Philadelphia, PA - You aren’t born a wine expert. Becoming a wine connoisseur can take time, practice, and a passion for continuously enhancing your knowledge. While you might not be a wine expert now, that doesn’t mean you never will be. The top tips listed below may help you go from beginner to wine connoisseur in no time.
Get to Know Wine Varieties
Walking into your local cellar door, liquor store, or even a vineyard like Cakebread Cellars can be overwhelming when you know nothing about wine varieties. However, you may be able to make wine choices like an expert when you familiarize yourself with what’s available. Most businesses serving and selling alcohol offer a variety of these popular wine varieties:
- Cabernet Sauvignon
- Chardonnay
- Syrah
- Zinfandel
- Pinot Noir
- Sauvignon Blanc
- Pinot Gris
- Riesling
Learn About Food Pairings
It’s easy to assume that any wine goes with any meal, but that’s not always the case. Some wine varieties can have a positive or negative effect on your food. Knowing which wine varieties pair with which food types might help you make more informed decisions in restaurants and at dinner parties.
As a general rule, wine should always be more acidic and sweeter than the food you’re eating. It should also have the same flavor intensity. This can mean that you’d pair red wines with bold meats like steak and more delicate white wines with dishes like fish or chicken.
Understand Glasses
Just as you would drink warm beverages out of mugs and cold beverages out of cups, you can also choose different glasses for wine. You can enjoy red wine’s intense flavors and aromas in a wine glass with a large bowl and wide rim. Smaller glasses are typically reserved for white wine. If you’re enjoying champagne, this is best served in a flute glass.
Hold Your Glass the Right Way
You might not think twice about accepting a glass of wine and holding it around the bowl. However, this hand position might actually impact your drinking experience. The heat from your hands may affect the taste of the wine, whether you’re drinking red, white, or champagne.
Hold a red wine glass from the bottom of the bowl, with the stem sitting between your fingers. If you’re drinking white wine or champagne, hold your glass at the top of the stem. If you’re drinking from a stemless glass, do your best to support your glass from the bottom with as few fingers making contact with the sides of the glass as possible.
Don’t Fill Your Glass to the Top
While filling up your glass to the rim saves you from having to pour more glasses, a full glass may actually affect your drinking experience. The less room there is in a glass, the harder it can sometimes be to enjoy the aroma of wine while you’re drinking it.
A full glass of wine is also much harder to swirl around to release those aromas than a half-empty one. Always pour your glasses until they hold around five ounces. After all, there are approximately five glasses of wine per standard 750mL bottle.
Getting to grips with the most acceptable way to buy, pour, serve, and enjoy wine can take time. However, once you’ve familiarized yourself with these tips above, you may feel far more confident when buying your next bottle of wine.
