Cinnamon? Cherries? Leather? Raw Meat? (Image: supplied).
Wine should be fun, not intimidating – all you need is a little knowledge. Yvonne Lorkin, co-founder and chief tasting officer of WineFriend, provides some simple tips to help you empower your palate.
Even I can get scared by wine. I’m usually super-meek and a tad feeble at high-brow, “industry” wine tastings. However, festivals like Visa Wellington On a Plate let me take on a different character and become someone who can actually get away with the sort of behaviour that would be frowned upon in formal circles. The thing I love about hosting wine tastings at public festival events is everyone comes along looking for a little bit of learning and a whole lot of laughs and it’s delightfully loose. That’s what wine should be about.
This whole “simplifying” wine tasting gambit an interesting tug of war. On one hand, yes, you want to open up the world of wine to the everyman and woman, hurl the posh curtains apart and show people that appreciating wine is easy. On the other hand, to me, wine is just the most delicious, enigmatic, crazy-tasty result of ancient alchemy that can’t be replicated by any other process and that mystery, that specialness, should be treasured, revered and treated with the ooohs and aaahs it deserves. This is my guide on how to do both.
The best place to start any wine tasting is with a good glass. Look for a largish, tulip-shaped glass with high sides and a nice, fat “bowl” at the bottom, so that you can get a decent swirl happening once the wine is poured in. Don’t use those poxy, stumpy glasses that you get down at the RSA, or those awful pewter goblets that Nana bought you for your 21st – those things are designed to make all wine smell boring and taste foul. You could splurge on designer glassware, but Briscoes sells box sets of eight Rona red wine glasses for just $59 and they’re the business for any style.
Swirling your wine isn’t about being a dick, it releases a tonne of aromas that enhance your impression of the wine. It injects valuable oxygen that helps smooth and open up the flavours and textures for when you finally get around to popping it in your gob. Then stick your nose right down in the glass and inhale deeply. Smell is everything when it comes to appreciating or rejecting wine.
Your glass should have a thin rim, not a round, bulky lip. A thin rim is nicer to drink from and helps funnel the wine to the right parts of your mouth to perceive the five basic tastes of sweetness, saltiness, acidity, bitterness and umami – rather than just pouring it directly into the back of your throat. Slurp the wine a little, just once or twice (repeated slurping tends to irritate other people). This isn’t about pretension; drawing air over the surface area of the wine while it’s in your mouth helps push those aroma molecules back up through your olfactory passages from the inside – so you’re essentially getting a “second sniff” while you’re tasting it.
Don’t take your wine too seriously. You’ll forget it’s fun (Photo: Getty Images)
Not sure how to describe the wine you’re drinking? Think about how the wine smells and tastes, and work through it like an IRD flow chart. Is it fruity? Yes? Then go deeper. Ask yourself what kind of fruit. If it’s citrus, is it lemon, lime, grapefruit or feijoa you’ve found? Tropical notes, it might be mango, passionfruit, pineapple, banana or guava. Stonefruit: peach, apricot, plum or nectarine? Or if you found berries, you’re looking for cherry, blackberry, boysenberry, raspberry, strawberry, blackcurrant, cranberry.
Or is the wine savoury? Maybe it’s earthy, leathery, meaty and tastes like black olives, soy and smoke. If it’s “spicy”, what kind of spices can you smell and taste? Pepper? Cocoa? Clove? Cinnamon? Liquorice? Nutmeg? Or maybe the wine smells and tastes “green”. So think about green things – grass, herbs, and tea leaves. Or “toasty” notes: oak, pencil shavings, roasted almonds.
All will reveal itself if you just take a smidge of time between sniffs and swallows to ask yourself some personal questions. Be like Madonna. Don’t be afraid to express yourself and invent your own wine language. There are no wrong answers or wrong descriptors. If you think that pinot noir smells like old flax bush out by your letterbox, then say it. That chardonnay might taste like tinned fruit salad, or that bubbles has a whiff of bran muffin. It’s all good.
