Drink This (eBook)

The Nuts and Bolts of Drinking, Buying, and Tasting Wine

How do you drink wine? As Lauren Bacall might put it, you just pucker up your lips and sip-right? After all, meaningful, authentic, even enviable wine experiences have been had by millions-and especially millions of peasants involved in harvesting grapes-who did no more than that. However, since our goal here is to learn, gain insight, and class up the joint, we're going to do a little more.

Two at a Time

The fastest way to learn about wine is to taste two similar wines at the same time. If you're a haphazard or casual drinker, it's really hard to remember what that Sauvignon Blanc you had six months ago was like. However, if you have two in front of you at the same time, it's easy: This one is lemony, this one is fruity. This one smells of pepper, and this one smells of pepper. Drinking two bottles at a time- two Sauvignon Blancs, two Zinfandels, whatever-will put you on the fast track.

What You Will Need to Get Started Tasting

Nitrogen or Argon in a Can

Of course, drinking two bottles at a time leads to the problem of having two bottles open at a time. The reason wine goes bad when it's open is oxygen. You'll probably remember from your high school chemistry class that oxygen causes all sorts of problems in the world. It's what makes rust, fuels fire, and generally changes stuff. One stuff it really changes a lot is wine, via a process called oxidation. Don't believe me? Leave a glass of wine on the counter overnight and taste it the next day. Blech. Oxidation.

A little oxidation can be good-that's more or less what you're doing when you decant wine, or let it 'breathe'-but a lot is bad. You can slow or prevent oxidation in an opened bottle of wine in a couple of ways. You can try to suck all the oxygen out of the bottle, using something like the Vacu Vin system or another gizmo that pumps the air out, or you can try to put a little blanket of a gas that's heavier than air on top of the wine to keep the oxygen from getting to it.

Some respected wine professionals prefer the vacuum, but for my money the gas works better. You can buy cans of wine preserver that are mostly nitrogen from just about any wine store. They go by all kinds of brand names: Private Preserve, Cork Pops, and Winelife are the biggest. They cost about $10 and will get you through about a hundred uses. Most of the big, fancy wine bars use a very expensive version of this nitrogen preservation system, that's how they can have so many bottles open at one time.

After you pour your glasses of wine, you stick the little hose jutting out of the top of the can into your wine bottle and spray. Now you've got at least a couple of days to finish it-more if you stick the bottle in the fridge. So for 10 cents you get another week or so to finish your wine. (Champagne and other sparkling wines provide their own gas to prevent oxidation, so there's not much benefit to gassing them. Use a lever stopper, discussed below, to preserve those.)

Put a Cork (Back) in It

Once you spritz a little nitrogen into an opened bottle, you need to seal it. If it's got a screw top, that's easy enough. If it's a regular bottle, replace the cork. If you don't like wrestling with corks, invest in a couple of lever bottle stoppers. They cost between $1 and $7, depending on how high-design they are, and seal bottles with an airtight seal. I like the Zyliss ones because they cost about $3, and last forever. I've had some in my kitchen now for eight years and they're still going strong.

Speaking of Corks

Much ado is made about corkscrews, but any one that works for you is good enough. I like the...