The Wine Etiquette Guide - Your Defense Against Wine Snobbery. Chuck Blethen
you are the person being toasted, it is proper to raise your glass by the stem in a similar fashion to the person(s) offering the toast, but do not take a sip (you will be toasting yourself). Immediately follow up with your own toast to the toaster and/or your friends and then you take a sip. (See Appendix C for famous - and infamous – toasts.)
Wine Storage
“A waltz and a glass of wine invite an encore.”
- Johann Strauss
Wine has several enemies – light, heat, vibration and large variations in temperatures. Many times when you buy wine you may want to store it for a while before serving or consuming it. Recent research tells us that Americans who buy a bottle of wine plan to consume it within 48 hours. If you are lucky enough to have a wine cellar you have no problem.
Chances are your wine cellar temperature is automatically controlled to 55 degrees F and the humidity is maintained at about 75% to keep the corks from drying out. Most casual wine consumers will use their refrigerator to store wines, even reds. Do not store any wines in places that are room temperature (74 F) or higher. Wines do not keep well in warm or illuminated locations. Make sure to store them on their side so the natural cork stays wet. Wines closed with synthetic corks do not have to be maintained on their sides to keep the cork wet and don’t have to have controlled relative humidity. They still need protection from light and vibration.
If you only consume half the bottle, re-cork the wine. If you want to get fancy, you can seal the bottle with a vacuum sealer, which keeps the bottle airtight and acts in place of a cork. Put it in the refrigerator. On average, red and white wine will keep for 3 to 5 days.
A wine goes bad when it has been oxidized or some other unpleasant chemical reactions or biological activity take place following bottling. You can generally tell if it has gone bad if it has an unpleasant vinegar or moldy smell. If you are still not sure, go ahead and taste the wine, it will not make you sick, it may just taste unpleasant. If the wine has gone bad, discard it and open a new bottle.
Wine Etiquette in Non-Restaurant Venues
“Cherish good wines for they are the dream makers of the seeds of your goals.”
- Anonymous
Correct wine etiquette makes the tasting experience much more enjoyable. Like most interests, there is a set of protocols that most wine lovers follow. Good taste dictates that tasting at wineries, ordering wine at restaurants, and hosting a dinner party all require certain formalities. The following sections are guidelines for wine etiquette in non-restaurant venues.
…Wine shops/stores & dealing with wine labels
“Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the Gods to man.”
- Plato
You have decided to buy a bottle or two of wine for dinner. Food always tastes better if complemented with a good bottle of wine. The task of selecting a bottle of wine for dinner can create one of life’s more anxious experiences. It is usually very confusing for a typical wine consumer to buy wines if they have no clue about what wine they want to buy. A good starting place is to understand how to read the label on a wine bottle. (See Appendix H for details.)
Understanding the information on a wine label can be confusing. There are several federal regulations governing the correct labeling of wines. American wineries always clearly mark their labels with a lot of information on the wine bottle label including:
•Brand name – usually the name of the vineyard where the grapes were grown and/or wine made
•Varietal designation – the names of the predominant grape used to make the wine. A varietal designation on the label requires an appellation of origin and means that at least 75% of the grapes used to make the wine are that variety.
•Appellation of origin – another name for the place in which the grapes were grown. It can be a country, state, county or geographic area called a viticultural area.
•Viticultural area – a defined grape-growing region with soil, history, and geographic features that set it apart from surrounding areas. A viticultural area appellation on the label means it must have 85% or more of the wine produced from grapes grown in the particular area.
•Vintage date – a vintage date on the label indicates that 95% or more of the wine is produced from grapes grown in that year. If there is a vintage date, there must also be an appellation of origin shown on the label.
•Net contents - the amount of wine in a bottle expressed in metric units (a typical bottle is 750 ml).
•Name and address – the name or trade name and address of the bottler or importer must appear on the label. Domestic wines will state “Bottled by” followed by the name and address of the bottler. Imported wines will state “Imported by” followed by the name and address of the importer.
•Estate bottled – means that 100% of the wine came from grapes grown on land owned or controlled by the winery that must be located in a viticultural area. The winery must crush and ferment the grapes, finish, age, process, and bottle the wine on their premises.
•Country of origin – required for all imported wines.
•Alcohol content – a statement of alcohol content in percent by volume appears on most labels. As an alternative some bottlers prefer to label wine with an alcohol content between 7 and 14 % as “Table Wine” or “Light Wine”.
•Declaration of sulfites – required on any wine intended for interstate commerce that contains 10 or more parts per million of sulfur dioxide. Not required for wines only sold in intrastate commerce.
•Health warning statement – all alcoholic beverages sold in America that contain 0.5% or more alcohol by volume must have a health warning. “Government warning” must appear in capital letters and bold type. The statement reads as follows:
GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.
Once you have mastered reading American labels, you may be tempted to try some international wines. If you look for French wines, be prepared for a shock. You will not find the grape name anywhere on the label – only a place name and a note about the name being controlled by the French government.
You have to really study French geography to get to know the various wine growing districts and to learn which wineries are using which grapes to make their wines. Otherwise you will have no idea of what you are drinking beyond knowing if it is a red or white wine.
Plan B is to seek the assistance of a good wine merchant. They can help get you past many of these unsettling decisions about which wine to buy. Once you find a wine you really like, remember the name so you can buy it again. Once you get the hang of wine terminology, you can offer up a good meaningful wine description to a wine merchant and they can steer you to several bottles in their shop that have those desirable characteristics.
Many wine shops also offer wine tastings on a routine basis. This provides you with an opportunity to learn about several wines without having to buy a full bottle to experiment. Ask to be put on the wine shop notification list for future wine tastings. Sometimes they will have a representative from the winery present to assist you in a better understanding of their particular wines being featured that day.
I have added an Appendix (see Appendix H – How to Interpret Wine Labels) for a detailed guide by country to help you interpret wine labels from the major wine producing countries in the world. Each country has different wine labeling regulations and each has unique words that mean different things.
…Wine