Do you find yourself reaching for the same old bottle of wine every weekend? If you’re in a wine rut, there’s a simple formula you can use to bring out your inner connoisseur, says SuperValu wine expert and buyer Kevin O’Callaghan.
Here are five things every vino fan should know…
1. How to Chill White Wine – Fast!
Wrap it up: Putting wine in the freezer will chill it relatively quickly, but to speed up the process, wet a tea towel and wrap it around the wine bottle before you pop it in. The dampness conducts and holds in cold better. Having the icy cold towel pressed against the bottle ensures that the entire surface of the bottle is being chilled.
Tip: Smaller amounts of liquid chill faster, so if you’re in a jam, pour your wine into individual glasses first, then place those in the fridge or freezer.
2. How to Pick a Good Wine
If you’re serious about wine, it’s all about expanding your range and not just looking for that one safe bottle that you’ll always return to.
Start by looking at what you don’t like: it’s normally the most committed memory we draw on. Knowing that you don’t like a Chardonnay with oak, say, is a great starting point – especially if you’re asking for advice in our stores. It eliminates so much and you can draw upon the different elements of what you don’t like to expand upon what you do like. Think of wine like cooking – you can still enjoy a dish minus certain ingredients.
Back to the example of Chardonnay: have you ever had a Chardonnay with no oak – like a Chablis? If you liked that it’s possibly just the oak you need to avoid – eureka!
3. To Decant or not Decant?
Decant. Why? Well, decanting wine into a vessel gives it enough room to breathe by maximising the wine’s contact with the air around it – that’s why decanters have a wide base, to increase the ratio of wine to air rather than just letting it sit in a narrow bottle.
This allows the wine time to breathe and settle, which actually alters the wine, allowing components, such as tannin (subtitles: ‘the mouth drying bit’) to soften and encourage the development of the more complex aromas. For this reason even inexpensive wines can benefit from decanting.
4. Choosing the right glass – Does it matter?
There are times where a glass of chilled wine from a plastic cup on a warm summer’s day is just perfect but in Ireland there’s not exactly enough sun to fully justify plastic all the time!
When looking at a wine glass they should all have a couple of things in common: A long stem and a wide bowl with a narrow top. This means that the glass should taper to the top concentrating the aromas, while the bowl allows the swirl in the glass to be controlled. I also believe the thinner the glass on the lips the better.
Sparkling: should be served from a tall glass called a flute – the narrow glass of the flute helps preserve the bubbles and concentrates the aromas on the nose.
White Wine: should be served from a glass smaller than a red wine glass. The idea is that a smaller glass this will require more topping up from a chilled bottle. In order to keep the wine chilled for longer, hold the glass by the stem – that’s actually what it’s for!
Red Wine: These glasses would have a bigger bowl, which allows more control over swirling the wine around, releasing more of the complex aromas. The larger surface area gives more breathing space for the wine.
5. How long does wine last after it’s opened?
It depends on the type of wine and how well the wine is stored. Fortified wines can last open for up to a month, but most last only between three and five days. Oxygen is wine’s enemy, in the long-term, after the process of letting the wine breath has been maximised. So knowing this, it makes sense that a bottle of wine with only a glass of wine taken out of it will last longer that a bottle with only a glass of wine left in it, as obviously more oxygen will affect the smaller amount.
Here’s a quick guide:
- Light whites and rosé wines: up to five days max if kept in the fridge with a cork
- Full bodied white wines: three days in the fridge with a cork
- Red Wines: three to five days in a cool dark spot
- Fortified wines: up to one month kept in a cool dark spot also
We caught up with Kevin at SuperValu Secret Garden Wine event, where guests were invited to try their new Specially Sourced wines from a variety of regions such as Spain, France, Australia, Chile and Italy.
