CheapWineFinder’s Beginners Guide To Wine Part 3

Does and Don’ts of Wine Drinking

If you go to a wine tasting you will see people taking a sip of wine and making slurping motions with their mouth, then they spit the wine out. It is supposed to be the proper way to taste wine, not merely drink it. What they are doing is mimicking how Wine Professionals taste wine when they are on the clock. A wine buyer may have to taste 45 wines he is being offered to sell in his stores, if he actually drinks all 45 wines he will fall over at some point and it would take him hours to drink all the wines. To make the most of each sip, they make those slurping motions to bring air into the wine and to distribute the wine to all parts of their taste buds. With one sip they can get a good sense of each wine, you on the other hand get more than one sip and you have no intention of spitting the wine out (it’s an affront to Bacchus). You get way more out of drinking a quarter glass of wine than you ever do out of  slurping one sip around in your mouth. Don’t do that slurping thing, it’s like walking around in shoulder pads because your a big fan of the local football team. Unless you have a problem drooling the wine down your chin, you don’t need instructions on how to drink wine.

In Europe, in places where people drink wine with every single meal, they drink the wine out of every day glass tumblers. In the U.S., where wine is more of a special occasion we drink out of wine stems. So, does wine taste better because of the glass that is used?  Well, no, but a wine glass does offer some advantages. All wine tastes better when it has been exposed to air, it is sort of like a wine is asleep when it is in the bottle under cork and when you pop the cork it needs to wake up to be it’s best and exposure to air is the best way to wake it up. A wine glass makes it much easier to swirl the wine ( swirling quickly allows the air and wine to mix), trying to swirl wine in a water glass can get pretty messy, so don’t wear a white shirt when attempting it. A wine glass has a tapered rim which allows you to get more out of the nose (the smell) of the wine. The tapered rim keeps the escaping vapors in, so you have more aromas to identify. Wine with a good nose is more fun than a wine with a tight nose, so the wine glass does some good there too. If are trying to fully experience a new wine, then wine stems are a must, if you are drinking a wine that you are familiar with then a drinking glass will do nicely. You may have noticed a wide variety of wine glasses that are to be used for each different varietal, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to these. If you use one of these special glasses and notice a difference, fine, otherwise ignore them. If you are drinking Champagne or Sparkling Wine, a Champagne flute is the only way to go. The flute is designed to keep the bubbles concentrated and with Sparkling Wine the bubbles are the show.

Decanting makes all wine better, from 2 Buck Chuck to the finest French Grand Cru Wine. Most wine decanters are over-priced and semi-impossible to clean. If you can find a chemistry beaker large enough to handle 750ml, then that would be my recommended way to go. They are easy to clean , inexpensive compared to a crystal decanter and they have graduated markers showing the volume of liquid stored inside.  You would be surprised how many 750ml bottles of wine actually contain 800ml of wine. Plus if you bring it out on the backyard deck on a warm summers night and someone knocks it over, it’s no big deal.

to be continued….

Where Have All The Wine Snobs Gone?

Since when has wine become the Drink of the People? Where are those guys who only drink Silver Oak or Opus One? In the last couple of weeks, I have read three different Wine Blogs that were touting a wine that was 1) from Bulgaria and 2) Merlot. It was not long ago that you would keep your mouth shut about drinking either one of those!

There is an excellent tavern in Chicago called The Map Room. They have exotic beers from all over the world, their chalk board lists all the fresh expertly handled kegs on tap, and all the beers are poured perfectly in the proper beer glass that was designed specifically for that type of beer. Down the street is a good wine bar where they pour first rate inexpensive wines in  regular every day wine glasses – no pretense, just good wine in a glass (and cheaper than the beer at the Map Room,too)!

About ten years ago,  I accompanied a friend to a local high-end wine shop. He had a killer bottle of wine on a business trip and wanted to buy a case of it. We walked into the shop kind of dressed down (hey, it was a Saturday afternoon in the summer). My friend was not a wine drinker – this was the first wine that really piqued his interest. He told the clerk behind the counter that he was new to wine and that he was looking for this particular bottle. The clerk in classic Wine Snob fashion basically told him that the wine was too good for him and that he should go down to the local supermarket to find something that would suit him better. Today that attitude is never on display, although they might still be thinking, “Why is the great unwashed destroying my sacred wine?”

But it seems to be a whole new world – Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of ‘09 had a bunch of under $20 bottles on the list. Noted wine critic Bill Daley in his list of Top Sparkling Wines for the Holiday Season, didn’t just say, “Hey this Barefoot Sparkling Wine ain’t too bad”, but actually put it on his list of recommended wines! You know, if that 1970’s ZZ Top song, Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers was written today it just might be titled Cabernet Sauvignon Drinkers and Hell Raisers, as things have changed.

Cheap Wine Glasses

Wine glasses are not all created equally.  There is your red wine glass and your white wine glass.  Your stemmed and stemless.  Some are made of glass and some of plastic.  Some are dishwasher safe and some aren’t.  Actually many that say they are Read more