Food for Thought

[#1]

A man like Kevin Zraly—inarguably the most famous name in wine education for the curious, budding oenophile—could pretty much phone it in at this point in his more than three-decades-long career. After all, he literally wrote the book on wine discovery. But that just wouldn't be the Zraly way. On the 25^th vintage of his now-famous Windows on the World book, Zraly didn't simply blow the dust off; he traveled to 15 countries, innumerable wine regions, and tasted nearly 5,000 wines to bring wine lovers the most up-to-date, first-hand information out there on the topic of wine. I caught up with Kevin after he (finally) unpacked his suitcase to talk about his devotion to taking the deer-in-headlights aspect out of wine education, frequent flyer miles, and how a man who's allergic to wine could possibly spend his entire adult life surrounded by vino.

AZ: I've got to cut right to the chase: I've been told that you're allergic to wine. What the heck?

KZ: Yeah, it's the histamines in red wine. So it's obviously not something that's going to kill me in the sense of knocking me out or whatever. Many of us have allergies, but you'd be surprised at how many people [are allergic to wine]. The dilemma, of course, with taking an antihistamine is the dryness in your mouth, which prevents me from taking them because saliva is a key element in the olfactory part of experiencing wine, which I find the most fascinating part of this whole thing. Actually, in the new 25^th anniversary edition of the book the most important chapter has nothing to do with wine, although there's references to wine in there; it's the how-to-taste section. It talks about your limbic system, how you can get a different smell from each nostril, how one might be stronger than the other ... all these kinds of things.

AZ: I hear you went to school to be a grade school teacher. What parts of that training helped you with grown-ups and wine?

KZ: My degree is in elementary education, but I knew from the time that I was 19 that I was going into wine—I taught my first wine class when I was 20. My parents didn't drink, so there was no alcohol in my house growing up and they were nervous about the fact that their college-aged son was involved with alcohol. So the deal was: I promised to finish college, but I was going into the wine biz in some form or fashion, and that was it. It was a done deal. I ended up with an elementary education degree because I love kids and I love teaching, and I took that and my passion for wine and put them together. Being certified to teach nursery through sixth grade in New York State has helped me tremendously with my students. Especially after the third glass of wine!

AZ: You met with over 500 winery owners and winemakers in 15 different countries and tasted over 4,000 wines for the new edition of The Windows on the World Complete Wine Course. You must have racked up a ton of frequent flyer miles—how in heaven's name did you do all that in less than a year?

KZ: It was tough because I have 4 kids [ages 18, 16, 12, 10]. The first person I thanked at our celebratory dinner was my wife, because, as I'd discussed with her 2 years ago, I wanted to really do something meaningful for the 25^th anniversary book. So, I decided to re-visit all of the major wine regions and I also decided to visit places I had never included in the book because I will not write about something I've never seen or a place I've never been to. I'd never been to South Africa, and now South Africa is in the book. I'd never been to Hungary, and I was especially interested to go see Tokaij, and now it's in the book. We went to Austria and realized it's more than Gruner Veltliner. I'd been to Australia a few times, but never to New Zealand, and now New Zealand's in the book. Robin O'Connor, who is the director of wine education and director of sales at Sherry-Lehman [in New York City] travelled with me, which we did on and off for a whole year. It was quite a ride.

AZ: What did you learn that surprised you?

KZ: This is the golden age for wine in world history because of the quality of the wines. It's extremely high in any country or any region that we went to.

AZ: Is that because of technology?

KZ: Yes, absolutely. Technology and money. If you take a look at emerging [wine] markets over the last 20 years, such as Chile and Argentina, or the investments in Hungary from the French in Tokaij after the communist rule ended in '79, you see how things have changed. I was a history major in the beginning of my college career, and really that's what got me into wine. For instance, I lived in Spain in '75 when Franco died; if you take a look at why it took so long for Spain to come into the global market, it was that. Then take a look at what happened in South Africa. Apartheid. What happened in Hungary? Communism. I could go on and on and on.

AZ: What's one of the scariest things happening in the wine industry now?

KZ: In the total big picture there are quality wines being made everywhere, but the bad news is more selection for the consumer, which can be confusing. My whole approach from day one in my first wine class was to take a difficult subject and make it easy to understand. Today, to try to maintain the simplicity is very difficult. I mean, how far do you go? Trying to maintain the simplicity and not overwhelm the consumer with too much information is tricky. You can go on and on and on about wine, but you're going to lose people.

AZ: Give me your top three pieces of advice for a newbie to the wine world, someone who's curious and eager to learn, but maybe feeling intimidated by the topic?

KZ: 1) Of course, buy my book! [Laughs]. Seriously, buy a good book that keeps simplicity in mind, but don't buy an encyclopedic book about wine until you have some understanding of what it's all about. 2) Take a class. There are so many wine courses around no matter where you are in the U.S. The Society of Wine Educators has a list of them all around the country. 3) Because every state has at least 2 wineries, find them and go visit! I wrote another book a few years ago called Kevin Zraly's American Wine Guide and it includes all 50 states.