If you can’t pronounce it, order it. These are words to live by, according to Laurie Forster, known throughout Maryland as the Wine Coach.
As a software sales executive, Forster first uncorked her passion for wine and people while wining and dining clients at fine restaurants.
She eventually left her corporate position to become a certified life coach and sommelier.
In 2004, she began teaching groups about grape varieties and wine-producing regions while bringing people together for an insightful, unpretentious and often spirited evening.
Question: What’s one advantage of screw-cap wines?
Answer: Screw caps aren’t as charming as corks but I’d rather have great-tasting wine every time and give up some charm. Too many wines get “corked” – infected with trichloroanisole, or TCA. If your wine smells like a musty basement or wet cardboard, it’s corked. One of the reasons [restaurants and wine bars] give you the taste is to check that. Two expensive wines I picked out for a blind tasting I do every year at home with friends were corked. It’s not that I couldn’t take them back to the wine store – which you should and I did. But that moment was lost.
Q: Are there other trends we should know about?
A: Economically friendly packaging. It looks like a sippy box or soy milk containers. The idea is you can fit in one truckload what would take 12 truckloads for bottles.
Q: What’s the difference between European wine drinkers and the U.S. counterparts?
A: Most people in the U.S. are looking to buy an everyday drinking wine, regardless of income, around $20. A lot of the wineries are trying to get into that sweet spot at $15. Anything over $7 is considered premium. In Europe, you can find great stuff from $3 to $4. [Europeans] don’t typically buy over that. European wineries save all of the expensive wines for Asia and the U.S. because we’re the ones plunking down the cash, willing to spend more.
Q: What wines would you suggest we try?
A: For sparking wine, the Prosecco from Veneto, Italy. It’s sparkling like champagne, but softer and fruitier. Every time I use it at a party, everyone, even die-hard beer drinkers, love it. One of my favorite white wines is the Gruner Veltliner. It’s indigenous to Austria. It has a nice medium body to it with a really great citrus fruit but also a white pepper aspect. It’s really food-friendly too, especially for difficult items topair with wine like artichokes. For the red Barbara, I like Piedmont wines from the region in the Northwest. Their fruit, acidity and tannin are very well-balanced, much like a Chianti. It’s a great all-purpose red.