Practise and concentrate and smell different things all the time. When you’re out walking, how does the air smell, the trees, the plants, the ground, the buildings? When you’re in the supermarket, pick up fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices, baking ingredients, confectionery and sniff them deeply, they’ll automatically commit to your memory and you’ll be amazed at how easily you’ll recall those smells in wine.
Smell that old Driza-Bone hanging in the shed, the leather jacket in the wardrobe, your fruit bowl or those funky sneakers. Remember the smell of wet dog, cat wee, old books and rain on hot asphalt. Tea leaves, cheese, oysters and jalapeños and lawn clippings and liquorice. For one thing, smelling everything keeps your brain pinging on all cylinders, plus it’ll expand your wine vocabulary exponentially.
Another thing I force people in my wine tastings to consider is length and texture. Is it long and rough, or short and silky? Minds out of the gutter people. Being able to taste the wine for a decent amount of time after you’ve swallowed is a great thing. How does the wine feel as you’re swishing it around and as it slips down your oesophagus? Try to put that into words.
Length is an essential hidden element. I always feel short-changed by wines that look pretty, smell nice and taste yummy for all of two seconds. Because then you have to keep sipping to keep the thrill alive and before you know it, the bottle’s empty and you’re digging out your old Metalheadz CDs from the 90s to show your eye-rolling 17-year-old son where drum and bass began. Don’t be that person.
I’m not really any better at tasting wine than anyone else. I’ve just worked out a way of describing what I’m smelling and tasting in ways that other people seem to understand. Putting wine into words isn’t hard, but it takes a bit of practice and awareness.
That’s our whole aim at WineFriend too. We send you awesome wines that you won’t see in a supermarket. Wines tailor-made for your individual tastebuds and budget. We want you to try styles you’d never choose for yourself, but, based on what I know about your palate, that you might really like it. We gently steer you sideways into new styles to help nudge your knowledge and enjoyment further.
So get out there and taste whatever wine you can – cheap, expensive, good, bad, sweet, dry. The more you know, the more fun you can have. Get involved. Wine festivals and events like Visa Wellington on a Plate give you a chance to have a laugh while you let your palate do the talking. Pour yourself into it.
Our writers celebrate the very best episode of their favourite TV shows on NEON. Don’t @ us, our decisions are final.
For all the great new television out there, nothing feels quite as comforting as returning to your favourite series and reliving the episodes that made your brain explode. It might be the one episode that encompassed everything you absolutely love about the series. It might be a breathtaking break from form. It might even be a musical episode (it probably isn’t).
Here at The Spinoff, we’ve scoured the NEON treasure trove of prestige (and decidedly not prestige) television to determine our all-time favourite episodes of our all-time favourite shows. Please enjoy our sampler box of television perfection – just don’t devour it all at once.
Seven years ago in San Diego, someone cocked up the city fireworks display and instead of lasting 17 minutes, everything went off in one great explosiveblur. That’s what ‘Prague’, episode eight of Succession, is to the first series. A blazing all-in furnace of all the finest component parts; the most exhilarating, and probably the best, episode of thisinfernal, fictionalised facsimile of the Murdoch media dynasty.
‘Prague’ is only a promise – that was the plan for the bachelor party for the simpering, pitiful Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), but they instead stay in New York, soaking into an underground Dionysian party down some disused railway tracks. Cue business backstabbing, family betrayal, conspicuous wealth, privilege, ambition, loathing, dickishness, and dilettantism. Plus: ketamine, cocaine and sex.
Created by Jesse Armstrong – the British writer whose CV is an embarrassment of brilliance from The Peep Show to The Thick of It – Succession is, I suppose, a satire, or a black comedy, or a bleakly funny drama. Whatever it is, it’s a merciless unzipping of the entitled monsters of the media business, and it manages something pretty miraculous: despite the characters being almost invariably unsympathetic (Shiv, played note perfectly by Sarah Snook, shows some flashes of moral depth), it’s utterly compelling. In ‘Prague’, as always, the spectre of the patriarch, Logan Roy (the sublime Brian Cox), floats over everything.
