Serving Wine
Why expose wine to air?
To let wine breathe or aerate is as the wine has been corked up in this bottle and you pull the cork on it and you pour it in, it is sort of, to me, it is sort of like foreplay. You want it to be able to show. It is sort of like perfume, you want it to air. You want to kind of smell all these things. The rose has to have a chance to grow. Do you decant things? Do you let things breathe that are young versus old? All of this is a judgment call, but I think everything should be decanted. I think everything should have its chance. It's Egyptian cotton. You want to touch and feel these things. You want things to aerate. You want to smell. You want it to expose itself. The more air, the more the molecules come up and you can smell it.
Should wine be decanted?
To decant wine is simply pouring the wine into a decanter, giving it a chance now to air is just like, do you swab on a little cologne or perfume, or do you aerate it. That decanting is something that is sort of swabbing it on, letting it have a chance to come in contact with another substance and expand naturally versus swirling it around and gyrating it and trying to pull it up. I am of the school that everything should be decanted, everything should have gravity flow, everything should be natural. There is another school, but I believe I am the Ayatollah. I am right and there is a right way to do it. Do decant.
Does it really matter what kind of glass I use to drink wine?
The glasses were made for a reason. The tulip glass for champagne was to help you feel and see the effects of champagne. The bubbles are visible in this glass giving you the feeling of warmth and comfort. The other varieties of wines are also aroma enhanced, helping you feel and enjoy the wine in all aspects of wine connoisseurs.
Should all wines be served at the same temperature?
Chilling of the wine depends on the wine. When it comes to champagne, of course we want to chill it because of the carbonation, it holds that magic of all those little bubbles coming up and that's what we want. We want those. When it comes to white wines, yes they should be slightly chilled because you're capturing the fruit. You're capturing what a white wine is all about. You want it slightly chilled. When it comes to red wines, certain wines, like pinot noirs should be at cellar temperature which is slightly colder than what we're used to, but because you want it to release it's subtle aromas and bouquets. When it comes to a Bordeaux or cabernet, the temperature, we want it more getting towards room temperature. Because these are powerful, and they are ready to offer sort of that, when I say, "currant", it's almost like opening up preserves, comes out. It's intense. When it comes to Shiraz and Rhône's, these are wines that have that liquorice, that wonderful; it's almost like riding on a motorcycle. It's almost like putting on jeans and leather. I mean, you smell the heat coming from the pavement. This is what you want. This is where that, you want to throw a piece of meat on a grill, and when you have it with this wine, you don't know if the meat is a piece of charcoal or not, because you've got something that stands up to that. Whatever it is, a piece of charcoal or the grilled steak that someone didn't know what they were doing, but this is what you kind of want to wash it all down with.
