Notes from the Panel Archives - Page 21 of 32 - Wine Blog from The International Wine of the Month Club

Too Hot, Too Cold, or Just Right: The Temperatures for Serving Wine

November 1, 2014 by Don Lahey

A lot of wine enthusiasts wonder what temperature their wine should be when they open a bottle. The traditional, age-old response to the question is to serve white wines cold and red wines at room temperature. But, in this case, not only is traditional wisdom out of synch with the human palate according to recent university studies – it’s also vague and misleading.

First and foremost, what is room temperature?

Room temperature varies from season to season and from location to location. In addition, traditional wine temperature recommendations don’t take modern heating and air conditioning into account, which greatly alter the temperature of a room. Moreover, when the conventional wisdom of serving red wine at room temperature came into vogue in England and France centuries ago, room temperature was 55°- 65° F, at the most. Consequently, the idea of serving wine at room temperature is useless to most of us today.

What is the best temperature for red wines?

Not surprisingly, university studies confirm that the vast majority of wine drinkers garner the most flavor and pleasure from red wines when consumed between 55°-65° F, which is decidedly cooler than room temperature in most American homes. Read more about chilling red wine here.

What is the best temperature for white wines?

Conversely, recent studies also indicate that wine drinkers report the greatest pleasure and taste from white wines consumed between 45°-55° F, which means we may be cheating ourselves by nearly freezing white wines before rapidly consuming them.

The Final Verdict

So, what’s a wine drinker to do? Drink wine at the temperature that suits your palate, of course. You may want to experiment with some of your favorite red wines by cooling them down for 15-20 minutes in the refrigerator and allowing white wines to sit in a glass for 15 minutes before guzzling them. Personally, I think most of us consume red wines too warm and white wines too cold. However, each of us has to determine his or her pleasure quotient. So, why not experiment a bit, and see what suits you?

Red? White? How about one of each?! Get two international wines from award-winning vineyards when you join The International Wine of the Month Club!

How to Host a Successful Wine Tasting Party

September 26, 2014 by Don Lahey

Looking back at my past 40 years as a wine enthusiast, I can safely say that I’ve seen my fair share of wine tasting parties. A common theme I’ve noticed over the years is that many of the hosts of these parties tend to overthink them, and put too much of the focus on the details. The format of the party, the wine glasses used, the way the host collects feedback; all of these things should be secondary aspects of the party. The true ingredients of a successful wine tasting party are simple: good wine and good people.

What supplies & tools you’ll need for your Wine Tasting Party:

½ a bottle of wine per guest is ideal – supply your own or have everyone bring a bottle or two
Clean, clear wine glasses – I prefer Riedel
A couple of wine openers and a corkscrew as backup
A bucket or spittoon to dump out the excess wine
Simple wine tasting sheets so that guests can jot down comments
A camera to photograph the wine labels
Optional: Bottled water
Optional: Food pairings like cheese and crackers, chocolate, fruit, etc.
Optional: Decanter for red wine
Optional: Ice bucket for white wine

Step 1: Invite the Right Guests

Choosing an eclectic group of people for your wine tasting party will help your party run itself, especially by the time everyone is on their third or fourth wine. The key here is to invite people with varying tastes and degrees of experience with wine. That way, newbies can comfortably learn about wine from more experienced enthusiasts, and the more experienced enthusiasts can happily banter about the wine selections.

Step 2: Decide on a Theme

Although choosing a theme isn’t required, it can definitely help your guests pick the right type of wine for their palate. I’d recommend going with wines by region or appellation. Some other common themes are new world vs. old world wines and blind tastings. A note about blind tasting, however – although much can be learned through blind tastings, especially among seasoned wine drinkers, I have never found blind tastings contribute much fun to a wine party. Instead, they usually make people defensive and competitive. Therefore, I would skip the blind tasting in favor of a more fun activity.

Step 3: Serve, Taste & Enjoy

The best way to educate the palate, enjoy wine and preserve an air of mystery is to serve premium wines from wineries, varietals and places that your guests will not likely have tasted or seen before. This way, the tasting party can be both fun and mysterious without making guests apprehensive. If you are unfamiliar with such wines, consult a reputable and knowledgeable retailer for suggestions, or better yet, contact the International Wine of the Month Club for some of our most popular recent selections! Lastly: It is wise to try some of your provider’s selections ahead of time, and then serve the wines you choose from lightest to heaviest, saving the sweetest wines for last.

A Final Note

With a little research and planning, hosting your own wine party can be a fun opportunity for you, your friends and your family to try good wines with good company. Some of the key things to remember:

A fun, outgoing group of people will make the party all the more enjoyable
A wine tasting party theme can help your guests narrow down their wine selections and help you increase the educational value of your party
If you’re still a beginner with wine, consulting a knowledgeable retailer will help you pick only interesting, premium selections that fit within your theme

Wine tasting parties are still parties: remember to have fun!

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Salud!
Don

Don’s September Collector Series Top Pick

September 23, 2014 by Don Lahey

This month’s Top Pick belongs to a relative newcomer. Despite my fondness for William Fevre’s Champs Royaux Chablis, shipped this month with a cool green jacket, and my longstanding love for Castello di Monsanto’s exceptional Chianti Classico, I have to go with Valle Secreto’s 2011 Private Syrah, Cabernet, Carmenère as this month’s Top Pick. For starters, it’s hard not to marvel at this wine’s soaring full-blown aromatics and rich polished flavors. Reminiscent of classified Bordeaux, this highly allocated production of 2011 Valle Secreto Private offers up a staggering bouquet of blackberry, cassis, wood smoke and dark chocolate, all of which are framed by subtle hints of oak. Better still, deep, complex flavors reminiscent of the wine’s voluminous bouquet emerge in the center of this wine, bolstered by ripe tannins that add energy and lift as well as a balance to this tasty offering. I love this wine’s larger than life, in your face personality, so this month’s Top Pick it is. Enjoy!

