Ideally, wine bottles should be stored horizontally in a dark cellar at an almost constant temperature and humidity, 10-12 degrees centigrade and 60-70% humidity.
Wine is a living substance that evolves, but to grow well, it needs optimal conditions. If we don’t have an ideal cellar, the best thing is to buy an air-conditioned cabinet for storing wine.
One last piece of advice, all open bottles should be consumed.
The wine should enhance the accompanying dish without overpowering or being overwhelmed. In other words, it should marry with food, accentuating its positive characteristics and perhaps attenuating the negative ones
For example, with a succulent dish, a tannic and alcoholic wine is good to attenuate excessive greasiness, with a dish rich in spices an aromatic wine that can compete with the dish’s aroma, enhancing them. A greasy dish rich in butter is combined with a fresh, acidic or sparkling wine that attenuates the feeling of doughiness of food. So too the sweetness of a dish is enhanced by the sweetness of the wine.
So with delicate fish appetizers, it is advisable to combine a fresh young white, not too fruity or spicy or some “bubbles”. Likewise, with a good braised meat, perhaps game, I would recommend an important red, with a good structure that can compete with the strong flavours and aromas of the dish. With a cake, with pastry, with panettone it is good to combine sweet wines that further enhance the sensation of sweetness, choosing them with a higher alcoholic structure as the structure and complexity of the preparation increase.
A fundamental factor is the temperature at which a wine is served. In fact, the cold dampens the ardor of alcohol, while the heat makes the acidity feel less, drains the tannins and increases the sensation of sweetness. For this reason, sweet and alcoholic wines should be served fresh while red ones should be served at 18 degrees Celsius.
Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.
Glasses for aged reds are large, both in height and for the belly. The dimensions are large because these wines generally need a lot of oxygenation and time for tasting.
Therefore for each wine its temperature, ideally: sparkling wines 8 ° C, white and rosé wines 10-12 ° C, red wines 16-18 ° C.
So when you want to drink one of your bottles, take it from the cellar and bring it to serving temperature, for reds just wait a few minutes, while for sparkling wines and whites it will take half an hour in a bucket with water and ice.
Who to serve first?
Both the reds and the whites will be uncorked a few minutes before (a few more for the young reds, a good half hour for the aged reds) to allow the wine to oxygenate (you can use the decanter if necessary).
At this point, a question spontaneously arises, who should we serve first?
The guests must be served first, starting with the ladies and in particular the older ones (but be careful not to make blunders in this case!), Then the men in order of age, and lastly the landlord.
