Should you decant wine?

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Steve Shipley

In my opinion – “Yes, most of the time.” I am a believer that spending some time with air after opening a bottle helps to finish the wine and make it closer to its optimal drinking state. This is not always the case, but should be considered most of the time. Plus the ritual of decanting a wine can enhance the sensual pleasure of drinking wine. I am not big on “form over function,” but do get joy out of decanting a bottle, watching the wine spiral down the decanter and the smell rising up as the wine breathes. Check out my recent blog post “Wine Foreplay and Sensual Pleasures” to find out more on how sensual, almost erotic decanting wine can be!

The visual and nasal aspects of decanting are both enjoyable, and it builds anticipation for the liquid to hit your palate!

Minimally, all wines should be opened and given several (5 – 10) minutes for any odors that may be still captured in the head space (the air at the top of a bottle of wine regardless if under cork or screw top) of the bottle should be given time to flow out. This will improve the drinking experience by removing any intervening unpleasant smells.

It is difficult to determine the absolute optimal time to open a bottle of wine. Fortunately, many good wines can be drunk over a several year period where they are truly outstanding. However, it is often the case that when we open a bottle, the wine is still a little tight, and exposing it to air for 30 minutes up to several hours can really help the wine. The transformation includes the wine becoming smoother in texture and more mellow in taste. The little bit of remaining tightness is gone or significantly reduced.

In general, decanting a wine for 30 minutes up to two hours should do the trick. However, some really complex and very well structured wines that demand to be in the bottle for 10 – 20 years, may require a decanting period of two to three hours or even longer. The 1987 Lindemans Pyrus for example, should be decanted for 6 – 8 hours to provide optimal drinking pleasure. This is because of the nature and role of the Cabernet Franc grape as part of the blend. This is a complex grape which evolves over a very long period of time, making some of the 20 – 25 year old Pyrus a truly magnificent drink. Yet, it needs long exposure to air to really complete the process.

I tasted this wine a while back at Lindeman’s after it was open only two hours and while I liked the wine, I felt it had bit of an aftertaste, so had a difficult time committing to buying much of the wine. My bride though who has a much better palate than me, loved the wine and insisted we go back the following day to get some more. (This was a $90 bottle of wine, but because the bottle had been shortfilled at 747 ml instead of the full 750 ml, they were going for $30 per bottle). The bottle had stayed open over night and when I tried it the following morning, it was absolutely brilliant! We ended up buying the last four bottles and I am really glad we did as we only have three bottles left now. This is a complex wine that is 25 years old, and it needs a lot of time to breathe! But most bottles require far less decanting time to finish off nicely.

However, be very careful and I suggest not decanting very old and fragile wines for too long. They lose flavor far too quickly and will become tepid or even flat. While many wines can be drunk over several days, older, fragile wines should be drunk within an hour after being opened.

Most people only think of decanting red wines, but I have found great benefit in decanting really large, robust white wines also. 5 – 20 year old aged Chardonnay, Semillon and other whites deserve an hour of decanting to really bring out the flavor, as does truly great Montrachet wines.

And in case there is any doubt, do not decant a Champagne! It will quickly lose its bubbles! Drink Champagne right from the bottle!

Gewürztraminer with Thai Food

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Steve Shipley

Last night we had five people around for Thai food. We do this every couple of weeks and it provides a good opportunity to try a number of different wines matched to the food. Of course, what is Thai food? For four to six people, we would have about eight different selections of food, including noodles, seafood, beef curry, chicken, pork along with springs rolls, rice, etc. Therefore, the most important thing to remember is that if we have multiple dishes and types of food, we need either (1) multiple wines, or (2) a wine that will match easily with many different dishes.

In my second ever wine blog written on 29 March, 2012, I wrote about what wine to have with Thai food. That evening we had a Riesling which matches up well because Riesling usually has a bit of sharp edge to it and works well for a white wine with ethnic food, especially Thai food in my opinion where I like a bit of sharpness to start with and then followed by a smoother Shiraz with some of the other dishes.

If we have a few people over though and a few dishes, then I would like to have maybe two whites and one red wine to go with Thai. That way you can vary what you want to achieve with the whites and I usually would choose a Hunter Valley Shiraz, which is not too heavy (like the big Barossa Valley Shirazes) and contain more peppery or spiced flavorings for the red.

