Here are a few facts on how to collect, serve and, most importantly, enjoy wine.
Serving Wine At Home
Red wine of reasonable age and quality benefits from and, if there is a sediment, needs decanting. Look directly down through the shoulder of the bottle with a torch shining upwards and slowly pour into the decanter. Stop when the deposit reaches the shoulder.
Never fill the glass more than half way up so that the smell can concentrate in the glass. Reds served at room temperature (except Beaujolais), whites served after an hour in the fridge.
Serve young wines before old if serving two of a kind.
In The Restaurant
Check it's what you ordered - particularly the vintage.
Check the temperature.
Almost all the faults of wine (which justify sending it back in a restaurant) can be detected on the nose and make the smell positively nasty or at best disagreeable.
Don't allow the waiter to fill the glass more than half way up. Better still, pour your own.
Starting A Cellar
An initial stock of four different clarets, either of four different vintages or varying classifications within two vintages, from say '82, '85, '86, '88, '89, '90.
A similar number of red burgundies, '85, '88, '90.
Some Port - '75 is a light, quickly maturing vintage that you could drink now, '77 will take ages to mature, '83 and '85 midway between. Some earlier ones if you can for current drinking.
Champagne - non-vintage champagne of a good marque, which benefits from ageing in the cellar for a year or two.
Rhône wines of quality need long maturing and will make splendid bottles in the years to come.
Sauternes - e.g. the excellent '83 and '88 vintages should be laid down if you can.
Don't forget Italians such as Barolo, the Gran Reserva Riojas, Californian and Australian Cabernets.
You can buy dry white wines as you need them except for the very finest white Burgundies, which are only affordable if they were bought years previously and should not be drunk before they are mature.
There is good value for money in New World white wines, especially Chardonnay.
The Common Grape Varieties
Cabernet Sauvignon
The principal grape of red Bordeaux (claret) and now being grown all over the world with particular success in California and Australia. Produces dry red wines with potential for ageing, giving great depth of flavour and complexity.
Pinot Noir
The grape for red Burgundy. Difficult to grow elsewhere. Can be drunk relatively young compared to claret, with attractive fruit or if left to age acquires a complex, often 'earthy' vegetal nose that grown men will swoon over. Burgundy is a much smaller area than Bordeaux and being further north the great vintages are not so frequent. Although a black grape is one of the two used for champagne.
Chardonnay
Used in white burgundy and the second grape of champagne. In Burgundy this grape makes what is generally agreed to be the world's finest dry white wines.
Riesling
Used in some white wines of Germany and Alsace. Can vary from dry to very sweet.
Merlot
Claret's "other" grape, particularly in wines form the right bank, i.e. St Emilion and Pomerol. A softer grape than the cabernet, giving more rounded earlier maturing wines.
Semillon
The grape of the world's greatest sweet wines, Sauternes, when the grapes are left on the vine to undergo the "noble rot" and so concentrate the sugar naturally.
Gewürztraminer
Alsace and Germany. Makes a dry, spicy wine smelling of flowers and lychees. Can be left to rot on the vine and produce "late harvest" sweet wines.
Chenin Blanc
Mostly grown in the Loire to produce a dry white wine but in great vintages produces long living sweet wines.
Syrah
The grape of the great northern Rhône red wines such as Hermitage and cote Rotie. Known in Australia as Shiraz and often used there in conjunction with Cabernet Sauvignon to produce typical "up-front" very fruity red wines.
Gamay
The grape of Beaujolais. In Beaujolais nouveau can be light and very gulpable but "Cru beaujolais" from Moulin-a-Vent can age quite successfully and acquire much greater depth.
Sauvignon
The grape of the Loire particularly Sancerre and Pouilly Fume. Unmistakable "catty" nose. Also grown in Bordeaux both for dry wines and with the semillon grape in Sauternes. Makes wonderful wines in New Zealand.
Wine Bargains
Reliable Clarets
Gruaud-Larose
Sociando-Mallet
Leoville-Barton
d'Angludet
Cissac
de Pez
Potensac
Figeac
Chasse-Spleen
La Lagune
Value For Money
Australian
Particularly reds, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.
New Zealand
Whites, particularly Sauvignon and Chardonnay.
Beaujolais
"Cru" Beaujolais, e.g. Moulin-à-Vent and Juliénas are usually good value on restaurant lists.
