FINE WINE

Abstract

Traditionally, wine tasters judge a wine by six essentials: smoothness, lightness, bouquet, dryness, body, and flavor. Thus a good red table wine, such as Gamay Beaujolais, is dry and soft with a fruity fragrance and only slightly lighter-bodied than the robust Pinot Noir. A good white wine, such as a Chablis, which is preferred for serving with the lighter-flavored meats, would be dry, straw-colored, and medium-bodied with a delicate fruity fragrance and a slight flinty taste. Cocktail and dessert wines include the pale sherries, dry and light-bodied with a slightly nutty flavor, ideal as an apertif, and the choice muscatels, sweet and smooth, best with cakes or fruit. For those who can't decide, of course, a rosé is always safe. All this is by way of calling attention to a small ( 200 pages ) volume¹which traces the medicinal uses of wine from earliest recorded use as a menstruum