Reporter Theresa Robson gets a taste for fine wine

EVER looked nonplussed when the waiter in a posh restaurant asks you to taste the wine?

Or are you a house plonk devotee and pupil of the "What the heck, as long as it does the job" school of wine-tasting?

With one of East Lancashire's top wine boffins you can now tackle your imbibing with just a little more "je ne sais quoi".

Bernard Penine, president of the French Circle of Ribblesdale in Whalley, is a Frenchman living in Wilpshire.

And he has some useful advice to help you deal confidently when the restaurant wine waiter comes round.

In fact, so seriously does Bernard Penine take his wine that he sneaked a bottle of vintage champagne into an English maternity home to celebrate the birth of his son.

"I come from Reims at the centre of France's champagne-producing district.

"It is our custom to give babies a teaspoon of champagne when they are born, but I couldn't convince the midwives here, so had to smuggle some into the maternity home.

"I'm proud to say that my son tasted champagne before anything else. That's how seriously the French take their wine!" he said.

Bernard says the first thing to look for in wine is 'body'.

"Swirl the wine around the glass and if it appears to stick to the sides then it has good body.

"You can also hold the glass up to the light and check the colour of the wine. A good claret, for example, should be very dark." Sounds simple enough, but make sure you don't deposit half the contents of the glass down the front of your shirt or blouse due to over-enthusiastic swirling.

The next stage is sussing out the wine's so-called bouquet.

"Just shove your nose in the glass and take a huge sniff," he advises.

That doesn't mean inhale the wine or you could end up choking before you've even begun your meal.

Bernard goes on: "What you are looking for is a nice aroma. Does it smell vinegary, corky or musty? If it smells off, it's hardly going to taste very nice."

Now for everyone's favourite bit - the all-important tasting. By now you will probably be desperate for a drink!

He says: "Take a mouthful of the wine and let it go to the back of your tongue. Move it through your teeth and around your mouth before swallowing it. Let the flavour of the wine soak into your tastebuds."

This is not an excuse to start gargling as if you were in the dentist's chair!

Before restaurateurs across East Lancashire start cringing at the prospect of diners ordering every bottle in the house before finding the wine they want, Bernard had this final tip: "Ask the advice of the wine waiter.

"If it is a reasonable restaurant he should know what to recommend.

"It's worth paying an extra couple of pounds for a decent bottle of wine and, if you really mean business, you could do as we do in Reims and settle for champagne!"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.