 |
Tips on giving a bottle of wine
by Hannah Terry
http://www.cookingflair.com
What could be better than giving a bottle of wine as a
gift? Well, perhaps giving a bottle that has a 'designer'
label. You can name people or personalise a thank you. For
instance, 'Happy Birthday Fred, with oceans of kisses from
Gladys' or 'thank you for saving our loving cat, Freda when
she climbed up the tree'. You'll find many companies who
can offer this service, the one snag is that you'll have to
think ahead.
Most wines that are bought nowadays are purposely made to
be drunk whilst they are still young. They no longer have
the heavy body that required up to five years to rest
before they were palatable and, in reality, these modern
wines will be past their best after such a length of time.
Keep your store of wines away from the light and the heat.
It's not necessary to keep the bottles on their sides as
they'll be fine standing upright for up to a year.
If you need to travel for longs periods of time with wine
you should keep it in the coolest place available. If you
do have to leave your car and it's boiling hot, you could
try putting it under the car in the shade (but don't forget
about it and run over it!). It should be allowed to return
to room temperature in its own good time when you arrive at
your destination.
In the Middle Ages it was discovered that sulphur dioxide
could be used as a preservative. This is still used in very
cheap wines and can cause headaches and severe reactions
for people who may suffer from certain ailments such as
asthma.
Many red wines have a lot of sediment and should therefore
be decanted before they're served. In order to do this
correctly you should loosen the sediment that is on the
sides of the bottle and put the bottle upright. Leave it to
rest until all the sediment has settled to the bottom. You
need to think ahead as this could take anything from half
an hour to several days. If you want to really certain that
there's no sediment you could plan a couple of weeks ahead!
When you do eventually remove the cork don't tilt the
bottle. Look through the wine to a light so that you can
clearly see and control the sediment and pour gently,
without stopping into the decanter.
Many wine drinkers have long and heated debates about
whether bottle should be opened with a corkscrew or a
corkpuller. Most professionals prefer the puller as it fits
into a pocket and is very quick once you have had lots and
lots of practice. With plastic corks or ones that aren't
tight you find that a corkscrew will do a better job. A
puller can push the cork back into the bottle very easily.
If you start with a puller and feel the cork moving back
into the bottle you need to be alert and immediately change
to a corkscrew.
Enjoy!
Submit An Article
|
|  |
