DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Stories about people who can sip a glass of wine and tell you the varietal, the country of origin, the region, the year, and sometimes even the vintner:

• Noses Seek Wine Geekdom’s Biggest Prize, a NYT article about students preparing for the “Master of Wine” certification, administered by the Institute of Masters of Wine in London. “There are only 244 Masters of Wine worldwide.”
• A Man with Great Taste, a VIA magazine article about Larry Stone of San Francisco’s Rubicon, one of only 106 “master sommeliers” in the world, according to the London-based Court of Master Sommeliers.

We’ve attended blind wine tastings — even hosted a few. I know from experience that I am generally unable to distinguish flavor components. When I hear someone say “vegetal,” I can taste vegetal, but if nobody would say the word I would be unable to come up with it alone. I’d probably enjoy a component-tasting class if I felt I could free up a months’ worth of evenings to study and drink wine. Hmm, actually that might not be a bad thing.

More stories about Larry Stone:

• It’s 4 a.m. Do You Know Where Your Sommelier Is?… about A-list San Francisco sommeliers getting together to blind-taste wines after work.
• The Day-to-Day Life of a Sommelier… a chat with Larry Stone that has little to do with his day-to-day life, but answers some good questions like “can wine be sent back, and should the customer be charged for it?”

If you know nothing about wine but want to sound like you do, just memorize a few of these aroma words and component flavor words. Flinty or stemmy? Steely or coppery? Maybe just having a vocabulary of possibilities at hand makes it easier to identify the flavors.