“Being French, you might know about wine,” he said with a smile.
“She’s only a young girl, Martin,” Evan’s mother said sharply.
“I know a little,” I said modestly. “The decanter is used to aerate the wine. Aerating it softens the tannins and makes it a more enjoyable experience.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“Well, maybe we should let Emmie taste the wine first.”
“We’re not serving wine to someone her age, Martin,” Evan’s mother said.
“Do you drink wine with your meals at home?” Evan’s father asked.
“Quite often,” I said. “It’s not unusual for people my age and even younger to drink wine in their homes in France.”
“The French,” Mrs. Vincent said, as if that explained everything.
“If she drinks it at home, she can certainly taste it here,” Evan’s father insisted. He nodded at one of the servers, who poured a little into my glass.
“Well?” Mr. Vincent asked, smiling at me.
“Do you really want me to do it?” I asked.
“Of course,” Evan’s father said.
Mrs. Vincent rolled her eyes at Evan’s mother.
I looked at the wine. “You should use three senses to judge wine properly,” I began. I lifted the glass so I could see the color. “Tilt the glass away from you to reveal the width and hue of the wine’s rim.”
Mr. Vincent’s face brightened, but his wife’s expression didn’t change.
“There’s good clarity,” I said.
“What’s that mean?” Evan asked.
“You don’t want the wine to be hazy. The color should be rich and full. What year is the wine, Mr. Styles?”
“Oh, my God!” his mother exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’re letting her do this.”
“I believe we have a 1997,” Evan’s father said, ignoring his wife. He looked up at one of the servers. Both were standing there and looking fascinated with me.
“Yes, sir,” the server closer to me said.
“Well, it’s not very young. We should see a ruby, sort of brownish-red. We do.”
Next, I swirled the wine in the glass by holding the glass’s stem. Then I smelled it.
“What are you looking for now?” Evan asked. He was obviously enjoying how I had taken on the challenge and how it seemed to irk his mother.
“The smell of a wine is called its nose. Smelling is important to tasting. Most of what we taste is what we smell,” I said. I was reciting it the way Mama had explained it to me and didn’t mean to sound like a wine lecturer, but I could see that Mrs. Vincent and Evan’s mother were reacting to me as if I were.
“It’s a bit fruity,” I said, “which is fine.”
I sipped the wine but didn’t swallow. Instead, I worked it around in my mouth for a few seconds.
“What are you doing?” Evan asked.
“We call it chewing. You get more of the flavor this way, and then you should sip it and suck a little air in to continue aerating.”