The other night at a wine dinner, engrossed in intense conversation among people in the food and wine industry in Chile, the most memorable part of the evening was perhaps the description of wine by the winemaker of Amayna (Viña Garcés Silva), Claudia Gomez. She described a Bordeaux-style blend (as assembled in Chile) as a womanly figure and how the different varieties work together to create a wine diva: “Cabernet Sauvignon is the skeleton of the wine. Since most guys don’t like raily girls, we start filling in with flesh, or the Carmenere (indicating and drawing with a pencil, here, here, here and here, not unlike a plastic surgeon). Then, since excess body fat is not all that attractive we need to add some muscle tone to firm up the body so here we add some Merlot. If we really want the wine to get ripped and show some muscles, a touch of Cabernet Franc. And finally, all women know that a healthy glow (read: tan) makes you look better so in winemaking, we blend in a little Petit Verdot for those finishing notes.” That’s the body of a perfect wine–or woman.