Wine Etiquette 101: Open with a Whisper
Posted on | January 25, 2012 | Written by Annie Davis | No Comments
Most of us wine folks can agree that after the lengthy education many of us have endured in the pomp and circumstance of drinking wine, wine is, above all, something to enjoy. That being said, many of us can’t help but insist on applying what we know when we drink wine; I know I can’t. It may sound terrible and elitist, but it makes my blood boil to see a glass that’s nearly opaque with fingerprint smudges in front of an unsuspecting offender. A wine glass wasn’t designed with a long stem just to look pretty. There are certain points of etiquette in drinking wine that many folks don’t realize have a specific purpose.
One point of etiquette is the gateway to enjoying a bottle of wine, the first step in making it all happen: uncorking. Too many times I’ve heard the unseemly sound of a large “POP” as someone across a room opens a bottle of wine. Sparkling or not, the opening of a bottle of wine should make no more than the sound of a whisper. There’s the rule, now a couple of reasons.
The uniform is optional.
Some may associate Champagne’s loud cracking pop with celebration and with good times. Beyond some festive Sabrage (the technique for opening a bottle of Champagne with a saber) on New Year’s, this kind of demonstration is problematic. Think of it this way: you want your sparkling wine to be as sparkling as possible. That loud pop is the sound of gas escaping the bottle, leaving less to carbonate the liquid. Also, and perhaps worse, some good wine usually escapes with that gas. If opening a bottle of sparkling has never taken you a touch of muscle (a touch more if you’re a weakling like myself), you may be doing it improperly. Take off the cage; wrap the cork in a cloth; hold the cork firmly; then turn the bottle (not the cork) until release. The cork needs a good deal of pressure to keep it from popping off prematurely. Practice makes perfect, and the more practice you require, the more wine you get to drink.
Classic for a reason.
Uncorking red wine runs somewhere along the same lines. Yanking a cork out with all the force you can muster sucks the air in the bottle out of the neck too quickly, thus greatly disturbing the wine. Imagine you’re uncorking something old and wonderful, say a Giacomo Conterno Barolo Monfortino Riserva 1978, that you or anyone else has taken great care to keep in proper conditions. With one quick move, you could completely disrupt a sleeping giant, sending sediment to roam freely about the bottle. This is why I always like to use a standard waiter’s wine key with a double hinge. A corkscrew like this will typically pull the cork out to just the point where you can easily wiggle out the end with very little struggle. No matter what the tool, use the “wiggle” method to ease the cork out, rather than yank.
It’s a lot of pomp and circumstance, but as we well know, winemaking is an art form. I like to honor that with a little subtle artwork of my own—in seamlessly uncorking a bottle with nary but a hiss of air. It feels better when you know you’re doing right by those who put their sweat and tears into that bottle. Go ahead, grab that precious bottle you’ve got lying around and give it a try.
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Go-To-Wine Tuesday
Posted on | January 24, 2012 | Written by Michael Greeson | No Comments
To prove that there are plenty of great options for white wines this winter season, I drank a bottle when I was home relaxing and watching football last weekend. Eschewing my typical lager, I reached for an unusual 2009 Bourgogne Blanc from Simon Bize, Les Perrieres, a distinct vineyard that stretches vertically between Meursault and Puligny. Wines from this particular area tend to combine depth and generosity with a pleasant roundness on the palate.
Opening the bottle, I wasn’t looking to be surprised by this wine; I just wanted something pleasant and relatively easy to enjoy. When I sipped the preliminary taste, I was stunned at how bright and fresh this wine was. 2009 was generally classified as a rather opulent vintage among the great Chardonnay vineyards in Burgundy, and a year that produced wines with riper, more abundant fruit tones, but this wine stunned with minerality and focus. Higher acid supports layers upon layers of bright Meyer lemon, a citrus that’s uncharacteristic for 2009, and the mid-palate sings with bright minerality. I was knocked out of my chair; there was definitely no subtlety here.
