It's Up to Me

The wine is one of the oldest drinks created by man and appreciated since the year 6000 BC. Wine survived the time due to its unparalleled flavor and nice fragrance to the palate. I've learned to appreciate it, with my father. And today, a couple of bottles later, I can say that I understand some of my favorite drink.

 

By the way, what etiquette has in common with wine? Everything!

So to help lovers of a good wine, not to go through embarrassing situations, the Blog is preparing a serie of posts about it!

Let’s start with 5 simple tips:

 

1 - Do trust your palate

 

Wine snobs love to tell you all about wines you shouldn’t drink. Next time, turn the tables and tell them about all the wines you like. Don’t become a slave to a wine critic’s points or other people’s opinions. Sample a variety of wines from around the world to develop your palate and base your decision solely on your own experience and preferences. If Sauternes is your favorite wine of all time – so be it.

 

2 - Don’t invest in the latest bottle-opening gadget

 

Rabbit to the Frog, these newfangled contraptions require an instructional video, and as soon as you master one, another comes along. Save yourself the trouble and cost and steer clear of these passing trends. Take a tip from sommeliers and hone your skills using the classic wine key. It’s easy to use, fits in your pocket and will never go out of style!

 

 

3 - How to Hold a Glass of Wine

 

Wine glasses are beautifully shaped. They are also an example of form meeting function, where the glass itself is supposed to help enhance your wine-tasting experience. First, the bulb of the glass is shaped in such a way to help aerate the wine, enabling oxygen to interact with the living, breathing juice, thus release aromas that comprise a wine’s elegant set of scents, or the “nose” of the wine. Secondly, it has a stem for a reason. A stem not only looks elegant, but it serves two key functions: 1) It enables you to more easily swirl the glass and examine the wine’s color, key steps to take when wine tasting, and 2) It provides you something to hold other than the bulb of the glass. Putting your hands on the bulb of the glass not only leaves ugly fingerprints but serves to heat the wine, which is undesirable for white and red wines alike. So when enjoying a glass of wine next, please avoid this wine faux pas and hold the stem, or even the base of the glass instead.

 

4 - Ice Cubes in a Glass of White Wine

 

It pains me greatly to see someone pop ice cubs into their white wine. For one, the winemaker has gone to great lengths to create a wine with body, balance, and a beginning, middle, and end that is totally disrupted when a wine is literally “watered down.” Secondly, if the goal is to chill a glass of wine more, the most time-efficient way to do so is to pop it into a freezer for 10 minutes, or better yet, put it in a tub of ice with some cold water in it (so the bottle is in a freezing bath). Within a matter of minutes the whole bottle will be further chilled- and the composition of the wine preserved.

 

5 - Do serve wines in the right order

 

In order to appreciate the nuances of the wines you’re serving, always go in order of lightest to heaviest, and driest to sweetest. Bubbles come first, followed by light whites (e.g. sauvignon blanc, dry riesling), heavy whites (i.e. chardonnay, viognier), rosés, light reds (i.e. pinot noir, barbera), heavy reds (i.e. cabernet sauvignon, malbec) and then dessert wine.