Many people probably think that there is no need for a separate chapter on serving wine because each of us who has a corkscrew knows how to cork out of the bottle. The fact is that a certain preparation of the bottle or bottles to drink can give a much more pleasant tasting and this preparation is well worth mentioning.
To open the bottle :
The seal on the bottle should be cut off with a sharp knife about half an inch below the top of the bottle. Exactly where is a matter of taste, but the seal should definitely not be torn off completely and should, for the sake of well-being, be cut nicely in a horizontal cut. No metal piece from the seal may come into contact with the wine.
You screw in the corkscrew without reaching the bottom of the cork. This is to prevent small crumbs of cork from falling into the wine. Smelling the cork that you see from time to time is completely unnecessary. It’s pure snobbery because it’s impossible to judge a wine that way. It can at the outmost just give a hint if the wine is corkdamaged.
Serving wine : Some wines, especially those rich in tannins, will improve from being aired before serving. Aromas and tannins open up and give a rounder character to the taste. In some cases when the wine has been stored on oak barrels, it may be appropriate to decant the wine into a transparent decanter to really air it out. The bottleneck of an ordinary bottle is too narrow, for a wine rich in tannins, to be able to be aired properly only through the bottle neck.
How many of us, for example, have not finished the rest of a bottle that was opened the night before and been surprised that the wine next day, is much smoother and better structured than it was the night before. The night has given the wine its time to be properly aired!
Temperature :
Probably the most important thing to check before serving and we have therefore dealt with that point separately in another text. An incorrectly tempered wine can simply ruin the wine. It is best to check the temperature with a wine thermometer. The ideal temperature depends on the wine to serve.
Generally, white wine is served colder than red and younger wines colder than older wines. An older wine is served a degree warmer than recommended. Wine that is sipped as a drink or aperitif is served cooler than the wine served for the meal. As a rule, you should also serve an alcoholic wine slightly colder because cold refreshes a strong wine and keeps the strong alcohol taste in check.
The glass :
Tasting wine can be a magical event for our senses, where the eyesight, smell and taste all play an important role in ensuring a pleasant experience. The glass in which the wine is served has a great significance and should therefore be chosen based on which wine to try.
Some regions such as Alsace and the Moselle have their own kind of glass. Now we do not have different glasses at home for every kind of wine we drink and that is definitely not a requirement either. We shall therefore describe which are the very general recommendations for choosing glass. Wider and larger glasses are used for the red wines and thinner glasses are used for the whites, so far it’s very simple.
Champagne was previously served in so-called “Coupes” – open cups that you still see in wedding scenes from American TV series. Today, the narrower “flûte” glasses are considered more modern for drinking sparkling wine. Red wine glasses are available in a plethora of designs that are well suited for wine tasting, but basically there are only 2 types of glass:
-The elongated and “opener” variant: often called Bordeaux glass because it’s best suited for Cabernet Sauvignon and tannic wines that need to be aerated. The larger opening adds more air and the slightly longer shape of the glass gives the aromas the opportunity to open up.
-The rounder and “closed” variant: often called Burgundy glasses because they fit best with the delicate pinot noir grape or Nebbiolo grape in Italy. These glasses limit the supply of air and concentrate the fruity and berry aromas.
White wine is usually served in more closed wine glasses or even in flute glasses. However, it is advantageous to use the same glass used for red wine, also for aromatic white wines.
A Chardonnay wine e.g. should have a wide and round base that closes at the top. A Burgundy glass used for red wines is therefore excellent also for the whites.
A wine glass is filled to a maximum of one third of the total volume, no more. The rest will be used to collect and develop the aromas of the wine, just like when you drink Cognac.
Order to serve wine :
Nothing prevents you from serving the same wine throughout the meal. You then choose a wine that is easy to drink with different types of food if you are going to offer more than one dish. If you want to sophisticate the meal and serve several different wines, you should think about the order in which the wines are served. No instantly served wine should make you regret the wine that was previously served. So you choose to serve in “crescendo” – from the lightest to the stronger, from the younger to the older.