Electric, yet poised, focused and refined, this ’09 from Simon Bize was wonderful choice. And next time you reach for your bottle of rouge, or lager, think different.
Tags: Simon Bize > value wine > White Burgundy
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Italy in Life’s Ephemera
Posted on | January 23, 2012 | Written by Janice Cable | No Comments
Travel, as it turns out, does change you. I spent most of my life not traveling. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to—I did—but I had a hard time getting it together. My passport was always lost. My funds were always low. My time was always short. And my languages were always limited. It seemed beyond me, frankly, so my spending five months in Italy last year was both an unexpected boon and a thoroughly transformative experience.
But while some sea changes are big, profound, ineffable and viscera-deep, not all of them are. Some of these changes have appeared in the ephemera of my everyday life. They’re tiny changes, but they’re there, and being there, every day, it’s kind of like carrying my travel and my time in other lands with me.
Espresso: Before I went to Italy, I drank American coffee. I had a French press, and I used it daily. I drank giant cups of coffee, early and often. After returning from Italy, I now own two espresso makers (of different sizes) and all I drink is espresso. Ever. The idea of giant cups of coffee is both anathema and a little bit gross. However, I still often do add some cream. Sue me; I’m not a purist.
Cheese: When I was living in Camogli, a friend came to visit me at lunchtime, determined to feed me (I often get so immersed in writing that I forget to eat; Italians find this troubling. I also often eat by myself; Italians find this completely upsetting). He asked me if I had any Parmesan. “What do you think I am?” I asked, “a cretin? Of course I do.” I still do, always. One cannot properly live without Parmesan.
Olive Oil: I returned to Italy in late October, and the moment that Il Palazzone’s Laura Gray met me at the train station, she handed me a bottle of 2011 olive oil that the estate had pressed just a week earlier. I am olive oil spoiled. Bad olive oil makes baby kittens weep and then gnash their tiny pointy teeth and rent their darling fur. I’m not going to go as far as Gianfranco Soldera and carry olive oil with me to restaurants (though if I made my own as he does, I might), but I’ve considered it.
Wine: My palate has changed, irrevocably. I can’t say I’m entirely happy about it, either. In many ways, I wish I were still able to drink big, manipulated, “International” wines, but they just taste to me, in a word, purple. I can’t do it. If I’m somewhere and the wine isn’t good, I drink beer or whisky. I’d rather drink bad beer than bad wine, and trust me when this is a giant shift in worldview.
Pleasure: Americans are really good with being entertained. We are a people who wrote the book, then wrote the film treatment, then wrote the screenplay, then got a producer, and then filmed a big-budget movie on entertainment. We are not, however, particularly great with pleasure. Italians have that whole pleasure thing nailed. It’s one of the aspects of the culture that has drawn non-Italians for centuries—this sense that upon entering Italy, you get a big blank check for pleasure, which you get to spend however you like. I try to remember this pleasure tenet, to approach my life not searching for entertainment, which is merely a nice word for escapism, but to approach my life aware of opportunities for pleasure, which is to say inhabiting the time with full-body awareness. It’s a thing, but it’s good.
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New Year in Hong Kong, an Expat’s Guide
Posted on | January 20, 2012 | Written by Josh Rubenstein | No Comments
The Year of the Dragon is upon us, with Hong Kong awash in symbolic decoration. The preparation for large family ‘reunion’ dinners was on full display minutes ago as I walked behind a wine delivery team wheeling eight cases of Dom Pérignon and Chateau Beychevelle downhill on busy Wellington St in Central district. Like so many customs of Chinese New Year, Chateau Beychevelle is beloved not only for its quality, but also for its symbolism. Known as ‘Dragon Boat’ wine, Chateau Beychevelle’s has become immensely popular in China as the dragon boat on its label is regarded as symbol of luck. Prices of this wine have soared in recent years as a result.
