(Napa Valley - Stony Hill Winery)
I just realized that I have not written a wine blog in awhile, for this I am sorry. I thought I would bless you with more fun facts from Quamut.
Wines should be served at different temperatures depending on the type:
- Sparkling Wine: 45-50 degrees F
- Inexpensive White: 50-55 degrees F
- Fine White: 55-60 degrees F
- Most Red Wine: 60-55 degrees F
- Dessert Wines: 60-55 degrees F
Aerate and Decant Wine: To aerate the wine you should purchase a carafe, which is a wide-mouthed pitcher that holds a whole bottle of wine. Quamut says that a young, tannic red wine typically needs at least an hour of aeration. Where as full bodied white wines typically only needs a half an hour.
Older red wines can develop sediment over time where the tannins join together, harden and drop out of solution. This isn’t bad but can stick to your teeth. These wines need to be decanted in order to remove that sediment. How you decant a wine is stick it upright for a day or two then pour the wine carefully into a decanter leaving the last inch behind.
How to serve wine in sequence:
- White wine before red
- Dry wine before sweet wine
- Light bodied wine before full bodied wine
- Straightforward wine before complex wine
How to pull a cork out:
- Waiter’s corkscrew: The key is to make sure you twist the worm down through the center of the cork. Once you do press the level onto the lip and lift.
- Screw pull: Twist the corkscrew in the same direction and the screw will insert itself into the cork.
- The Rabbit: Just push and pull on the level and the cork comes right out.