And the tunes! Apart from the perfect theme by Nicholas Britell, this episode’s soundtrack includes DJ Shadow, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and !!!. And, blessed heaven, season two is streaming now.
The stars of Big Little Lies are as follows: Meryl Streep, Meryl Streep’s teeth, and Laura Dern. Sure, Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon are fine in their own award-winning ways, but they’re nothing, nothing I tell you, compared to Dern’s brilliant work in episode two, season two of Big Little Lies.
‘Tell-Tale Hearts’ sees Dern’s character Renata Klein bless us with the finest meltdown television has ever seen when her husband Gordon is arrested for fraud. Having just reached peak wealth and power, Renata has suddenly lost it all. “I will not not be rich,” Renata yells at Gordon through a prison phone. This is worse than the time that guy Perry fell down the stairs.
Forget being involved in a murder, Renata’s about to be poor.
Renata has all the problems a privileged white woman could have, and tensions climax when Gordon blames her for everything. Renata slams her Prius to a stop, kicks Gordon out, and drives off giving the naughty finger with both hands. Jesus take the wheel, because Renata doesn’t give a shit. “WILL SOMEONE GIVE A WOMAN A MOMENT?” Renata screams, as her car hoons away.
It’s iconic. It’s one hell of a mood. It’s everything.
Dern plays it perfectly, unleashing a darkly funny barrage of rage and fury as Renata realises she can no longer pretend her life is perfect. I love Renata more every time I watch it, because who hasn’t wanted to dump their problems on the side of the freeway and flip the bird at the universe with both hands?
Somebody give Laura Dern her moment, preferably while she’s holding an Emmy in one hand and a glass of red in the other.
It’s almost impossible to write about a show about spies and secrets without giving too much of the game away. But the sixth episode of the second season of the hugely underrated Counterpart takes the show’s original big reveal and goes back to the very start of the story.
The premise is simple. Two parallel worlds exist, connected by a single tunnel in Berlin. They begin as mirror images of each other but become frighteningly different. The episode ‘Twin Cities’ explores how these divergences began and accelerated out of control.
What makes it so good is that it operates almost as a standalone, science fiction short story. As deeply satisfying as it is to watch after 15 episodes of the show, it would equally hold its own as a parable about paranoia, chance and consequences. There’s an almost Old Testament quality to the plot because it’s clear that what’s being witnessed is the original sin after a new world was created. And in less than an hour, it meditates deeply on questions of human nature, and whether we are in control of our own destinies.
When I wasn’t binge-watching The Walking Dead last summer, curtains firmly closed, I was dreaming about spearing zombies through the head, ransacking supermarkets and gorging on dusty jars of pickles. Set in a hell world where a zombie virus has consumed most of America, I was transfixed and terrified from the start. Anyone could die at any moment! Including me!
Picking just one perfect episode is difficult. I really love episode five from season two when Bob gets bitten by a zombie but keeps it a secret. Captured by baddies who chop off his leg and eat it in front of him (it’s fine!) he eyeballs them and screams the immortal words “TAINTED MEAT”. Those two words have given me one hilarious joke every time I marinate meat, that’s for sure.
As gleefully gory as that is, it’s all but forgotten just two episodes later. After a fruitless search for Sophia, Carol’s missing 12-year-old daughter, the group of squabbling survivors are holed up on Hershel’s farm. He has it all – loaded shotguns, fresh veg, and a quaint barn full of zombies that he thinks he can save. After an episode-long shoving match debating the morals and protocol surrounding their flesh-hungry neighbours, the group decides to open the barn door.
In an excruciatingly long climactic scene, the zombies stagger out to be gunned down one by one. Just when you think the carnage is over, a child lumbers from the shadowy barn. It’s Sophia, and this is her Stars in Their Eyes moment. For a moment you think she’s made it out alive, that God is good, that everything is going to be okay. As she lifts her head to reveal a zombie face, the dreadful reality sets in – the group is going to have to kill one of their own kids.