It can be very easy for an expatriate to miss all of the symbolism that Chinese New Year customs entail, so I’d like to share a few that I’ve learned. For fans of delicious homonyms and symbolic cuisine, I present a brief introduction to traditional Chinese New Year dining:
Yau Yu – A fish dish, as the pronunciation is similar to saying that you will have money remaining.
Fat Choy – AKA Black Moss, it looks a bit like chest hair, but symbolizes wealth in its pronunciation. In Hong Kong we wish each other Kung Hei Fat Choi for prosperity in the New Year.
Ho See – Dried Oysters, pronounced the same as an expression for ‘good business.’ Thus the dish Ho See Fat Choy encourages good business in the New Year.
Nian Gao – A glutinous ‘year cake’ whose pronunciation also sounds like ‘high year.’ Eating nian gao is for hopes of promotion and increased fortune. Nian Gao from Guangdong is generally sweeter than that of Shanghai.
Tang Yuan – Sweet dumplings enjoyed at the end of the meal as the name also means ‘the whole family can gather all the time in harmony.’
In terms of wine, like all things CNY, we’ll prefer the color red. Many enjoy the opportunity for Rosé sparkling wines as well. Regardless, the opportunity to celebrate togetherness and good wishes for family have our fair Special Administrative Region buzzing with the kind of positive energy that one truly has to visit Hong Kong to appreciate.
One behalf of IWM Hong Kong, dear reader, I wish you Kung Hei Fat Choi!
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To Decant or not to Decant?
Posted on | January 19, 2012 | Written by IWM Staff | No Comments
For many years the notion of decanting to remove sediment from the liquid was promulgated; it was pretty much conventional wisdom. However, wisdom has changed and today the application of decanting has shifted. Rather than being a method of removing sediment, decanting now is a method of aeration because so much of the wine we drink today is young. The philosophy behind decanting has changed, but controversy has remained.
Decanting, in its purest form, should be executed for mature big red wines that will “throw” sediment, which is to say that there is matter in the bottle that has separated from the liquid and can be removed by carefully and slowly pouring the wine into a decanter. Using a light source underneath the bottle allows the pourer to see when the sediment is moving into the liquid, and the pourer should stop decanting at the point when he or she can see the sediment approaching the neck of the bottle. If there is a desire to get every drop of liquid out, the pourer can filter the remaining wine into a separate glass.
This method of decanting had been the traditional method of decanting over the years. However, both the method and the market has changed. For a long time the fine wine market was enjoyed by a very small group of individuals who had well-stocked cellars that enabled them to drink mature wines. Today wine has become a part of everyone’s culture. And the dynamic is very different.
In the US today 80% of wine is consumed within 48 hours of purchase, and 98% within six months. The bottles are consumed in their youth, before they have had an opportunity to mature. Here the process of decanting is executed to aerate the wine, not to remove sediment. Fortunately the wine community has come to understand the benefits of aeration. A group that was once somewhat divided between a traditional sediment-separating approach and a contemporary aeration approach has reached an accord. We decant. We open bottles ahead of time, double decant and some even garishly violently decant (which is where most controversy springs from today). Most young wines will not be hurt by oxygenation over a short period of time, and many will benefit. Perhaps our reference point should be changed all together. Perhaps the question should be: “Which wines shouldn’t be decanted?”
There is a very simple answer. Most sparkling wines should be consumed out of the original vessel to maintain their effervescence (but some Grower Champagnes challenge this conventional wisdom). Older vintages or delicate wines should always be treated with reverence. And among more esoteric wines, there will be bottle variation that will require attention to the unique state of that vessel and may very well need to be handled as little as possible.
At the end of the day, most enthusiastic wine drinkers just want to know if they can get out their new Riedel decanter with the crystal aerator and watch the show. They might even want the sommelier to make the experience a bit more special. The question is should I tumble that young wine? Yes, you should. The presentation is always more thoughtful and the wine may taste better. Do you need any other reasons? Not really.
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