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Buy Local, Drink Smart: Austinist Interviews Texas Culinary Academy Wine Instructor Jane A. Nickles
It's hard to go anywhere in Austin without running into Jane A. Nickles, the wine instructor at Texas Culinary Academy and a Certified Specialist of Wine. Her signature seminar, “WineSpeak 101” was named a “Best Bet” by the Austin-American Statesman and was the closing seminar at the 30th Annual National Conference of the Society of Wine Educators this July. In addition to her teaching at the Texas Culinary Academy, she is the faculty advisor for the TCA student wine club, wine advisor for the fundraising group “Austin Women and Wine”, and wine director for the annual Umlauf Garden Party. Jane has recently been called “Austin’s favorite Wine Guru” by the Austin Blogger, and “The charismatic and knowledgeable Miss Jane” by Austin Woman Magazine. Whew!
We're terribly excited to have spent a little time with "Miss Jane" and are even more excited that she's penned a new book, Winespeak 101, that illustrates how to "discern, define, and describe any wine according to ten easy-to-understand factors." If you want to develop your wine know-it-all skills, buy the book (it's on Amazon!) We took advantage of our time with Miss Jane to ask her a few questions we've been too scared to ask:
Are there any dumb wine questions?
No…there are no dumb wine questions, but the one I get asked most often goes like this:
Miss Jane: “Now, everyone, pick up your glass of wine and swirl like this. Swirl, swirl, swirl…Now, stick your nose in the glass and take a nice, long inhale from the bottom of the glass. What do you smell???
Class: “I smell roses!! Strawberries! Blackberries! Leather!! Wet Dirt! Apples! Pears! Bananas!!”
Anonymous Newbie in the Back of the Class: “Do they really put bananas in wine?”
Miss Jane responds with the lecture entitled, “Where Wine Aromas Come From”. Here’s the short version: “Wine can have many diverse aromas. As a matter of fact, Over 600 aroma-producing chemicals have been identified in wine, many of which remind us of familiar aromas, such as fruit, flowers, spices, or chemicals. A wine’s particular characteristics, including of course aromas, are always the result of three factors: The fruit, the terrior (soil, climate, viticulture), or winemaking techniques.”
What are you drinking tonight?
Tonight I am drinking my favorite wine….Sonoma Zinfandel. I love the juicy, jammy, spicy, fruity, full-flavor, tough tannin and (hiccup) high alcohol of red zinfandel. I think the best Zinfandel comes from Sonoma, where the cool influence of the Pacific Ocean gives the grapes a long ripening season. A long ripening season means high levels of sugar, which means high levels of alcohol, and you know the rest. This particular bottle is Forchini Zinfandel from Sonoma. Love the topless Bacchus on the label. (Miss Jane’s hint: If you are in a restaurant, and don’t know what to order, Red Zinfandel from Sonoma is always reliable. Order some tonight.)
Quick! Texas wines?
Texas wines are Texas wines! They will never be California Wines or French Wines, and should not be compared to them. You don’t laugh at an apple because it’s an apple and not an orange! Texas wines have improved dramatically since I landed in Austin (from California – gasp!!) 12 years ago. I have always enjoyed the red wines of Llano Estacado in Lubbock. I also enjoy Fall Creek Granite Reserve, and the red wines of Alamosa Vineyards in Tow. For the best $8.00, “Supermarket Wine” around, try Fall Creek Chenin Blanc. You’ll be surprised!!!
Is there a "golden rule" of wine?
My god yes! Actually, Miss Jane has four “golden rules of wine”
1. Drink what you like, without regard to what is popular, expensive or trendy. (Well, I can forgive trendy…)
2. If you love your friends, serve wine with cheese. If you are annoyed with your friends, serve apples with cheese. If its time for everyone to leave, serve salted pretzels with Australian Shiraz.
3. If you discover there is sediment in the bottom of a bottle of aged red wine, do not, under any circumstances, drink it. Call me and I will drink it for you.
4. Seriously, folks….wine is a great hobby. At least once a month, try a wine you have never heard of, can’t pronounce, or don’t think you will like. Wine is a subject as vast as history, and you can enjoy growing your tastes, trying new things, and learning about wine for the rest of your life.
Where's your favorite place to drink wine in Austin?
My favorite place to drink wine is Austin is my back yard, but if the neighbors file a noise complaint, I pack up the party and head to Cork and Company on Congress. They have a great selection of affordable wines and a few well-selected pricier bottles, just in case someone else is paying. They also offer wines by the flight of three…great for a long evening of comparing, contrasting, and talking wine!!!
OK, so, we'd actually like to know the long version of where wine aromas come from.
“Technically speaking, wine is a beverage produced from the fermentation of grapes. Easily fermentable “simple sugars” are abundant in grape juice. This is the reason why modern society has wine in the first place.
“If you take a ripe grape, loaded with the simple sugars known as fructose and glucose, and crush it, the juice from inside the grape begins to flow. Next, somehow, we need to get some yeast into the grape juice. There might be some yeast already naturally present in the mix if there was yeast in the atmosphere surrounding the grapevines. Or, our Winemaker may choose a specific strain of yeast and add it to the grapes. Either way, given the right circumstances, basically a moderate temperature and not too much oxygen, the yeast will begin to eat the simple sugars in the grape juice. In the process, the grape sugars are converted it to alcohol, carbon dioxide, and heat.
“This magical process, known of course as fermentation, is actually just one of the steps of winemaking. Wine making begins with selecting the right grape for the growing region and complex viticultural practices, harvesting at the exact moment of perfect ripeness, and proceed through fermentation and on to clarification, stabilization, aging, blending and perhaps bottle maturing. The winemaker has a complex series of choices and tools to use at every step in order to influence the final product of the wine.
“With every possible wine making process, many chemical and physical reactions take place in the developing wine. As natural by-products of these processes, hundreds of different chemical compounds are created and remain dissolved in the wine.
“Over 600 of these natural compounds have been identified in wine. They have, by the scientists who know about such things, been grouped into compounds such as acids, aldehydes, esters, ketones, terpenes, and phenolics. These compounds generally have highly romantic names such as “Cyanhydrin Benzaldehyde.”
“This particular chemical, “Cyanhydrin Benzaldehyde” may not be something you have every paid much attention to. Almost certainly, you have never even heard of it before. But, you might recognize its unique scent. You would definitely notice it if it were swimming in your glass of Pinot Noir. You see, Cyanhydrin Benzaldehyde smells like cherries. It is, as a matter of fact, it is quite important to a variety of fruity red wines.
“So there you have it. The complex series of chemical and physical reactions that make up the winemaking process can create an enormous variety of different chemicals as by-products. These chemicals remind us of hundred of different smells, such as butter, popcorn, roses, lilacs, wet dirt, burning tar, small household pets, exotic fruits, and just about everything in between.”
