Swirl, Sniff and Swish: Delish!

You can’t really accuse Steve Sofferin of being a wine snob.

Steve, who is president and owner of Alliance Marketing, a Buffalo, N.Y., manufacturers’ representative firm, says his first wine appreciation experience started at the family holiday dinner table. Then he moved on to tasting some of the finer wines of the 1970s, including the strawberry and apple-flavored varieties.

Steve confesses that he even used to enjoy pink chablis, another old favorite for many of us (you know who you are).

A wine snob would never admit to drinking apple-flavored wine and would certainly not recognize “pink chablis” as a legitimate wine. But everybody has to start somewhere.

Steve is a devoted wine aficionado. His passion for wine involves collecting wine, learning about wine, and “experiencing the characteristics of wines from different regions of the world and different winemakers. You can taste a wine made from cabernet sauvignon grapes from California, one from Italy, and one from France, and you’ll find they each have completely different personalities.”

About 20 years ago Steve took his first wine-tasting excursion to the Napa Valley in the heart of the California wine country. “We met several winemakers on that trip,” Steve said. “In those days, you didn’t see the elaborate tasting rooms that exist at vineyards today. Back then, when you met the winemaker, it was probably after he had just come in from working the fields, dirty hands and all.”

Steve’s enthusiasm for wine grew as he learned the intricacies of the process from the winemakers. “They would tell you everything about their grapes, their wine and their craft. So many things influence wine. Temperature, rainfall, wind, soil and sun all affect the grapes. Then there are things we don’t often think about, like the cooperage (the style and composition of the barrels in which the wine is aged),” he said.

The winemakers’ technical know-how is not the only thing that impresses Steve. The folklore and local color are also key attractions.

“We visited the Francis Ford Coppola vineyard in Napa Valley,” said Steve. “It might seem touristy, but it has a rich history.” The Niebaum~Coppola Estate, as it’s now called, was founded by Gustave Niebaum, a ship captain whose fortune was built on shipping furs from Alaska to San Francisco.

In the late 1880s, Neibaum’s interest turned to wine, and he built a grand winemaking estate in the Napa Valley. Almost 100 years later, Francis Ford Coppola, the famous film director, bought the estate and is now producing more than 20 different wines from 200 acres of vineyards.

Regardless of who makes a wine or where it’s from, Steve said, “It’s not what’s on the label or what a magazine review says about a wine that counts. What matters is how it tastes to you.”

Some years ago, Steve and his wife Lisa hosted a wine tasting. “I had been collecting cabernet sauvignons for a number of years, so we did a vertical wine tasting.” (A vertical tasting means that you drink wines from the same vineyard produced in different years).

“We had a bottle of wine from each year starting in 1978 and ending in 1982. We carefully uncorked the bottles, tasted each wine in chronological order, and made detailed and critical notes about each wine. We rated the wines from the greatest wine ever produced to not so good. After the six of us tasted all five bottles, we finished up by blindfolding each other, and then tasted each of the wines again.”

He continued, “The comments we made while blindfolded were completely the opposite from the tasting comments we made in the first round.” Steve said, “The moral of the story is: it’s how the wine tastes that counts.”

Now, doesn’t that make you feel better about pouring a glass of wine from that box in your refrigerator?

Gretchen Roufs, a 15-year janitorial supply industry veteran, owns Auxiliary Marketing Services of San Antonio. To suggest someone you think should be featured in “freetime,” contact her at (210) 601-4572.