Henk's Wine Tips

Why is it that even in some up market restaurants and even in the Western Cape , wine waiters are not being taught the basics about serving wine?   Any host serving wine should know the same basics.

Here's an all too familiar routine:

The wine capsule is torn, badly cut or simply ripped off.  This is followed by grunts and muscle power as the server wrestles with a poor choice of corkscrew before popping the cork with aplomb.  Pouring is a dribble and drip affair leaving wine stains on the label or table cloth. White wine is served too cold, red wine too warm. The ice bucket emerges far too readily and the decanter too rarely.  And then, as a final touch, miserly wine glasses are overfilled.

Whether you are a waiter in a restaurant or serving wine to guests at your home here are a few useful tips.

Start with a good corkscrew.  Know the difference between a good one and a fancy one!   

A Good Corkscrew

A good corkscrew has a long spiral screw with a sharp evenly tapered point.  A good corkscrew will have a good capsule cutter and enough leverage so that you don’t need brute strength to pull the cork.  The screw and leverage ratios should be such that you don’t have to repeat the screwing action once the cork is half out.

My favourite corkscrew is the waiter’s friend on the right.  It even has a grooved screw, which assists in penetrating the cork and allows air into the bottle as you draw the cork. Only some two handled corkscrews have the same leverage, but they don't have capsule cutters and the ratios are too stingy.  Others are downright rubbish.

Keep the bottle looking smart.  Cut the capsule neatly, above the neck rim. If you don't have a decent cutter, use a sharp knife. Pull the cork out smoothly and silently.  The sudden sucking action of the showy cork popping can extract a concentration of unsavoury volatile esters from the wine which can influence that critical first tasting portion you pour for evaluation.

Choice of Glass

In a nutshell, small round wine glasses and wine glasses that widen to the rim are an insult to all wine.  One simply cannot appreciate a good wine in such vessels.

A good wine glass must have a longish stem, so that one can hold the glass by the stem. The glass should preferably be clear and thin.  You want to see the wine through clear glass to evaluate and enjoy the clarity and colour.  It must have a sufficiently large bowl so that one can serve a fair portion into a third of the glass. You want to swirl the wine to release the flavours without spilling. The glass should significantly narrow to the top, so that flavours released from a large surface area of the wine are 'trapped' in the space above.

Take care that glasses are truly clean without oiliness or soap residue.  Glasses can very easily pick up smells from the places where they have been stored, such as cardboard boxes, old wooden cupboards, or spices in the same space.

Serving Temperature

You should serve white wine as cold as possible and red wine at room temperature, off the shelf, right? - Wrong!

The colder a white wine, the more it hides subtle or delicate flavours, good and unwanted ones.  So if a white wine is a cheaply, by all means chill it.  It will hide the flaws.  But, if you or your guest is paying good money for a fine white wine that's been in the refrigerator, lose the ice bucket.   If the wine is below 12-14°C, suggest to the guest to let it warm in the glass before nosing it.

Red wine should be served around at 18°C to 20°C.  Any warmer, the wines are prone to be volatile and will lose their flavours quite quickly.  If the wine was stored at South African summer 'room temperature', think of using an ice bucket for the red wines for half an hour before serving.

Pouring the Wine

Most waiters know to serve a small tasting portion to the host, before pouring for the remainder of the guests, but then they pour 'generous portions' into all the glasses so they are two thirds to three quarters full. 

As a test, compare two glasses of wine, (good wine and good glasses).  Fill one 2/3 and the other 1/3.  Swirl the wine in each glass to release the flavours and then immediately nose the wines in turn.  You're more likely to spill wine from the 2/3 full glass and the nose of the 1/3 glass will be infinitely more flavourful.

Still wine should be poured into glasses standing on the table. There should be no need to pick the glass up.

To pour sparkling wine you should pick the glass up.  Hold it by the stem. Sparkling wine should be poured into a tilted glass and run slowly down the side of the glass, to avoid foaming.

It takes great skill and care not to spill drops of wine or dribble a line over the wine label when pouring wine.  There are some very useful wine pourer discs on the market that work exceptionally well.  You can buy them in most specialist wine shops for about R 5.00 or order them directly from the manufacturers for less than half that.  (Choose the thicker ones)

Decanting or not

I am a firm believer in the values of decanting red wine even though it results my very carefully designed wine branding being replaced by an anonymous decanter.  When a red wine is decanted it allows some volatile esters to escape.  The wine is aerated and oxygen starts to react with the wine, releasing complexity and flavour.  The wine ‘softens and opens up’ over a 30 to 60 minute period. 

While decanting is not always practical in a busy restaurant, some wine connoisseurs will appreciate it if you offer them the opportunity to decant the wine if they will order their red wine early.  Offer the guest the sample glass before decanting, so that, should the wine be spoilt or corked, it can be detected immediately

Spoiled wine

The key reason for offering a guest a tasting portion is that spoilage can be detected before everybody else is served.  Common causes for a spoiled wine are:

·        Cork taint.  - Cork taint is very common and the main cause of spoilage of even well stored wines.  Corked wine has a distinct musty odour, reminiscent of old and musty cupboard.  This can overpower all other wine flavours.

·        Bret.  (Brettonomyces) - Bret is not very common in South Africa .  It smells like Elastoplast.

·        Oxidation.  Lightly oxidised wines simply smell flat and flavourless, like an open, half full bottle after a few days.  Highly oxidised white wine will be dark yellow and smell like sherry.  Oxidised red wine smells like port.

·        VA. (Volatile Acidity). - Less or more serious contamination of volatile acids.  Sharp, unpleasant nose, like vinegar.

A guest in a restaurant can rightfully refuse spoiled wine.  In turn the retailer and producer will normally replace any wine spoiled by Cork taint or Bret. Not so with Oxidation or VA.  These may have been caused by the producer, the retailer or the restaurant, by poor storage conditions any time in the wine's life cycle.    

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