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Wine is full of traditions, tips and old sayings - but how many of them are actually true?
In this blog, our Regional Account Manager Rachel takes a closer look at some of the most common wine myths, separating fact from fiction and sharing the knowledge she’s gained from years of working with wine producers, customers and wine lovers.
All red wine should be served at room temperature…
Red wines are ideally served at 15-18 degrees. Historically, before central heating, room temperature was a lot cooler than it is nowadays. Couple that with some warm summer days or the hot lights above a wine shelf in a bar and we’re actually serving them warmer than would be intended by the winemaker. In the UK we’ve got used to drinking our red wine at this ‘warm’ temperature, but often, especially with lighter red wines like Pinot Noir or Gamay, these taste better lightly chilled. If you look closely at the fancy wine fridges in some restaurants and hotels, you’ll see they’re often filled with red wines, with the temperature set to 15-18 degrees.
If you visit the likes of Rioja in Spain or Porto in Portugal, they’ll be serving the wines either directly from their cellars or even popped in the fridge for 30 minutes before service. I recall a visit from our longstanding Portuguese supplier, Pocas, where Oscar explained all their Ports should be lightly chilled and best placed in the fridge for 20-30 mins before service. And that includes their tawny and vintage ports. We tested it for ourselves at dinner that evening with their 10 year old Tawny Port and he sure was correct - it was even more enjoyable lightly chilled!
Placing a metal spoon in a bottle of fizz keeps it fresh…
I hear this one so often! I’ve seen it in pub fridges, and I’ve seen my friends and family do this. It does absolutely nothing to prevent a sparkling wine from going flat. The reason it goes flat is because the CO2 bubbles are escaping from the wine. It needs to be completely sealed to prevent bubbles escaping. You can use a fizz stopper which will give you 1-3 days. Alternately a wine preservation system, such as a Verre de Vin from Bermar, can be used to keep fizz fresh for up to 21 days. It does this by sealing the bottle and infusing it with just the right amount of C02 into the bottle to create the balance so that the natural CO2 in the wine doesn’t continue to escape.
Wines with a cork are better than wines with a screw cap…
This is an interesting one because some regional wine appellations do strictly state that cork closures must be used. Champagne for example must use those mushroom corks specially designed to withstand the pressure in the bottle. DOCG status wines in Italy must use traditional cork closures, otherwise they risk having their wines declassified. But generally speaking, cork closures are ‘required’ if the wine is designed to be aged, either in the cellar before release, or once reaching the market. For wines that need to age, corks let a tiny amount of oxygen into the wine that enables it to mature. Under a screw cap, this couldn’t happen.
Aside from that, corks are more generally used out of tradition. They also look great and add a level of theatre and satisfaction to service but they do not mean the wine will be of a better quality just because it has a cork closure. In fact, in a lot of cases, it’s better to have a screw cap. If you’re producing a wine that is designed to be drunk super fresh, for example a Pinot Grigio or Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, zero aging is required and so screw caps are far better because they preserve freshness and you eradicate the risk of faults derived from using natural corks. Plus, there is the added benefit of making wine more accessible. How many people do you know would be a little stressed under the pressure of opening a wine under cork, especially if they had to open several?
Wines get better with age…
Once released to the market, only a small percentage of wines get better with age, the vast majority are only released by the winery when the winemaker decides they are ready for drinking. They’re generally best drunk within a couple of years. And the more budget friendly wines are generally best enjoyed within a year. Wines that are released to the market that have very high tannins and/or acidity can benefit from a number of years ageing to allow the wine to soften. However, these tend to be the very premium wines, often referred to as ‘fine wines’. And the lifespan of a bottle of these fine wines is more like a bell curve, they don’t improve indefinitely. They go from being ‘too young’, then enter a period of development where they gradually improve until they reach their peak drinking age, and then they start to lose freshness and decline until eventually they become past their best or ‘too old’. But the conditions that these wines are stored in to age is crucial. It would need to be dark, cool and humid; effectively replicating the conditions of a cellar. Fluctuating temperature changes and light spoil a wine. So, for the vast majority of us, when buying a nice bottle of wine or perhaps being gifted a special bottle, try to resist the temptation to leave it for years assuming it will get better, the likelihood is it won’t. And there runs the risk of being really disappointed when you eventually decide a special occasion calls for opening your favourite bottle, only to find it’s tired, or simply too old.
A ‘corked wine’ means the wine has bits of cork in it…
A corked wine doesn’t mean that the wine has bits of cork floating in it. Instead it’s a wine that has been spoiled by a cork taint from a chemical called TCA. The wine will taste musty; some people describe the smell as wet cardboard or like a damp basement. The wine will be dull in appearance and lack its fruity flavour and freshness. In a nutshell it will be unpleasant to drink. When ordering a bottle of wine in a restaurant, you may be offered a taste of the wine before your server continues serving guests, and this is for you to check the quality of the wine, specifically checking to rule out cork taint. It can affect any wine sealed with a natural cork. Therefore, wines under screw cap are protected from this. However, TCA can contaminate a wine before it’s bottled, which would occur in the winery, for example from time spent in oak barrels. This is very rare because winemaking teams frequently taste their wines throughout the winemaking process so it’s highly unlikely a wine even gets to the stage of being bottled if there’s any sign of cork taint.
Ultimately, wine is all about enjoyment, and understanding a little more about what’s in the bottle can help you get even more from every glass. So, next time you reach for a bottle, you might just look at it a little differently!
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