FAQ
- What’s the best temperature for serving wine?
As a general rule of thumb:- Red wine – 16-18 degrees (°C).
- White wine 14-16 degree (°C).
It is actually easier to use an ice bucket. Fill the bucket up with ice about 4/5ths, cover the ice with water. If your reds are over the “room” temperature, immerse them for five minutes; whites and rosés for ten minutes. (Light reds such as Bardolino, Valpolicella, Nouveau and plain ole Beaujolais, and others of that weight should soak nearly as long as the whites.)
- What is the best way to save leftover wine?
Leftover wine can be saved. The key point here is to keep oxygen away from the wine. When wine oxidizes, it degrades quickly and can soon turn into a good salad dressing vinegar.
Find a small container that will hold the wine that is left over to the point where the container is virtually overflowing. Cap the container with a cork or plug so that some of the wine does spill out. This way, you will have NO air bubble in the container.
Store the container in your refrigerator. When you are ready to drink it again, remove the container and let it warm-up to the desired drinking temperature, depending on whether it is red or white wine. You can store your wine this way for about 5 to 7 days. But I would not store it much longer than this.
Another idea for cooks is to freeze leftover wine in ice cube trays, then transfer to air-tight freezer bags to use in sauces, etc. - Why do people slurp wine?
When wine professionals slurp wine, they’re essentially doing the same exact thing you’re doing when you swirl wine in the glass, just on steroids. Both swirling in the glass and slurping through your mouth are introducing oxygen to the wine, opening up aromas and allowing more pronounced flavors to come to life. - Why does red wine make my mouth feel dry and white wine doesn’t?
Red wines are generally more tannic than white wines. The juice used for red wines is macerated with the skins, stems, and seeds of the grapes for a certain period of time, which extracts tannins. Juice used for white wines is generally immediately pressed off the skins, resulting in minimal tannins. - Should I let wine breathe?
Some wine drinkers declare that a red wine should be allowed to ‘breathe’ in the bottle before it is poured. Frankly, this doesn’t do much to improve the wine.
The surface area of the wine in the bottle neck is so small that hardly any oxygen can reach the wine in the hour or two in which it is left standing.
If you really do want to oxygenate the wine, decant it by pouring it gently down the side of a glass decanter.
Some older red wines develop a sediment at the bottom (or side, if the bottle has been stored lying down) of the bottle.
This is not a sign of any defect, but if you prefer to keep the sediment out of the glass, you can also pour the wine carefully into a decanter, leaving the last bit, with the sediment, in the bottle.
