The middle class guide to drinking wine

[srw]

Does red wine really need to 'breathe' for a while before drinking?
Does white wine really need to be chilled?

Last night's bottle of Pinot Grigio definitely got more quaffable as it crept up to room temp.

Need? No.

But oxygenation and changing the temperature of wine certainly changes its flavour. In general (as someone's said), tannic wines benefit from oxygenation because oxygenated tannin is less bitter - but the best way to do that is by decanting or by swirling in the glass. White wines tend to be made specifically to drink chilled, so if you want to get the flavour the maker intended it's better to chill it.

None of this is about class - it's about caring about making what you drink taste as good as possible. It's no different from having a strong preference on whether bacon is better with brown sauce, or chips are better with liquor, or whether a kebab is better from the paper or on a plate.

 

[srw]

48° 9° Riesling , Chablis, Alsace , White Chalonnaise & Maconnais, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc

In that particular context, the list probably refers to Alsatian Pinot Gris at £25 a bottle, not to Italian Pinot Grigio sold for the UK supermarket market...

 

[TVC]

so charmingly English to set precise lines between microclasses. Now tell me how you feel about gypsies and jews.

 

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 4482877, member: 259"]Us Piat d'Or drinkers used to look down on Blue Nun drinkers, but we used to look up to Babycham drinkers.[/QUOTE]
Where do Black Tower aficionados fit in this pecking order?

 

[ufkacbln]

[QUOTE 4482842, member: 259"]All the really middle-class people I know drink real ale.[/QUOTE]

But only good quality expensive "Craft Ale"

(Craft Ale is the beer equivalent of Proseco.....)

 

[ufkacbln]

Bum wine (whether red or white, or green / blue for that matter) always needs to be chilled ice cold. it's very working class to serve it at street temperature.

When drinking on the Street there is little choice

 

[marzjennings]

In that particular context, the list probably refers to Alsatian Pinot Gris at £25 a bottle, not to Italian Pinot Grigio sold for the UK supermarket market...

Agreed, it was the first semi-comprehensive list that popped up in the search and the closest thing I could see was the Pinot Gris.

Another search returned this...

White Table Wines Chenin Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc 45-58f 7-14c

... which is a huge range and which I guess implies it's all down to personal preference based on the cheap plonk you like.

 

[keithmac]

I like my White Lightening Cider tepid, straight from the bottle no messing about .

 

[ufkacbln]

The last time I drank wine “Blue Nun” was in fashion.

How common!

Refined people drank Black Tower

Slightly OT

When I was dating in the early 80's Wine bars were in fashion and my Fiancée at the time loved them


I used to put it with them, but found one that did beer as well

We got engaged at a wine bar in the Guildhall Square, and after some 30 years went back...

It is now a "Gentleman's club" with lots of young ladies disrobing

I did dutifully offer to go in and see if the small booth where I proposed and she had accepted was still there, and accepted the consequent percussive head injury as a "No"

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

We got engaged at a wine bar in the Guildhall Square, and after some 30 years went back...

It is now a "Gentleman's club" with lots of young ladies disrobing

I did dutifully offer to go in and see if the small booth where I proposed and she had accepted was still there, and accepted the consequent percussive head injury as a "No"

Perhaps going in and propositioning someone else wasn't a wise move.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

When drinking on the Street there is little choice

Little choice yes, but not quite no choice. The discerning Thunderbird drinker buys it from an offie that keeps the bum wines in a chiller, then the trick is to consume the bottle before it gets warm.

 

[Andy_R]

What a load of pretentious bollox. If you like your white wine warm and your red wine cold, then drink it that way and don't let any other fekker tell you what appeals to your tastebuds.

 

[jefmcg]

@Andy_R +1 My uncle lived in the centre of one of the worlds great wine making regions (yeah, it's not acknowledged that way yet, but it will be). When he wanted rose, he mixed wonderful local reds and whites and added an ice cube if needed.

 

[marzjennings]

What a load of pretentious bollox. If you like your white wine warm and your red wine cold, then drink it that way and don't let any other fekker tell you what appeals to your tastebuds.

It's not pretentious bollox, it's chemistry...

We posed this question to Marjorie King, Sensory Research Technician with Agriculture Canada...

First of all, red and white wines have different chemical compositions that influence their sensory perception and their sensory traits. The aromatic white wines and these are things like Chenin Blanc, Gewurztraminer, some of the Rieslings, you serve them the coolest so it would be about 8°C. They have a relatively higher proportion of aldehydes and esters and terpenes that fill up the head space of the glass and at the lower temperature. So they will project their fruitiness which is a big part of the appreciation of those wines at a much lower temperature. The cooler temperature accentuates a bit of the acid and so, it creates a crispier, fresher kind of impression of the wine. If you do a Chardonnay-type wine or a wine in that style that is oaked, it can be served at a slightly higher temperature, so maybe 10°C, maybe 11°C. And the red wines, we have the phenolic compounds in the red wines, but with the polyphenols and the tannins, contribute to the structure in the mouth feel and that’s very much linked to the appreciation in a good quality of red wine. These components are better tasted at a slightly higher temperature. So if you chill the red wine, it’s not just that the flavour components don’t come out into the head space as well, but the tannins and the polyphenols feel much more astringent and harsher in the mouth and the acid is accentuated as well. If you serve a red wine that’s really warm, what you get then is the alcohol starts to dominate the head space in the glass and you get the perception of an alcoholic wine, and you don’t appreciate all the fruity components that are in the wine. So if we serve those at about 19°C, you get a much more pleasant overall balanced wine.

And yes while anybody is free to enjoy any beverage how ever they like, for god's sake they drink ice tea over here (devils urine), there are actual reasons why things taste better if served 'correctly'.

 

[Oldbloke]

Where do Black Tower aficionados fit in this pecking order?

Or that classy Mateus Rose?