Welcome to In Good Taste In Good Taste cooking school is Portland's premiere wine store and cooking school located in the Pearl District.  We provide everything you need to entertain in style: cooking classes;  gourmet cookware, cookbooks, wines and special events. We are locally owned and support our local community.   Select these links for informaiton about our  team building classes and corporate private events. To receive our weekly wine events email ,and news on food, wine and cooking classes, subscribe to the monthly In Good Taste email. We maintain the strictest privacy policy Your Email: In Good Taste - Cooking School In Good Taste has  15  On-line! Latest Wine Arrivals (more...) New in Store Washington Oregon Champange For many years Champagne has been an idol of status and celebration. The origin of this great sparkling wine did not begin with the same mystique that it has today. The region of Champagne is located about 90 minutes Northeast of Paris. Until the later half of the 1600’s, the wines of the region were still and made primarily from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. They were a rival to Burgundy, being just north and using the same grapes. Each region was in a race to be the choice (more...) Mouton The wines of Chateau Mouton- Rothschild, in Bordeaux, are possibly the most famous wines in the world today. The vineyard and estate have been present for several hundreds of years, but most of the traceable history begins in the eighteenth century. Most books say that the chateau belonged to the Brane family during much of the 1700 and 1800's. There is vague evidence to suggest that Joseph de Brane was in fact Baron de Mouton, but no concrete facts. The chateau had passed hands in the family a couple of times after the death of Joseph de Brane in 1749 until it landed in (more...) Walla Walla Woodward Canyon Winery is not only one of Walla Walla's pioneer wineries, it has also been one of it's most consistent. Winemaker Rick Small established Woodward Canyon Winery in 1981. Since that time, the winery has consistently produced premium, award-winning cabernet sauvignons and merlots and chardonnays. Early on Rick determined that quality would take precedence over quantity. Consequently, Woodward Canyon has remained small, increasing its production from 1,200 cases in 1981 to their current production of about 13,000 cases. Being such fans of Woodward Canyon, over the past several vintages, we have bought quite a bit of Woodward Canyon wines (more...) Wine Classes (more...)   Cooking School Class Events   Wine Dinner Cooking   Ask The Sommelier... (Q) difference between acid and tannin? (A) One question that I do frequently get asked when I am teaching my Wine 101 classes is how to tell the difference between acid and tannin in a wine. Both acid and tannin act a a preservative in wine. Acid, found in both red and white wines can give a tart like mouth feel and causes your mouth to water. The higher acid wines tend to work better with food than lower acid wines. To get a good idea of how the acid in a wine feels, suck on a lemon wedge. That is acid. The tannin in a red wine comes from the skins, seeds and stems of the grape. The tannin is the mouth drying effect you get from the grape. Take a tea bag and let is seep in hot water for about an hour, take a sip of the over extracted tea. That bitter drying effect is tannin. (Q) Why are some bottles shaped differently? (A) Have you noticed the different shapes of bottles between a Pinot Noir (Burgundy style bottle) and a Cabernet Sauvignon (Bordeaux style bottle)? The Burgundy style bottle has sloped shoulders where the Bordeaux bottle has shoulders that project horizontal (see pictures below, the Kaesler is a Bordeaux bottle and the Paul Hobbs is a Burgundy). The reason for this is that Cabernet Sauvignon based wine will leave sediment as it ages. The idea is to trap the sediment in the shoulders of the bottle as you pour it. (Q) What is a grape Clone? (A) Most people are familiar with many different grape varietals such as Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, but many people are not aware that most varietals have several different clones. What is a grape clone you may ask? To quote Jancis Robinson, " Clone in a viticultural contex is a propagation from cuttings or buds from a single mother vine by deliberate clonal selections." The most popular varietals for using specific clones in the US are the Burgundian varietals. The most common Oregon Pinot Noir clones are Dijon (which has several clones of its own), Pommard and Wadenswil. Each clone will give the wine certain characterics and most winemakers blend different clones in order to achieve the desired results. (Q) What is the structure of wine? (A) Well, the structure refers to the building bocks that make the whole of the wine. What you look for is a balance of acid, tannin, sugar, alcohol and flavor intensity make a well rounded wine. (Q) What is the serving temperature for wine? (A) The correct serving temperature of a wine can vastly affect the taste and enjoyment. I find that most white wines are served too cold and most red wine too warm. The average temperature of a refrigerator is about 35? F, far too cold for a bottle of white wine with the exception of Champagne. For a bottle of red wine, room temperature of 70? is too warm. The fuller bodied the wine, the warmer you would want to serve it. If a wine is served too cold, it masks the character of the wine. If it is too warm, it can make the wine's alcohol seem high and out of balance. Below I have included a chart that can be used as a guideline for service temperature. Light Whites: 40? - 45? F Full whites: 45? - 50? F Light Reds: 55? - 65? F Full Reds: 60? - 65? F Sparkling Wine: 40? - 48? (Q) Scores? (A) I am frequently asked what my feelings are toward the wine critics and the scores that they give wines. I feel that wine ratings are a double edged sword. In many cases the critics have really helped bring awareness to the wine industry and help people discover new wines that they otherwise would not have found. On the flip side, they have overpraised