Raise Your Glass - Wine etiquette

 Jason Clarke, Contributor

The World-famous book by Elizabeth Gilbert which subsequently became a film starring Julia Roberts, Eat, Pray, Love, focused on the search for inner peace through food, spiritual awareness, and opening one's heart to the possibility of love, but forgot one very important thing: DRINK WINE! In early civilisation, it was considered the undertone of quintessential things for good living, so why not enjoy it to the fullest extent?

After a romantic weekend of wine, chocolates, strawberries, and very delicious food, it made me think that there are lots of persons who are still a little intimidated by wine.

Attending a food event for Valentine's Day, I realised that not many persons opted to indulge in a little wine, although they may have been focused on indulging in other things ... .

Nonetheless, here are a few tidbits I think you may find useful.

Serving Wine

To bring the best out of anything, the right conditions should occur, and wine is no different. The correct temperature is key to enjoying any wine, whether red or white, but what typically tends to happen is, we tend to serve our white wines too cold and our red wines too warm.

Ideally, white wine should be poured at between 7-10C. When wine is too cold, it tends to taste more acidic, which naturally makes it not as enjoyable as it should be. Likewise, reds that are too warm tend to taste putrid and more like pure alcohol. Ideally, one should serve reds between 10-18C. If you have it in the fridge, let it sit on the counter for a few and let it come to the right temperature. If you happen to have opened the bottle already, then let it breathe and give it 'mouth-to-mouth'.

Glasses

The right glass will always enhance the whole experience. I have had friends who suggested the bigger the glass, the better just because it holds more, but each wine has its own glass that allows its unique characteristics to shine. A typical wine glass will have three key features: the stem, bowl, and foot.

The foot, as you can imagine, keeps the glass standing and is the base of the glass. The stem allows you to hold the glass while preventing you from warming the wine, i.e., hold your glass by the stem. The bowl is why there is the most variance. The bowls of wine glasses are designed to maximise the surface area exposed to air.

Red-wine glasses will have a wider bowl to allow for the wine to breathe, while white-wine glasses will have a smaller exposed surface area.

Champagne glasses will have a very limited surface area to contain the bubbles. There are, however, stemless wine glasses which are very trendy and look incredibly cool, not to mention reducing the risk of breakage for the clumsy few.

During this weekend's escapades, I ordered a White Zinfandel and, contrary to the name, it's actually pink. As part of the Valentine's festivities, just the colour alone seemed appropriate. Surprisingly, it happened to be quite a versatile wine. I could easily see this as a wine for a beach Sunday: bright, crisp, cold and 'yummy'. My recommendations: Wood Bridge, Sutterhome, Beringer, and Glen Allen.

Whatever you decide to do. Have fun with it and, most important, enjoy the wine.

CHEERS!

I am not an expert, merely a wine enthusiast sharing my thoughts and experiences. Feel free to share your own experiences at wineenthusiastja@gmail.com.