[MUSIC] Welcome back. In our previous lesson, we covered deconstructing the flavors. In this lesson, we will discuss bridge ingredients. After determining the weight of the wine, back up, and restart your usual routine of sensory evaluation of the wine. But in this discussion we're looking at wine in a whole new light. At this point we're evaluating and of course but what we're exploring is assets and thinking about it as a possible partner with food. As I tell my students the first match size then accessorize. We've already match size or considered the weight of the wine. And by accessorize, I mean let's have a look at what aromatics the wine has to offer. And what other flavor notes. Write down all the aromatics you find. As these may be useful as odors which could be mirrored on the food side of the pairing. Chefs call these odors which exist on both sides bridge ingredients. And they help to unify, or pull together, the wine in the food. As a side note, compare in your mind, designs which are compatible with each other. Or colors in one article you might wear, which are repeated or hinted in another part of your outfit. What are the details that make things go together? These same type of details, flavor and odor details, that are the same on the wine and food side can help the wine and the food go well together. So, swirl and sniff. And take notes on the wine's odor profile. Look for the usual notes, floral, fruity, touches of ripe fruit, vegetal, herbaceous, earthy, minerally, woody, smokey char, buttery, and so forth. These are the same odor components that we would look for in any wine evaluation and so you are familiar with doing this at this point in time. Then sip to one and again and swish it around. Once again thinking about its weight or body but also think about sweetness and acidity, primarily if it's a white wine. And also sweetness and acidity, bitterness and stringency if it's red. Look for wood flavor influence in either white or red as those can add to the wine's body or your perception of its body, as well as contributing odors. Take a second sip and concentrate on aromatics that you're perceiving retro-nasally. In other words the things that you're smelling while the wine is on your palate, in your mouth. So let's think back on the basic tastes that are possible in wine, and how they can affect each other. As acidity in a wine increases, our perception of sweetness decreases. As acidity increases, our perception of bitterness can increase. In other words, acidity prompts greater bitterness sensation. As sweetness increases, and this is just the opposite of what I already said, the perception of acidity decreases and also heat can decrease. As sweetness increases, our perception of bitterness and astringency decreases. Sweet tends to counterbalance these rough items within a wine. In other words another way of saying that is if a wine is slightly sweet it's acidity and any bitterness that might be present is less noticeable. As alcohol increases, our perception of sweetness increases, as sweetness increases our perception of fruitiness increases and vise versa. As fruitiness increases our perception of sweetness increases. Strangely enough, even if there's really no sweetness in the wine, the presence of fruitiness almost suggests it to our pallet. As alcohol increases, as I said a few moments ago, our perception of bitterness Increases and there may also be some hotness from that alcohol or some oral irritation. If we're tasting a wine that has been aged in oak and or has been subjected to the malolactic secondary fermentation, our perception of sweetness can increase from those flavor elements in the wine. So once again these taste interactions occur within the wine but coming up we'll see that they also occur between the wine and food. Having effects on each other. So this will bear a brief review again during our food discussion. In this lesson we discussed bridge ingredients. In our next lesson, we will turn our attention to food weight.
