"Resist the urge to take the intellectual shortcut."

Steve barrels right into French wines at 7am. Forgive the pun, but he gave us an even worse one: "There are some good sommeliers out there, but as a group they whine too much."

There are five main wine growing regions in France: The Loire Valley, Champagne, Alsace, Burgundy, and Bordeaux. The wine business is strictly regulated in France since about the 1920s, and most of the regulation is geared towards maintaining quality standards. [In California, according to Steve, the great majority of our wine-related laws are about tax collection or the preservation of public morals: i.e., not allowing pictures of naked women on wine labels.] We learned that there are four basic quality designations: "Appellation d'Origin Controlee" (AOC), "Vin Delimité Qualitie Superieur" (VDQS), "Vin de Pays," and "Vin de Table." We're only going to discuss the AOC wines (about 40% of French production, about 500 unique areas in France) because "this is what you'll be using." To qualify as an AOC wine, there are four strict requirements: the use of place name is restricted to grapes grown in that region; your wines must conform to the area's varietal regulations (for instance, to be called "Chablis," the wine must be 100% chardonnay), and you must follow strict growing and winemaking regulations, such as yield limits and minimum alcohol levels.

Steve said "Phylloxera," then looked at his watch. I'm sure the subsequent fifteen minute lecture was the short version. He's bursting at the seams with knowledge and information, and he hands it over casually, without referring to notes, but he bubbles over with enthusiasm. I didn't know that phylloxera, a root louse native to the US, practically wiped out the French viticulture industry in the 1860s, until it was discovered that resistant root stocks could be grafted with the desired varietals and thereby remain immune. "Phylloxera changed the course of European history," he said, and I want to read that book, for sure.

You've probably heard about malo-lactic fermentation. It's an induced process whereby the malic acid (present in all grapes, giving them their "green apple" aroma) is converted into lactic acid (giving them their smooth, buttery qualities). This is part of the winemaker's bag of tools, and it's used often as a way of pumping up chardonnays.

We learned how to read a French wine label. You look for place name, which will tell you the varietal (except in Alsace. They're a special case, "schizophrenic" because of decades of border disputes between France and Germany). You look for the winemaker's name, and the words after his name, which will tell you if he grew the grapes ("proprietaire" or "viticulteur") or if he bought them ("negociant"). You look for the vintage year, the year the grapes were picked. Then you know so much!

[Vintage years are much more important in Europe than in California, because their weather is much more volatile and their growing season is shorter. In California, according to Steve, the only "bad" years we've had in the last 25 are 1972 and 1989. I think that's what he said.]

We traveled through the Loire Valley (major grapes: pinot blanc, chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc; major towns: Muscadet, Vouvray, Sancerre) and into Alsace, where the important varietals are riesling and gewurtztraminer. Each of the grapes has specific characteristics that you can rely on from those regions, because of the rigorous AOC requirements.

Today we tasted French whites, and Steve added two chardonnay-based wines, a Chablis and a Meursault (both from Burgundy) to the wines mentioned above. We start with the lightest wine, smelling then tasting as a group, discussing what we observe, and comparing between varietals. Several times, Steve described the wine we were drinking as "textbook" or "as representative as it gets," and with each wine, we talked about what foods we would serve it with. "It's always in the context of the meal," Steve said. "These are not cocktails. Wine is part of the meal. Would you spend eight hours in the kitchen and then pour a diet coke or chocolate milk?"

The standouts today were the Sancerre: a grassy sauvignon blanc ("pick your shellfish") and an amazing gewurtztraminer from Alsace that seriously smelled just like the Double Delight roses that grow in our side yard. But the biggest tread of the day was the Meursault (2004 from "Les Gruyaches" vineyard; Jean-Philippe Fichet, negociant): a BIG white wine, buttery, nutty, mouth-filling. Meursault is the model for the oaky chardonnay style popular in California wines, and this one was delicious.

For the first time, as Steve was talking about the wine service we'll provide in our restaurants-to-be, I began thinking, "Should I be thinking about when I have my own place?" I want to do more with this knowledge than just pick up the right bottles at Bev-Mo.