Too big? Too rich? Never!

Where are the time machines when we need them? An obnoxious affectation is catching on. Worldly Californians are wont to confess a preference for French wines, particularly the reds. California wines, they protest, why they’re, they’re, they’re -- too big.

So true. And our sky is too blue.

Seriously, these snobs have a point. French wines are certainly preferable to California ones -- in France. But in California, only an ingrate would despise the local big reds. Big Cabernet Sauvignons, big Zinfandels, even big Syrahs and Merlots. They’ve become such an important part of our lives, so fast, that it’s hard to remember life before them.

These days, baby boomers think nothing of opening a big red to wash down a Wednesday night bowl of spaghetti. But who among them can remember their parents doing the same? The Great Generation got its ethanol from cocktails. At table, it preferred coffee with pot roast. For special occasions, a bottle of Mouton Cadet might have made an appearance. It was supposed to be good, right? A table of six somehow never drained it.

America transferred from grain to grape only after California’s big reds showed the way. It started at UC Davis, where in the 1970s and ‘80s, the oenology program pretty much single-handedly taught winemakers from California, Chile, Australia and New Zealand how to produce big reds. In less than a decade, California went from making wine for winos to taking on the French classics, and producing ready-to-drink versions of the classic reds of Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhone.

The new style could be summed up in one word. Big. Unlike the French wines, which required years in a cellar and more time in a decanter to become voluptuous, New World reds could be uncorked and poured. Fat, gorgeous fruit simply plopped into the glass.

That Antipodeans trained at UC Davis, then went home to Australia and New Zealand and proceeded to make off with the global market in big reds -- that we were Shirazed at our own game -- does nothing to diminish the California contribution. Our goblets runneth over. Every time we go into a supermarket, we pass aisles heaving with big reds.

Some loathing of big reds owes to old excesses. As the glee at the hugeness of big reds subsided in the 1990s, it became clear there were some flies in the barrels. There was a marked tendency to over-oak the wines, to push the vanilla and woody spices so far that the worst of the big reds started tasting like Falstaff with after-shave.

The industry moved to correct this. Now, the group furthest behind on the learning curve isn’t generally the winemakers, but us. We seem intent on blaming our wines for not drinking like French ones. They don’t have the gravelly grandeur, the complexity, the slow way of aging, then opening up in a decanter and a glass.

It’s true. Our wines are different. But to count this as a flaw, we might as well class ourselves as broken for not being French. It seems more likely that the problem isn’t with the big reds being different from the French classics, but with our lag in developing home-grown traditions for serving them.

Our big reds cannot be handled like French wines. The French typically blend wines to temper the fruits with acidity and tannins. By contrast, some of our most popular “varietals” are made from the biggest, fattest single grape types: syrah and merlot. Unblended, they can come across as one-note wonders, so jammy, they could be mistaken for fruit concentrate ready to be diluted into a children’s drink.

The style, so short on tannins, made them seem fit to drink alone, as a replacement for cocktails at cocktail parties. Soon, whether you were at a gathering of penurious biology professors or know-it-all newspaper book reviewers, invariably there was a cheery caterer circulating with a glass-laden tray and the sunny threat, “Red or white?”

Apertifs, they’re not

Oh, to rewind time and refill those glasses with beer, some killer punch or some Champagne. There are people who will disagree with this next opinion, but they are wrong. Red and white wine should never be served in lieu of aperitifs or cocktails. They should only be served at the table, with food. If they are French or Italian, they’re usually too tannic to drink alone. They’re made to cut the richness of food. If they’re an American big red, then they’ll have just the opposite problem. They’ll be too rich and will need food to cut the wine.

When choosing which food to serve with big reds, forget the old rule of thumb: white for fish and chicken, red for meats. Think instead about flavor partnerships, about the sour-sweet axis. The fuller the fruit, the jammier the big red. Think of foods short on sweetness. The big, black currant flavors of Merlot and Syrah can be cloying alone, but they show gloriously when served with slightly sour meats, either as foils for the wine-edge of salami, or best, with roast game -- grouse, partridge or venison.

There are plenty of big Zinfandels out there, but a food with warm buttery notes, a quiche or an onion tart, will bring out their dancing acidity, their more delicate, almost Beaujolais-like notes.

But the real glory of the big reds is only revealed by the Cabernet Sauvignons. This is where our big reds are closest to the French originals, the clarets of Bordeaux. California Cabs have spice, an herbaceousness that goes beyond the oak and into complex fruity tannins and distinct regional tangs. If you can get one of our best, a Stags’ Leap Cab, you’re in for a treat. Order it at Taylor’s Prime Steaks, with the Delmonicos. It’s worth the 60-odd bucks they’ll ding you for it.

At home, big reds mean that $10 spent at Ralphs or Trader Joe’s can still buy a distinctly noble bottle. All you need to turn a daube of beef, a leg of lamb or a whole ham into a feast is a bottle by a Mondavi or a Rodney Strong. Explore the $20 estate bottles of those winemakers, and the quality becomes that much more heady. If you know some snobs, decant it just before serving, and say it’s French.

One need only remember three things when serving big reds.

First: Serve them with food.

Second: Chill them, to about the temperature of a shady spot on your porch on a cool January afternoon. All that big fruit needs to keep from seeming too much is a slight whisper from the Arctic.

Third: The ready-to-pour quality makes them shorter-lived than French wines once you’ve uncorked them. So they can go flat in the hour on the sideboard that the complex, tighter French-style wines need to breathe before showing at their best. So don’t try to put them through a French-style presentation. They probably won’t have the staying power.

There will always be snobs who prefer faraway things that are harder to get than domestic equivalents, that cost more and that require special knowledge. May their new year be full of expensive imported goodies and opportunities to sneer. But let the rest of us raise a goblet of affordable, fabulously hearty red wine this weekday night, and remember that one of the finest revolutions of the American table took place here, not long ago. It produced such a bounty of big reds that our glasses are filled to brimming.