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Price is a reliable guide to quality
Price is an unreliable guide to quality. That’s why we get good value (under-priced) and bad value (over-priced wines). How do you find the good value wines? By following my recommendations. I do the hard yards by tasting a large number of wines blind to discover the good, the bad and the ugly.
All wine improves with age
All wine changes with age. Whether it improves or not is a matter of individual taste. Remember, about 90 per cent of all wine is made to be consumed within a year of release and is unlikely to get better in the bottle.
Red wine with red meat, white wine with white meat
That’s not a bad guide but there are many exceptions. Red wine contains tannins that give it a drying, grainy feel. Those tannins can sometimes react with oils in fish making it taste metallic or bitter. You can successfully match red wine with fish by choosing a red with less tannin (pinot noir or merlot) and matching it with a savoury, rather than an excessively fishy, dish. Dry, complex and full-flavoured white wines such as chardonnay can make a good match with many red meat dishes.
It pays to uncork (or uncap) a wine to let it breathe
The small surface of wine in an opened (but un-poured) bottle has little effect on the wine, even over a 24-hour period. However, if you slosh wine into a decanter or jug and let it sit for 15-30 minutes it can become softer and more flavoursome.
Bottles should be stored on their sides
Most bottles with corks should be stored on their sides to keep the cork wet, maintaining a good seal. However, sparkling wines should be stored upright. Bottles sealed with a screwcap can be stored in any position.
Stored bottles should be turned periodically
Stored bottles should not be moved. This particular myth comes from the practise of turning or riddling Champagne bottles, a traditional method of working the sediment down to the neck before removing it.
Red wine should be served at room temperature
I interpret room temperature to be a around 20-22°C. That’s a pretty good temperature to serve most full-bodied, tannic reds such as cabernet sauvignon, cabernet/merlot and syrah/shiraz (same grape). If you serve light-bodied reds with softer tannins, such as pinot noir or merlot, at lower temperatures you get the added benefit of the pleasant tactile sensation offered by chilled liquid. There’s a lot to be gained by experimenting with different wine temperatures.
Putting a silver spoon in the neck of an opened bottle of bubbly stops it going flat
It doesn’t. However most sparkling liquids have the ability to retain their bubbles long after the cork or cap is removed. Remember last time you had tipped half a bottle of Coca Cola or sparkling wine down the sink after it had been open for a few days? It probably frothed. If you’d kept a teaspoon in the bottle neck you’d have given it the credit.
You can’t get a hangover from good wine
You can. I’ve debunked this myth on several occasions.
Photography by Getty Images
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