However, a few of us were still recovering from having been sick recently and one was not drinking, so we only opened one bottle of a white wine. It was the 2008 Gewürztraminer from The Little Wine Company. This is a spectacular wine and has aged beautifully in the several years since I bought it and a perfect match for Thai food, especially tonight as we had several seafood dishes on the menu.

I would describe this wine as off-dry or semi-dry, with a beautiful sharpness to it that goes really well with Thai food. It should really be classified as a dry wine, but a bit of sweetness from the citrus flavors and almost candy-like drops or chews comes through to make it appear semi-dry.

One of our friends is having us over for Malaysian and Indian food in a couple of weeks and I have set aside another few bottles of this great wine to share with them.

The Gewürztraminer is a secondary white grape and there is not a lot of it to be found in Australia. Most of the Gewürztraminer I drink comes from the Alsace region (like the Hugel Gewürztraminer). I have had a few Gewürztraminer’s in Australia and the 2008 Gewürztraminer from The Little Wine Company really stands out! This is a magnificent wine for the money.

As a side note, Suzanne and Ian Little are really nice people (as are most of the people in the wine industry in the Hunter Valley!), and I remember a most special night two years back where we had a 5-course degustation meal with matching wines at the Little Wine Company, with Suzanne and Ian Little, Andrew Thomas, Andrew Margan, and a few other great Hunter Valley wine makers where each wine maker rotated tables with each course. The food, the wine, the company and the discussions that evening were special!

Wine Foreplay and Sensual Pleasures!

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Steve Shipley

Yesterday afternoon I had my first wine in three weeks. As mentioned in yesterday’s post “My first wine in three weeks!” I drank the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, a beautiful wine to drink on its own while blogging and also to go with dinner, an exceptional mince and cheese casserole that my lovely bride made.

While I was looking forward to the wine drinking with some enthusiasm, I was not prepared for the sensual experience that came from the ‘foreplay’ or preparation. The excitement started to ebb by making the choice of what wine to drink, and increased as I proceeded to open the bottle. Since the bottle had a screw top (instead of a cork), I did not have the sensual pleasure of removing a challenging cork which some of the ‘more mature ladies’ use in protest of one’s advances!

However, things quickly picked up again when I decanted the bottle through a filter and aerator. What a joy to visualize the rich, almost purple color of the beautiful liquid spray out through the aerator and cascade down the side of the decanter. The smell of wine drifting upward as the liquid trickles down providing a tingling to multiple senses.

As the wine continued to decant, I approached my selection of Riedel glasses, choosing to go with the Cabernet Sauvignon Vinum Extreme (a slightly more sensual stem over the Vinum!) and brought it back to the counter. The excitement mounted as I poured the wine from decanter into glass to the perfect height (the widest part of the globe) and tenderly and slowly swirled the wine to further speed the aeration process and watch the magic liquid go around and around, like the CERN particle accelerator in (very!) slow motion (crikey, I am sounding like I should be writing “50 Shades of Red” or something!)

As I walked to my desk, anticipating my first sip in three weeks, I was trembling and had to be careful to not spill the wine onto my clothes or the floor. I then placed the glass on my desk and stared at my prize, my possession that I was about to consume, being in total control of the situation.

My God, I am breathless again writing this as I remember the pursuit and the anticipation more than the act itself! This is the closest I have been to comparing the wine drinking experience to an erotic sexual experience. However, for now, let’s just leave it that drinking wine can be something sensual!

On a final and true physiologic note, what makes wine drinking truly sensual is that it fills and satisfies all of the senses from sight to smell to taste to feeling (the texture of the wine on your palate) and even in some cases hearing (by listening to the decanting and swirling processes). And you can’t do many things that excite the senses more than that!

My dry July!

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Steve Shipley

It was not my intent to have a dry July. We have plenty of other ways to help raise money for a good cause that we participate in without giving up drinking. I do admire the people who have given up drinking though for a month to help raise funds, even though I know a number of them make at least one exception and are comfortable “in spirit” doing something for a good cause.

While I have not had a completely dry July, it has been three weeks now without drinking. I was just so worn down and then got sick and on antibiotics for a while. While I am feeling a lot better, I certainly am not back at full strength and not at the point where I know I would greatly enjoy opening and sharing a bottle. I had a 5 minute workout on the treadmill today just to try to force back some fitness and it was clear I tried this a few days too early. I am glad I had enough smarts to quit after five minutes even though I thought I was feeling pretty good; I was quite drained and light headed from the experience. It will be another three days before I try to exercise further.

