Wine Rotation, Which Way?
I don’t how long the question has been around about what direction you should swirl your wine, probably longer than I think, but it is interesting. This idea starting circulating around Napa via Twitter and here it is in a nutshell. When you swirl your wine to the left (counter clockwise) the scent you pick up is from the barrels over the grapes, what we call the spice shelf. When you swirl the wines to the right (clockwise) you pick up more flavors from the fruit.
Now not everyone notices this. It is pretty well known that some people have more sensitive noses than others. Early on in my career I worked as perfume blender, and over the years I worked with thousands of herbs, plants, essential oils and most recently with wine. So my nose is better trained than the average, and in the perfume and food industry a person like this is call 'a nose'.
I’ve shown this to clients in the tasting room and experimented with it myself and found it to be true, and especially noticeable with wines that have spent significant time in newer oak barrels. The question comes up, why is that? Now, keeping in mind that this is not a scientific treatise, as a master herbalist and aroma-therapist, and as someone who has lectured extensively on natural health, anatomy and physiology, I have to admit to knowing a thing or two about plants, and how people perceive them. I've worked in chemistry, botany and industry. I hold advance degrees including a Doctorate in health, I spend a lot of time reading the new physics, with the growing understanding of the integrative connections within objects and life systems.
So, based upon what I know about how living cells function, these are some insights, while keeping mind that these ideas have been formulated in the tasting rooms of Napa and Sonoma, where people do drink a lot. On the other hand, this area has more wine educators than any place else on the planet, and a tremendous number of scientists who dedicate themselves to understanding the components that make up wine. I am not suggesting that this is a definitive description of that action that produces these results, but it is a holistic approach to understanding what is happening in that glass. Hopefully it is the beginning of an interesting discussion. Here we go!
Like all living things wine cells and the liquids containing them have a magnetic polarity, just like humans and the Earth (In humans the head has a stronger magnetic field than the feet because it contains more blood, a iron based molecule. The great red grapes are often grown in iron rich, red soils, like Monte Rosso in Sonoma). The positive pole is more highly charged, just like the North Pole of the Earth. This polarity may keep the wine cells and the charged liquid generally upright, spinning on its axis when it is being swirled. This magnetic action within a liquid is commonly demonstrated in laboratories.
Because wine cells are mostly liquid (Galileo described wine as sunlight held together by water, but there are other components), when they form they are also subject to the electromagnetic forces that are a component of the rotation of the Earth. As a result, the pores on the surface of the cell develop based on that rotation, like the shingles on a roof or the cells of your skin.
When you swirl the wine counter-clockwise you are pushing against the cells nap, just like stroking the fur of a cat the wrong way, this dislodges anything on the surface. Since the flavor from the barrel is introduced fairly late in the cell’s development, it tends to concentrate in the outer layers. When you swirl the wine counter-clockwise it dislodges that flavor, while at the same, pushing liquid into the pores, inhibiting the fruit flavors that are inside the cell from coming out. I'm not saying that every single cell is aligned perfectly, but what percentage needs to be in order to get that effect? How much of that is the result of the iron content of the wine?
In comparison, when you swirl the wine clockwise the pressure of the surrounding fluid forces the fruit flavors, that tend to be deeper in the cell, out through the pores. It also pushes any flavors concentrated on the surface down onto the skin of the cell, minimizing the oak flavor.
There is the whole relationship of the oak to the malic acid and its interaction with the tartaric (unique to grapes) and citric acids, which have a high electrical charge, and how they contribute to this effect, but I'm going to need more time swirling and sniffing to muse about that.
It may be that the fact that the wine is alive, electrically charged, and still changing is why this happens. So, when you swirl the wine to the right or left think of it as if you are stroking your favorite pet. Sometimes they like it rough, but mostly they like it smooth. And then enjoy the wine sensibly.
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