Wine, women and Singh
Expert Alpana Singh takes the mystery out of reds and whites, and heightens the enjoyment
When it comes to wine know-how, master sommelier Alpana Singh plays in the big leagues. But during her days as sommelier at Chicago's famed Everest, she often found herself playing referee or amateur psychologist while helping folks choose a bottle of wine for dinner. What troubled this 29-year-old most: when executive-suite women couldn't intelligently choose betweeen a Sangiovese and a Syrah.
"Women are taking on these fantastic leadership roles [in the business world]," says Singh, director of wine and spirits for Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises and who, at 26, became the youngest woman ever inducted into the prestigious Court of Master Sommeliers. "This is what I saw at Everest -- women pursuing clients, building business relationships at the dinner table. Then they'd hand off the wine list [to a man at the table]." It bothered her that otherwise capable women gave up their power because they knew nothing about wine, a beverage she believes can help build and strengthen relationships.
These days, according to the 2006 Adams Wine Handbook, women buy 57 percent of wine consumed in the United States.
(Keith Hale/Sun-Times)
(Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times)
Singh cringes when she thinks about the drop-dead gorgeous woman who dined at Everest with an equally great-looking date. The guy proceeded to order a $490 bottle of Champagne -- and the unsure woman asked for a Diet Coke. That's when she knew it was time to birth Alpana Pours: About Being a Woman, Loving Wine & Having Great Relationships (Academy Chicago Publishers, $17.95).
"I may not be a relationship expert, but I saw five years of relationships" by advising couples on wine. "It was like [having] ringside seats," says the Monterey, Calif., native.
"I knew it was a good sign for the relationship when the man included the woman in the wine speak."
In her book, Singh writes about incorporating wines into all sorts of social occasions, from first dates to "meeting the parents" to entertaining business clients like a "rock star."
"Basically, it's [about] wine in the situations where we don't expect wine to be part of it," she says. "Everybody breaks up with their boyfriend, has to go to a birthday party, has to go to a baby shower. We're interested in, 'Now that I have it, what do I do with it? And does it go with my paella party?' "
Most of all, this host of WTTW-Channel 11's Emmy Award-winning "Check, Please!" is on a "grass-roots campaign" to snatch wine talk from the manicured hands of snobs. In writing Alpana Pours, she thought, "'If I were a [non-wine expert] and I wanted to know about wine, how would I explain it to myself? The last thing you expect to do with a wine book is laugh." And there's plenty to giggle about, including Singh's double-entendre analogies. (When explaining wine to men, she'd sometimes compare it with lingerie or female bodies. "If I said that a wine is soft, silky, well-endowed, voluptuous, and that if you give it time it will open up, men seemed to get into it. What can I say?" she writes.)
"Basically what I'm trying to tell people is, 'Is it good? Is it bad?' Some people may think I'm making it too casual, too everyday. I'd like to see wine on every table," just as it is in countries like France, Italy and Spain, she says.
Why is wine pouring into the glasses of everyday women and men? Credit films like "Sideways," which introduced wine lingo to the masses, and the cult of Trader Joe's Charles Shaw wine, nicknamed "Two-Buck Chuck," the inexpensive wine that made it OK to spend less than $4 per bottle. Even experts like Singh admit "it does the job" -- and if nothing else, exposes Americans to entry-level vino. Then, she hopes, they'll learn the six basic wine styles (Light, Sweet and Heavy Whites; Light, Spicy and Full-Bodied Reds) and drink on from there.
Despite her at-work access to incredible (and pricy) vintages, Singh admits she rarely spends more than $15 on wine that she and her author husband Charles Blackstone drink at home. "He likes wine, but he's not geeky about it," she says. "We have no collection because we keep drinking it."
Perhaps Singh's interest in bringing those outside the usual wine club into the circle comes from being young, female and an ethnic minority in an industry that does not often visualize folks who look like her as one of "them." That's why she put herself on the cover of Alpana Pours, to reinforce the across-the-board appeal of wine.
Writing the book with Robert Scarola, a Chicago food and lifestyle author, "was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do," she says. "I figure people don't need to know about barrel fermentation or malolactic [fermentation] or appellations.
"My idea of a wine lover is someone who stocks up on a case of wine at Trader Joe's, spends $70, and they have a bottle over the course of three nights with their spaghetti."