Rick Grimes does the mahi, absolutely nobody gets the treats, and murky depths of moral depravity in The Walking Dead universe are fully realised for the first time. You love to see it.
The perfect episode of any show is one that ends before you have all the answers. It’s one that enters your brain and sits there idly for weeks, coming back to you when least expected during a common phrase or lucid dream. ‘Funhouse’ is this episode. Breaking the traditionally linear narrative of the series, the season two finale plays out through hallucinations from the main character – mob boss Tony Soprano.
These fever dreams are brought on by a bad bout of food poisoning which forces Tony to confront some of his biggest fears: a terminal illness diagnosis, the return of dead accomplices, and talking fish confirming a rat in the ranks.
The tension is broken by the soundtrack: a brutal shooting set to the tunes of Frank Sinatra, a vivid hallucination to Tom Petty’s ‘Free Falling’, and a chirpy rendition of ‘Maybe Baby’ by The Crickets, sung by Tony, to close the episode. ‘Funhouse’ concludes one of the biggest plot points since season one in a heartbreaking moment for Tony and one of his best friends, as Tony takes matters into his own hands; a move rarely seen from the high-powered mobster.
Despite the heavy, unnerving moments at the heart of the episode, it’s still peppered with humour and hope. It finishes with one of the main themes in The Sopranos universe – everything works out in the end. Gathered in the family home to celebrate Tony’s daughter’s graduation, there is a peacefulness to the scene which reinforces the eerie contrast between Tony’s home life and the violence of the mob.
‘Funhouse’ is the perfect season finale for a show that consistently challenges the viewer to reflect on their own morals, as they inevitably begin to sympathise with a cast made up mostly of cheaters, liars and murderers.
Over its eight seasons, Game of Thrones delivered moment after moment that left us thrown back on the couch, hands over our mouths in speechless shock. Remember that beheading, that assassination and all those blistering, bone-crunching battle scenes, unlike anything we’d ever seen on TV before? When a show is able to create remarkable moments as effortlessly as Dany incinerates the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen, choosing the best is a near-impossible task.
But this isn’t a question of spectacular scenes; this is about perfect episodes, front to back. To that, there’s one obvious answer: season six closer ‘The Winds of Winter’, a tour de force that encapsulates everything that’s great about Game of Thrones. It starts with an extended, wordless sequence culminating in a blast which upends the King’s Landing chessboard and spawns both a coronation and a suicide. It ends with the long-awaited answer to Jon Snow’s real parentage, arguably the most consequential revelation of the entire series, intercut with a whole other coronation taking place on the other end of Westeros. Meanwhile, Dany finally escapes her 60-episode confinement on Essos, setting sail towards the confrontation that will define the final two seasons, dragons circling high above her magnificent war armada.
The Comeback is arguably the most prescient and dark comedy that’s been made in the 21st century, and Lisa Kudrow’s performance in it is one of the greatest in the medium. But there’s one episode in particular that stands out.
The Comeback is a very meta show about a fading sitcom star, Valerie Cherish (Kudrow), who gets cast in a sitcom under the condition that she film a reality show at the same time. She’s constantly belittled by her situation, especially by the showrunner Paulie G (who is later played by Seth Rogen), but puts on a brave face despite this.
Season two, filmed nine years later, has Valerie filming a gritty HBO drama based off Paulie G’s experience of filming that show. He’s named it Seeing Red, and it just so happens Valerie’s hair is red. A particularly great joke is Valerie’s wig bill to play herself, even though Lisa Kudrow is quite clearly wearing a wig to play Valerie.
In this particular episode, the conflict between Paulie G and Valerie comes to an ugly peak. It’s time for them to shoot that scene: a fantasy sequence where Valerie’s character Mallory gives Paulie G a blowjob.
Valerie’s hugely uncomfortable, not just because Paulie G is actively bullying her, but because the closest she’s come to doing anything like it on camera is ‘when she and Alan Thicke made out that Growing Pains flashback’. She’s so uncomfortable that she tries out Rogen-esque improv, genuinely trying to be funny. “It’s been a long day, why don’t you just rape me?!”