Salud!
Don

Don’s September Premier Series Top Pick

September 22, 2014 by Don Lahey

This month offers four exciting wines from four different countries: Australia, Chile, Italy and New Zealand. To my palate, each of the wines this month makes a compelling case for Top Pick because “there ain’t a dog in the bunch,” as the old saying goes. For starters, Mount Fishtail’s 2013 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc comes across as more than a cut above your typical New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. It’s received well-deserved accolades from the Wine Enthusiast, too, and it earned a top spot on the magazine’s list of Top Ten Best Buy New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, so believe me, this Sauvignon Blanc is no pretender.

Bisci’s 2013 Verdicchio di Matelica is another winner. I have always loved this wine for its elegance and depth of flavor. Frankly, Verdicchio doesn’t get any better than Bisci, and the 2013 from Bisci can charm a crowd. And then there are the reds. Casas del Bosque’s 2012 Reserva Carmenère is simply delicious. A better wine for the money would be hard to find. Besides, I love Carmenère and everywhere I have shown this wine, it is the first wine to disappear off the tasting table. It’s hard to argue with personal preference or success. And we still have Tait’s 2012 Wild Ride to consider, a smooth satisfying Shiraz, Grenache, Mataro blend that over delivers in every way.

So, this month’s Top Pick? Despite some misgivings and a dose of guilt, I have to go with the 2012 Casas del Bosque’s Reserva Carmenère because you can’t argue with preference and success, and as cooler weather is around the corner, I tend to drink more reds. Moreover, this Carmenère truly merits the 90 point score it received from Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar and then some. Enjoy!

Salud!
Don

How to recycle wine corks?

September 12, 2014 by Don Lahey

As someone who has spent his entire career in wine, popping hundred of corks a week, I figured out a long ago that wine corks readily serve more than one purpose. Why throw away a good wine cork? Here are a few suggestions for recycling wine corks. With a little imagination I am sure you can come up with more.

Cork floats. Attach a wine cork to a key chain. Keys don’t float as many bathers and boaters have come to find out the hard way, unless they are attached to a cork.

Make a cork wreath and decorate the wreath with the appropriate holiday regalia: bows flowers, fruit, holly etc.

Make cork figures and ornaments using small finishing nails to keep the corks together. Angels, rocking horses, and just about any figure you want can easily be made from corks. Glue the desired regalia onto the figure and another holiday gift is ready present.

Wine corks make great buffers between walls and the metal parts of furniture, especially screws and sharp protrusions. Just screw or push the cork onto the protrusion and stop worrying about scuffs and gouges to your walls.

Create a dart board with your old corks but cutting the corks in half and using the smooth flat insides as the board’s surface.

And after you have exhausted all other recycling efforts, what’s wrong with putting some of the wine corks from your favorite wines on display in a clear glass bowl or vase? The corks will serve as a reminder of the most memorable wines and can be reused to stop an open bottle or container. And if nothing else, the wine cork vase will in time become a conversation piece to regale visiting wine geeks. Better still, you can have some fun with the snooping wine snob by planting a few choice corks.

Salud!
Don

The 10 Things You Need to Know About Wine

August 22, 2014 by Don Lahey

Hardly a day goes by when I’m not asked two questions: What is my favorite wine? And what are the most important things I need to know about wine? The answer to the first question is simple: I don’t have one single favorite wine. In addition, I don’t drink wine that I don’t enjoy, so the wine in my glass is usually my momentary favorite. Now to the second question, and you may be surprised by the response. The 10 things you need to know about wine are these:

• Wine is meant to be enjoyed.
• Wine doesn’t mean much until it’s shared and someone else enjoys it, too, so share.
• You can’t drink a label or a price tag, only the contents in the bottle. All else is snobbery.
• You can’t and shouldn’t try to drink anyone else’s palate. Trust your own but be open to change.
• Most people pay too little or too much for wine.
• Try new and different wines often. Variety is the spice of life and you’ll learn a lot about wine and what you like by experimenting.
• Food and Wine are Fast Friends.
• Pair various wines with the same dish to see which pairings work best.
• Wash wine glasses carefully by hand and drink wine from good thin glassware.
• Read about wine and the world’s wine regions, learn about the varietal connections that link Old and New World wines, and taste and enjoy!

Salute!
Don

Don’s August Collector Series Top Pick

August 19, 2014 by Don Lahey

I like to see producers step out of their comfort zones. I also love white wines from Italy’s Campania, so I am conflicted about this month’s Top Pick. Gabriella Ferrara is one of Campania’s finest wine makers. She makes exquisite Greco di Tufo, Fiano di Avellino and Taurasi working out of what is little more than a garage. She is a strong gracious woman who loves her work, and I love her wine. For this reason, this month’s Top Collector Series Pick goes to Benita Ferrara’s 2012 Greco di Tufo.

Though after we’ve finished the Greco di Tufo, I would love a glass of Pietra Santa’s first Signature Selection Pinot Noir, a beauty of a Pinot, followed by a glass or two of the Mr. Riggs 2011Montepulciano d’Adelaide Hills. Kudos to Ben Riggs for not only stepping out of his comfort zone, but doing so with gusto. This rare limited offering from Ben Riggs is a real beauty. Enjoy!

Salute!
Don

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