"Dear Diary"

What a glorious way to start the day. With nothing scheduled for the morning, a few residents of the UW Campo de Fiori apartment took advantage of this opportunity to sleep in.

But, at 9a.m. that apartment was empty. Why? Because the combination of being in Rome and sleeping in is almost a sin and the more time one spends in confession means less time set aside for gelato. Thus a dispersing of the troops occurred in the Campo. Some marched off to infiltrate the streets of Rome and hopefully score an interview for their Immigration Studies class. Others stormed the UW Rome Center and worked on their Art History project.

2:30 came along, serving as a rally call for all to congregate in our incredibly small classroom for a lesson in Immigration Studies. Now we all know why there didn’t use to be many cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church: the Sistine Chapel would be “hotter than a Swedish girl”. Resat Kesaba chaired this particular conclave. Class progressed as usual, with a discussion regarding Imperialism and Mussolini’s Italy, followed up with designating the day each group would be presenting their findings.

Then came the rather interesting part of the day: wine tasting. All were so eager to participate, that we showed up too early. In an attempt to placate a semi-restless mob, Lisa led us to the bakery and bought everyone a piece of pizza bianca. Delicious.

Finally, the time to learn about wine tasting arrived. We were greeted by Massimo, the owner of the establishment. Three glasses of wine awaited each individual wine taster. Massimo then began an introduction to the history of Italian wine and the grapes from which Italy’s wine is fermented from. It was interesting to learn that the grapes of Italy were almost wiped out from blight, and were saved by help sent from the United States, who grafted healthy grape vines from the U.S. to the ailing Italian grapes.

After much ado, we were given the flash course in wine tasting. First and foremost was the correct handling of the wineglass. The taster is supposed to hold the glass at its base or its stem, thereby prevent any odors on the hand from mingling with the smell of the wine. Next was to tilt the glass away from yourself, preferably over a white surface, so you could judge the coloring of the wine from the “fingernail” that forms. Colors of red wine ranged from Garnet and Ruby to Orange, white wine ranged from Light Green and Light Yellow to Gold. The density of the wine could be determined by staring down from the top of the glass and seeing how clearly your finger showed through the wine. Next was the sleep inducing part.

Apparently the smelling of wine is quite important. In fact, to prevent overwhelming your olfactory senses, you’re supposed to first sniff the wine with one nostril at a time. Then swirl the wine within the glass, a feat which Massimo accomplished with seeming ease, and which I failed with seeming ease. Evidently the time it takes for the swirled wine on the edge of the glass to coalesce into streaming droplets, and the number of these droplets, determines the relative alcohol content of that particular glass of wine. Then you finally sniff the glass of wine with your entire nose. But not too deeply, because I did and it made me somewhat faint headed for a while.

We, the novice wine tasters, were then allowed to finally taste the wine. And even then Massimo stressed a slight chewing action of the mouth to fully experience the wine. He also pointed out the particular taste buds in the mouth, and their locations. It would seem that with regards to wine, the more important regions of the tongue include the front tip to taste the sweetness of the wine, and the back of the tongue to determine the bitterness of the wine. The dryness of the mouth after the wine also greatly affected the taste of the wine. For a few tastes, I just left the wine far too long in my mouth, resulting in serious cases of dry mouth which led to a numb tongue on my part. With that knowledge, we were supposedly able to determine the tannin, acidity, and body of the wine. Personally, I initially could not perceive much of a difference between the three wines we tasted. It took me towards the end of the session before the disparities between the wines really revealed themselves to me.
Massimo was kind enough to wrap up our wine tasting sessions with plates of food for all. Not sure what the actual name of each item is, but the plate included sliced eggs, a grain salad, re-constituted cod, biscotti, meat on a breadstick, and “pretzels”.

Thus ended the wine tasting and major highlights of the day.

~George