How to Select, Store, and Serve Wines
by Cindi Sutter, Founder & Editor Spirited Table® - content provided by former Tastemaker, Lydie Stassart from her book “The Art of Hosting”
Lydia was born and raised in Brussels, Belgium. She is an interior designer, a member of the American Society of Interior Designers, and an accredited stager. After living in New York City for a few years, she moved to Minnesota, where she lives with her family. She shares her time between Miami, Florida and Nice, France. She has been the Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Belgium for the last ten years, and she was the President of the Minnesota Consular Corps for two years.
Here are some French wines you cannot go wrong with:
Whites: Pouilly- Fuissé or Meursault if you want to splurge.
Reds: Côtes de Rhône, Gigondas, or Vaqueyras, and if you want to splurge, Châteauneuf du Pâpe.
Champagne or sparkling wines, such as pressecos or cremants. There are of course many wonderful American, Chilean, Spanish, Italian or Australian wines on the market as well.
How to Read Wine Labels
VIN DE TABLE: basic table wine without specification of origin or grape variety.
VIN DE PAYS: higher rate than table wine. It is guaranteed to originate in a specific region rather than style and tradition.
VDQS: Vin délimité de qualité supérieure. It specifies the type of grape. High-quality wine from an approved regional vineyard.
AOC: appellation d’origine contrôlée. It guarantees that the wine is produced according to strict standards. It indicates the geographical origin, quality and grape variety.
CHAMPAGNE is, of course, the celebratory beverage of choice. Legend has it that in 1693, the vintner and Bénédictine monk Dom Pérignon first discovered champagne after drinking from a bottle of wine that had re-fermented, producing bubbles. It can literally be paired with any food, at any time of day (for brunch, lunch, or dinner or with desserts), and it can be served throughout the meal. You should keep champagne chilled in a champagne bucket, filled with half cold water, half ice cubes. As Napoléon said about champagne, “In victory, you deserve it; in defeat, you need it.”
When purchasing wines, note that young wines should rest for one to two weeks before being served, old wines should rest for two to three months.
A bottle of good white wine needs to age two to ten years, a good red wine for five to twenty years.
Champagne and sparkling wines do not need to be stored, they are ready for consumption.
You only decant red wines. Before you do so, let the bottle rest upright for 24 hours. Decant 1 to 2 hours before serving. Champagne and white wines are served chilled. Red wines are served at room temperature. In order to avoid dripping while pouring, place a ring or pourer on the bottle, and never add ice cubes to wine. Wine should also be drunk in its dedicated glass, it will taste much better.
(Tip-1 If you are decanting a red wine, here is a tip for cleaning the carafe afterward. Use a baby-bottle brush. This will allow you to reach the bottom. To dry the carafe, roll a sheet of Paper towel and insert it in the carafe. The sheet should touch the bottom so that it can absorb the moisture).
The term champagne is exclusively used for sparkling wine produced from grapes grown in the Champagne region of France. Some use the term champagne as a generic term for sparkling wine, which is incorrect.
Here are some facts about champagne:
It takes about 1.2 kg or about 2.6 pounds of grapes to make one bottle of champagne. It is not known exactly why the biggest champagne bottles were given biblical names but here is a chart with their names and contents.
the smallest bottle being a “quart”
a “demie”
a “medium” or 50 cl.
a “Bouteille” or a standard size bottle of 75 cl.
a “Magnum” or the equivalent of 2 standard bottles of 75 cl.
a “Jeroboam” equals 4 bottles
a “Rehoboam” or 6 bottles
a “Mathusalem” or 8 bottles
a “Salmanasar” equals 12 bottles
a “Balthazar” is the equivalent of 16 bottles
a “Nabuchodonosor” or 20 bottles
a “Salomon” or 24 bottles
a “Souverain” or 35 bottles
a “Primat” or 36 bottles
a “Midas” or “Melchizedec” equals 40 bottles or 30 liters and weighs 99 pounds. To open for a wedding celebration or if you have a big family, and I guess it is tough luck if the wine is corked!
Wine glasses should be filled only 1/3 at a time. Wines should be served in a certain order:
A white wine precedes a red wine.
A young wine precedes an old wine.
A light wine precedes a full-bodied wine.
And they are served from the right side.
This is a quick tip to calculate how much wine you need to purchase for your dinner party.
Number of guests X by the hours your guests will drink: 5 (which is the number of glasses per bottle) = number of bottles you will need. CHEERS!