Posts Tagged ‘Wine Tip’

Have you ever “decanted” a wine before?  What is it, you ask?  “Decanting” just means to pour a wine from its bottle into another glass container.

Decanting wine does a few things:

First, transferring wine from its bottle into another glass container, like a carafe, separates the wine from any “sediment” (the gunk or crystallized deposits that sits at the bottom of some red and white wines).  Separating the wine and the gunk will prevent you from getting a mouthful of wine crud.

Second, transferring it to another glass container aerates the wine, or in other terms, it allows the wine to “breathe” a bit before drinking it.  The trick is to pour the wine slowly into the decanter and not let the gunk end up in the decanting glass.  I have found that using a coffee filter over the glass decanter is very helpful in the separation process, especially if you don’t own a fancy funnel like this one:  WMF Vino Stainless Steel Funnel.

However, the main technical reason for “decanting” a wine is to soften it up a bit.  Some folks swear that it will take out the bitterness and any “alcoholly”, or astringent, tastes that a wine might have.

 Here are a few tips if you decide to use a decanter:

1.)  Older red wines (5 years or longer past their vintage or “born on date”) should only be decanted 30 minutes or so before drinking.  Too much air on an older wine is not good because it speeds up the oxidation process.

2.) Younger red wines (and yes, even white wines) can be decanted an hour or more before serving.

One more tip about handling an older bottle of wine – set the bottle upright for a day or more before you plan on opening it.  This will allow the crud to settle at the bottom of the bottle and make it easier for you to separate the wine from the sediment while decanting. 

The one reason why I like to use a glass decanter is just for the aesthetics.  Glass decanters come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  Placing a beautiful glass decanter on your dining-room table makes any meal feel more special and festive over a plain old bottle.  Here are just a few interesting ones to choose from:

WMF Easy Pour Decanter

Riedel Amadeo Decanter

Riedel Duck Decanter

Enjoy!

Here’s a question that I’ve been asked quite a bit:  Exactly how long will a wine stay fresh after opening it?

My answer- I don’t know.  No one can accurately answer that question because there are too many variables involved.   The only piece of valuable information that I can provide you with is that every wine begins to decline the minute that you open it.  Air is every wine’s worst enemy.  The more air that gets into it, the faster it will decline.  It’s best to immediately recork the wine if you’re not planning on drinking the entire bottle that day.

My rule of thumb is to drink both your white and red wines within 1-2 days after initially opening them.  It may not taste quite like the same wine on day 2, but it will probably still be pretty good.

Something else to consider is that grapes with high levels of acidity like Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and Torrontes usually have the ability to hold it together a little bit longer than other types of grapes.  Additionally, sweet wines that are high in alcohol content like sherry and port are also strong survivors.

So if you have leftovers, here are a few things that you can do to prolong a wine’s life:

1.)    Recork and refrigerate all white wines.

2.)    Recork red wines as best you can, and I would recommend drinking it the very next day.  After that, consider it cooking wine.

3.)    If you’re really serious about trying to prolong the life of a wine, consider purchasing a  wine bottle vacuum pump or stoppers.  These wine gadgets claim to suck out air and prolong a wine’s life.  A commonly used pump and stopper gadget is The Vacu Vin Wine Saver .

 I’ve studied wine for about 15 years and like a lot of other wine geeks, I’m always curious to see what the “respected” wine writers think of each vintage in each wine growing region of the world.  But does this rating of the vintage year really matter?  And is it truly indicative of whether or not a particular wine will taste good or bad based on the year it was made?  The answer in my opinion is Yes…and No.  But it’s probably more No than Yes.

The “vintage” is a fancy wine term that lets consumers know when a wine’s grapes were harvested and bottled.  Nearly all bottles of wine produced will list the year in which the grapes were harvested and bottled.

But is the “vintage” date important when considering buying a particular wine?  If weather conditions are extreme in a particular region in a given year then sure, the wines as a whole may not be so good that year.  But if the weather conditions are typical in a given region then I tend to think that vintage is not as critical when considering whether or not to purchase a particular wine.

In my opinion, the special vintage charts are really for the wine collectors to use as a tool or guide to help them make a more informed buying decision.  Because of the amount of money that these folks are willing to pay for some precious juices, they want to be certain that they understand the “terms and conditions” of what it is that they’re considering to purchase.

Folks like you and me, buying the everyday stuff, should be less worried or interested in these charts, unless Mother Nature has really played a terrible number on a particular wine region.  Today’s winemakers are well-educated, and technical advancements in the winemaking process have helped wineries around the globe compensate for nasty weather.

So if you’re buying wines for less than $20, I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock into those fancy vintage charts that the large wine publications like Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and Robert Parker put out each year.

The Way To Pop Open Up A Bottle Of The Bubbly Stuff

I’m not sure if I should be giving advice on how to open up a bottle of bubbly since my wife usually does it.  She fears that I may hurt myself or someone around me.

Opening up a bottle of bubbly always feels special to me.  Maybe it’s because we don’t do it very often or maybe I just enjoy the unique “pop” or “puff” sound that it makes when you open a bottle.  Whatever it is, it’s a beverage that calls for attention at that moment in time.  However, it also calls for your attention to be safe while opening it.  Friedrich Balck of Clausethal Technical University in northwest Germany found that a vigorously shaken bottle of Champagne, with a pressure of 35 psi (2.5 bars), expelled its cork at 24.8 miles per hour (40 kilometres per hour).  Not that you plan on doing this in your dining room, but you get the idea that a champagne cork can pop out with great speed!  With the steps below, you can open the bubbly stuff with confidence and put away your safety goggles.

Step 1 – Chill it.  Get the bottle ice cold.  The colder the bottle is, the less pressure it will have when opening.

Step 2- Protect and check yourself.  You never know when a cork going to cut loose.  Always point the bottle in a safe direction and keep your thumb over the cork.

Step 3- Peel the foil and unwrap the wire cage covering the cork.  Always be aware that the cork may fly-have your thumb ready just in case.

Step 4- Take a towel or cloth napkin and slip it over the neck of the bottle.  The towel will help you grip the cork and catch it in the event it that it decides to blow.

Step 5 – Hold the bottle at a slight angle, grip the cork firmly with the cloth towel or napkin. Then, with your other hand, turn the base of the bottle slowly in one direction.  Turning the bottle is safer and more effective than trying to yank the cork out.