The entire episode is a tar-black treatise on what it’s like to be an actress – subsuming your identity and your sense of humanity for someone else’s art form, even when they’re constantly encroaching on both for their own humanity, and doing it all with a smile. When Valerie is given her victory, which I won’t give away, it’s a win only in the loosest sense of the word. She gets to keep on doing what she’s doing, but Jesus Christ, she needs to stop.
At times, Westworld can feel dense, vague, overly complicated, purposefully dragging me into plotlines I have very little patience for. But on an episodic level, season two pulls through with a handful of seriously good set pieces. There’s ‘Akane No Mai’ and its amusing dive into Shogun world, ‘Kiksuya’ and its emotionally gut-punching tale of Ghost Nation, and my personal favourite, ‘The Riddle of the Sphinx’.
Famously, the riddle asks: what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening? The answer is man, from birth to death. Or in this case, beyond death, with the episode asking (and eventually answering in horrifying fashion): what happens when you want to live forever?
Not only does the episode reveal something fundamentally important about Westworld and its intentions, but it also showcases some tremendous acting between James Delos (Peter Mullan), aka the guy who bankrolled this diabolical theme park into existence, and William (Jimmi Simpson), his son-in-law. The best part about the episode, though, is how expertly scenes between the two men have been written and directed. Repetition can be such an effective narrative tool if done right, and the way it manifests itself through both dialogue and visual symbolism (the record player, the exercise bike, the circular nature of the room) all manage to work seamlessly together. It’s mysterious, intriguing, and strangely eerie, topped off by nightmarish scenes of full-blown horror and chaos. Isn’t technology fun?
Dating website founder Eden Blackman and lifestyle guru Nadia Essex use Celebs Go Dating as a platform to turn C-list celebrities into better people. Each season follows six or so celebrities from their first group mixer to a final romantic dinner, where they’ll introduce their chosen civilian love interest to the rest of the celebs.
Episode 10 of the first season showcases everything we want from reality TV: crossovers, friendships, and dark secrets. Joey Essex (The Only Way Is Essex) and Charlotte Crosby (Geordie Shore) go on a double date with their love interests, but have much more fun palling around with each other instead; celeb BFFs! Joey and Charlotte are both golden retrievers in human form: big hearts, big eyes, lush hair.
Joey’s date is “well reem”, but Charlotte’s has a shady secret. When Joey finds out, he has to decide whether to honour the bro code or do right by his friend. This episode perfectly captures the gulf between civilian and C-list life, a megadose of the softest-hearted celebs in the UK.
You made it through four seasons of True Blood and you don’t know who you are anymore. There are bloody fairies, were-panthers and witches, and approximately 50,000 storylines. But just when you start to worry the series has lost its way, episode six from season four comes at exactly the right time – and boy does it come.
Finally, we get Sookie banging Eric. And she’s not just finishing him like cheesecake on a couch like some uninspired rom-com – she’s in a God damn forest. On the ground. Naked AF and there are butts all around. It’s glorious. Eric’s been dressed as a fuckboy the whole season because he lost his memory due to a witches curse. But it doesn’t matter; what matters is that he’s forgotten everything and he thinks his only job in life is to sexually please you.
I mean Sookie. Sookie of course.
But it’s episode eight of season four that will forever be my favourite True Blood episode. It’s all I’ve ever wanted in life. Most people on the planet have spent at least a portion of their lives imagining being cracked open like a nut by Alexander Skarsgård. It would be transcendental, you imagine, but then the True Blood writers make it so much more than that. It’d be so good you’d have a hallucination where your shower would turn into a fucking snow wonderland with a bed in it.
Sookie turning to Eric and saying “What’s the bed for?” is golden, and when she sees the snow bed, it’s Oscar-worthy. She’s standing naked next to Alexander Skarsgård, who’s also naked. You know what that bed is for. She knows what that bed is for. He knows what that bed is for.
Everything is perfect and nothing is wrong. Trump isn’t president anymore. Climate change? Fixed. You’ll never go hungry again.
