, and then you can add your own notes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

6<\/span><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seek advice at the store. <\/strong>\u201cHaving a few basic things that you know you like or don\u2019t like can be really helpful. Even something as simple as \u2018I like lighter wines, or I like heavier wines.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sommelier Kim Hebert Simone \u201998 shares 6 tips to ease yourself into the world of wine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1222,"featured_media":3371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,292],"tags":[61,536],"coauthors":[168],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-updates","category-in-the-know","tag-food","tag-wine"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-Wl","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/11\/Kim-Simone-at-Legal-Sea-Foods-copy.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3730,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions\/3730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}