many wines while leaving some very beautiful, well made wine wines underappreciated. The problem is that Robert Parker as well as every other critic has their own particular palate, meaning there are some things in a wine that they do like, and some things that they don't like. That is not to say it is not likeable or unlikable to someone else. A student said it best in one of my wine classes recently, they said it was like a movie critic, how many times have you gone to see a movie that you loved...but a critic hated? Wine can be the same way. I find the description of the wine to be much more helpful than a number score. If the description is good, it can give you a feel for the wine as well as the ageability. The bottom line is, learn and develop your own palate. Having the same palate as Robert Parker is not required to be a connoisseur of wine. If Parker or The Wine Spectator give a wine a high score, the most the number will tell you is that it is a well made wine, not that it will necessarily be a wine to fit your palate. Frederick Armstrong (Q) Why do people decant a wine? (A) Well, there are two reasons that one should decant a wine, sediment and aeration. First, on aged red wines, the tannins in the wine actually break apart and leave little red bits in the wine. While harmless, these particles are not enjoyable to drink (or should I say chew) in a glass of wine. Carefully pour the bottle of wine into a decanter and try to trap the sediment in the shoulder of the bottle. You can also find strainers to separate the wine from the sediment while decanting. The second reason to decant a wine is to aerate a young wine. When opening a young red wine that is full bodied, the wine can be tight and wound up. To help release the flavors of the wine, the act of quickly pouring the wine from the bottle to the decanter will provide a rush of air to help open up the flavors. As the wine continues to sit in the decanter, the larger surface area of the decanter will allow more air to get to the wine than a small opening in a wine bottle. (Q) Why all the screw caps? (A) Cork comes from the bark of the cork tree which is most common in Portugal and Spain. Once the cork tree is twenty five years old, the bark can be stripped off every nine years. When the bark is stripped, it is set out to dry for about a year and then boiled or steamed. Once that is done it is cut into planks and cleaned. Prior to 1995, the cleaning process involved washing in a chlorine solution (it is now done with a hydrogen peroxide solution). The Chlorine solution can react with the moisture and fungus in the cells of the cork and cause 2,4,6-trichloranisole (TCA) to develop in the cork. The TCA causes a musty, mildew, damp basement odor in the cork and ultimately the wine. This is what people refer to as corked wine. TCA can be caused by things other than chlorine, such as infected raw cork. Statistics show that 3-6% of all wine corks may be infected with TCA, therefore many producers are choosing to use screw caps or plastic corks to eliminate the problem of TCA. A corked bottle of wine has no bearing on the quality of the wine or the producer. In most cases, if you get a corked bottle, the next bottle of the same wine from the same producer will be fine. If you ever get a bottle of wine from In Good Taste that you may suspect to be corked, bring it in to me. If it is indeed corked, I will happily replace the wine. (Q) Legs (A) Frequently in the wine classes that I teach, people ask me about the "legs" of a wine. You know, the thick liquid that drips down the inside of the wine glass after you swirl the wine. Some people also refer to them as tears. There is a common misconception that the legs of a wine have something to do with the quality of the wine. In all actuality, it has nothing to do with the quality. The legs are caused by the difference in evaporation rates between the amount of alcohol and water that is in the wine. It has more to do with science than romance. (Q) Why should I use a brush to clean my Wine glasses? (A) The crystal wine glasses will stain with red wine. Over time, the glasses will look cloudy. The best way to clean them is to use the wine brush . We always recommend that our customers use the win brush to clean glasses. This is the simplest way to clean the glass without breaking the glass.   History of Wine The exact origin of wine is unknown, however evidence does show of its existence to 6000 BC. Unlike most other beverages, wine is history and has played an integral part in world history, culture and religion. Most wine is made from a particular type of grape called Vitis Vinifera, of which there are thousands of varietals of Vitis Vinifera such as, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling and so on. Although wine has been made from grapes (and other fruits) for hundreds and thousands of years in all corners of the globe, most of the rich history of wine points to Europe, France in particular. If you look at a wine book written fifty or sixty years ago, the main focus would have been covering France and Germany with a smaller section on Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Times have changed and since the 1960s, new world wines of California, Oregon, Washington, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia have started to gain just as much recognition as some of the old word wines. Even the demand for new wine accessories such as wine glasses and decanters have taken a new outlook on life. Remember even 15 – 20 years ago, fine wine was consumed in small even colored wine glasses. Thanks to studies done by the Riedel family, wine glasses are now made in specific shapes and sizes by glassmakers such as Riedel and Spiegelau, to enhance the aroma and flavor of certain varietals. Here at In Good Taste, we are located just north of the heart of the Willamette Valley’s Oregon wine country. We specialize in small production, hard to find premium northwest wines. In addition to offering wines, we offer wine education classes as well as wine tastings. Next time you visit Portland’s Pearl district – please stop by and visit us.