Wine Environment: Helping a Wine Taste Good.

Wine is only as good as you let it be.

There are obviously many different quality wines released to the marketplace but regardless of the quality of the wines you purchase they can become quite limited due to the way you present them. You would never serve a Cabernet Sauvignon right out of the refrigerator, nor would you want to serve a Sauvignon Blanc at room temperature. Unless it's pretty cold where you are living. I would never serve a nice red wine, such as a Cabernet or a Syrah, out of a tiny little glass. So the point is what steps should we be taking in order to get the most out of our wine?

Good question! I'm glad you asked it!! What are the environmental conditions that effect our wine experience and pleasure? As I've already stated, temperature is a very important condition. Glass size and shape, tasting method, accompanying food, a comfortable environment and the company of others who may have a similar propensity to enjoy the wine as much as yourself. Don't disregard the last two points here, as I have found in my life that nothing is as good or nice as it is when friends can share in the experience with knowledge and understanding!!

There are a range of temperatures for different wines, depending on the color and quality of the wine. Most red wines, including ports, are best served at around 62º F to 65º F. Some lighter reds, such as Beaujolais or Lambrusco, can be served chilled as low as 58º F. Most high quality white wines, including Sauternes and other white desert wines, should be served slightly chilled, between 58º F and 62º F. Lower quality, less expensive wines are often fine at colder temperatures, it somewhat depends on your taste buds. Champagnes should be served cold, right out of the cooler at around 45º F.

With this all in mind, it is important to note that one of the great pleasures of drinking wine is to see how it evolves in the glass. The range of temperatures that it has in your glass is going to influence it's evolution along with your perception of it. As an observation, white wine is often served too cold and red wine is often served too warm, especially in warm climate regions. Many people pull their bottle of white wine right out of the refrigerator, pop the cork and serve it. I, myself, have wasted many a good bottle of luscious Chardonnay doing just that. It is a much better practice to pull the bottle from the cooler an hour or so before you want to serve it. If that is not possible, and you are drinking a very nice bottle of wine, try cupping the glass in both your hands to help warm it up with your body heat.

You will find that a cold white wine is much sharper and acidic to your taste buds and reveals nothing to your sense of smell. At the right temperature white wine really opens up to reveal it's fruity ripeness and tantalizing aromas. With a red wine that is being served too warm, you will find a flabby, unbalanced, non-acid wine while one that is served too cold will often times end with a very harsh and tannic result. Generally, I find that I can pull my red wine right out of the cellar and serve them. My cellar, so to speak, stays at a pretty constant 62º F. So I will pull my wine out and serve it after a little air time and this seems quite satisfactory to me.

So now the temperature is right, what's next?

The choice of glasses is the next important step. There is a lot of information here and I have come to the conclusion that I am fairly opinionated on this subject. There is sort of a range of opinions that fall between any old glass is good to the Riedel Crystal philosophy that every wine type needs it's own glass size and shape.

Riedel claims that their glasses are shaped so that they deliver the wine to just the right area of you mouth so as to maximize the preferential qualities of the particular wine you are drinking. They claim that different areas of the mouth respond to different tastes and that all wines have tastes and qualities that can be enhanced by delivering the wine to the correct part of the mouth first. I think there is something to this but I am not convinced that the level of importance is nearly as high as they would like you to believe. Point is, I would never serve a Syrah in a eight ounce glass designed for Sauvignon Blanc.

I have reached the point where I only want to use a large wine glass for red wine, by large I mean in the 20 to 25 ounce range. This size glass is much more capable of releasing the aroma of the wine and allows for easy swirling, which I'll talk about more later. For white wines I am content to use a more typical glass size in the 8 to 15 ounce range, but in many cases I find the same large format glasses I use with my reds work very well with the whites too.

The shape of the glass is also important. Large oval shaped glasses which are narrower at the top rim than within the body of the glass seem to be very good for many robust red wines. Why? The narrower aperture helps to concentrate the aromas and the large surface area inside a large glass also helps to release more aroma as you swirl your wine. With white wine, it seems that swirling does not help quite as much as it does with a red wine, so a large glass is not essential. I am kind of borderline on changing my mind about this right now, many of the better white wines really do seem to benefit as much as any of the reds I've come across. Perhaps the aromas in lower end whites aren't nearly as outgoing as some of the nicer ones!??

One of my pet peeves is restaurants that sell you expensive red wine and then only have these little eight ounce glasses to serve it in. Even very nice restaurants share this practice. I think it is an insult and I even hate it when I'm drinking wine at someone's house. That being said, great wine in the wrong glass is still very good, but great wine in a great glass is just what it should be, great!! Everyone who enjoys wine should have a few large wine glasses around to enhance their drinking pleasure.

Now the wine is at the right temperature and we've got an appropriate glass. What do we do about tasting the wine?

First thing you want to do is look at the wine and take note of it's color. Color, at this point, is basically an aesthetic quality. It used to be that color played a more integral role in the overall quality of the wine. It seems that modern production techniques have made this aspect sort of obsolete. Still there are a couple of things to know. Young wines should be very bright in color and older, aged, wines should show a little oxidation. This results in a slight dimming around the edges, brighter reds turn a little brickish colored. You can tell this by holding your glass at an angle and putting it up to a bright light. This lets you see a range of color intensities and will reveal any oxidation coloring in the wine.

The next thing to do is smell the wine. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, it's not!! This is the aspect I find most difficult and full of subtleties. It also seems to be the area that many people have the most difficulty describing, in fact many people often times don't think they can smell anything.

First things first, the colder the wine, the less aroma you will perceive. This is true with just about everything and is very evident with wine. Some people can smell the aromas in a wine from across the room!! I'm not one of these people, I have to work at it, at least with more subtle wines. This is where I find a large glass to be the most helpful. To smell the aroma from your wine, swirl the wine around in your glass so that you maximize the surface area on the inside of the glass with the wine. Immediately stick your nose in there and take a deep whiff. Don't be shy!!! This is important and will need to be repeated a number of times, or until you get it!! OK, so now you are smelling this wonderful aroma, and thinking some pleasant thoughts, so take a sip. There are many methods for this first sip. Some people like to slurp it in with a lot of air, others like to take in a small mouthful and swish it around their mouth. I do both as the mood strikes me, but I do enjoy coating my mouth as completely as I can on the first sip. Often times the first taste can seem more tannic than your subsequent tastes so relish it a little, if it's appropriate, and take another sip. I break the sip into three sections, the initial impression or attack, the mid-palate, and the finish or aftertaste. Learning to describe your tasting experience may be a life long endeavor. Color, aroma and taste all play into this experience. Describing it is like unlocking a ten digit code. You have to have a nimble mouth and enough patience to get to know the subtleties of the wine. It is very worth your time to take some notes and learn how to describe your wine. It will help you to understand more about the wine and understanding always leads to appreciation. Plus, three or four years down the road, when someone asks you if you like a particular wine, you will be able to tell them yes or no and why.

Copyright © Brad Harrington, 1997