T I N U S TA L KS
BUSTING THE SOCIAL CONVENTIONS AND MYTHS THAT SURROUND THE SIMPLE ENJOYMENT OF WINE. ENJOY WHAT’S IN YOUR GLASS.
FABLES & FOIBLES W
ine is about enjoyment, either on its own or with food. It’s not important to have any great knowledge, or the ability to identify every wine during a blind tasting and describing it using impressive words. If everyone around you claims to smell idyllic aromas, such as cucumbers, coffee beans and all sorts of berries, and you only smell and taste the fruit from grapes, so what? Simply savour what’s in your glass; that’s the most important part. Do not over-think the enjoyment of wine. Have fun. With the advent of summer and the approaching holiday and festive season, more time is made for merriness and celebration. Lighthearted and jolly occasions are frequently arranged and more wine is inevitably served. Unfortunately the enjoyment of wine is often hampered by all kinds of social “rules” and assumptions about the “correct” serving of wine. Here are five of the myths bedevilling the enjoyment of wine.
If everyone around you claims to smell idyllic aromas, such as cucumbers, coffee beans and all sorts of berries, and you only smell and taste the fruit from grapes, so what ? Simply savour what’s in your glass. 06 w w w .t o p s a t s p a r. c o . z a
FABLE: Champagne in flute glasses The Chef de Cave from Dom Pérignon liked to castigate everybody around, “You buy a bottle of malbec for $5 and you pour it into this big, beautiful glass. I serve you a bottle of chardonnay and pinot noir that I have aged for 10 years, and you stuff it into a flute where you can’t smell it, you can’t really see it, and you can’t aerate it – why are you doing that to my wine?!” When wine is offered, including Champagne or South African sparkling wine, simply serve it in large all purpose (AP) glasses to enable everybody to properly smell and taste the wine. FABLE: White with fish, red with meat and one at a time How ridiculous! I always serve my red and white wine simultaneously with every dish – so long as there are not very strong spices around ... especially chilli and garlic. You’re missing out on the array of aromas and flavours evident in wine when restricting yourself to serving just a single style of wine with food. Successful wine and food pairings should always be so balanced that it enables you to serve a great rosé, white, or red to match every dish. It should be colour-blind cooking, the colour of the wine itself should not dominate; it must just match the texture. FABLE: Drink white cold and red warm It’s a pity most restaurants serve white wine a little over-chilled and red wine a tad warm. I prefer my red wines with a bit of chill, served at 15-18°C. In general, reds with really bright acidity and softer tannins, taste better when they are cool. The fruit will be more apparent and get a chance to shine. Dry white wine should be served cool, not chilled. Unless the wine is smelled and tasted at the right temperature it cannot be appreciated. If it feels like you’re drinking a glass of water, the wine is too cold.
FABLE: Corks are better than screw-tops Traditionalists claim that only cork allows wine to age correctly, while modernists believe metal caps prevent oxidation and bacterial spoilage, induce fresh and crisp wine, and allow for easy opening. It’s a circular argument with all kinds of statements made by both camps. Some examples are: consumers cannot tell the difference between a cork or a screwtop wine; screw-tops are less expensive (not true!); cork taint is absent with screw-top closures (it happens!) and bottles that are cork-stoppered are of “superior” quality; many cork alternatives do not allow wine to breathe (wrong!); screw-tops are mostly manufactured from non-renewable resources and are not biodegradable. Whatever the issue, unless you want to bottle age a special wine for a long period of time, in which instance a cork-stoppered choice will be the best option, just ignore the closure, serve the wine and enjoy the moment. FABLE: Sweet wines suck... It is amusing to listen how wine drinkers often tell that they shun sweet wine, but if you serve them a classic dessert wine of any colour, or a natural sweet wine with a low alcohol content, they overindulge and gone are the objections about sweet wines ... People love sweetness – but don’t like syrupy or cloying wines. And that’s the yardstick: sweet wine is not just for special occasions, and if it’s lighter, elegant with some acid freshness, it’s ideal to serve as an aperitif or with savoury foods. No wonder Jancis Robinson wrote of Château d’Yquem, the most famous sweet wine property on the planet: “It is sweet, golden and apparently almost immortal.”