By not drinking, it has also lessened my desire to write about wine (and certainly removed the reason to write about what wine has been matched up with what food), so I have had a bit of a lull the last few weeks, even though I have got a few decent posts out. I also thought it could be good opportunity to recycle some of my earlier posts as they only had about ten page views when I was getting started four months back.

I hope to be back into opening and sharing a bottle by this weekend as I really miss thinking about a meal as the complete package including the matching wine. I read recently that it was only in the 19th century that wine and food matching came into vogue. I find this hard to believe as cooking has been around forever blending many different ingredients into amazing recipes. Matching up particular types of grapes and flavors of wine to enhance the eating experience seems like a natural extension to cooking and certainly seems like it should be something that has been around forever or at least as long as food has and wine has existed! I guess there are “somethings new under the sun!”

Because we were sick, we had to cancel one dinner party with a Masterchef and some great wines and I am looking forward to rescheduling it soon. But first I am anxious just to get a good glass with some meat or pasta! Maybe by tomorrow or the next day! I certainly want to be a “winner’ (or winer) again soon!

Spectacular Shirazes with fish!

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Steve Shipley

Once again, we broke the conventional rule of “white wine with fish!”

In my recent posting “1998 Lindeman’s Verdelhao – one of the best white wines I have ever drunk”, I make mention that this wine was one of several to start a brilliant dinner party. This brilliant example of Verdelho was enjoyed with an opening cheese platter and great conversation, while the two reds where decanting.

Owen and Lucie had prepared the menu for the evening, with two fish courses to follow the cheese platter and an apple strudel for dessert. The entree was a lightly seared tuna steak with a side of guacamole (with chili on the side which we could mix into the guacamole for taste – which we all did!), with the main dish being lightly battered and fried flathead, which is a denser and meatier type of fish.

Owen wanted to impress with a bottle of 15 year-old Pinot Noir, which would have been a nice match for the tuna and gaucamole, but most Pinot Noirs, no matter how well structured they are, are unlikely to last past a decade or so. Unfortunately, this bottle was off and had to be disposed of. While we were fortunate the 1998 Lindeman’s Verdelhao was still a stunner, we were not as lucky with the Pinot Noir.

Not to be deterred, Owen had replaced the Pinot Noir with a 1997 Hungerford Hills Hilltop Shiraz and that was followed by a bottle of the 1991 Grant Burge Mesach Shiraz, which is considered one of the best Shiraz in Australia, if not the world.

The wines went brilliantly with the food because both the wines and the foods were brilliant on their own! But what really made the Shirazes go well with the fish was the following:

Both the tuna and the flathead were denser, meatier fishes instead of a lighter style and texture to the fish
The tuna flavor was enhanced by the guacamole and chili, and the seasoning in the flathead batter had some nice, bold spices
Additionally, lightly battering and frying the flathead was a push into a Shiraz instead of a more traditional choice of white – had this fish been grilled, a more traditional white wine selection may have been more appropriate

These are importance nuances of flavor and texture that allow you to “turn the tables” on what type of wine matches well with the food you are having. The slight differences in terms of the seasoning and sauces you use, the sides provided, or the texture of the main ingredient (in this case the tuna and the flathead), and the style of cooking provide you with a much wider selection of wines that match up brilliantly. Therefore, don’t be shy in terms of experimenting with a more diverse set of options for the wine. With a little practice, you will stumble upon some great combinations that will truly surprise and excite.

The wines themselves were superb and given the iconic stature of the Mesach, we started with the 1997 Hungerford Hill Hilltop Shiraz with the tuna, followed by the 1991 Grant Burge Mesach Shiraz to go with the flathead. Either Shiraz would have worked beautifully with either fish, but given the complexities of the wines, it was important to drink them in this order.

I have sampled Hungerford Hill wines over the last several years, and while I believe them to be decent wines, I must admit to not having tried their better wines or better vintages. I was amazed at the quality and beauty of the 1997 Hungerford Hill Hilltop Shiraz! It far exceeded my expectations, and has made me excited to go back to the winery and find out more. This wine is a perfect example of how you can buy an inexpensive, yet good bottle of wine and how it can turn into a great bottle of wine if cellared properly for a decade. (Beware, that is not possible with all inexpensive bottles of wine – you need to have the right grapes and structure to start with!)

The 1991 Grant Burge Mesach was superb. Frankly, by this point, I was just enjoying the wine and the flathead, and the co-mingled tastes were starting to border on being “over-satiated!” This is a truly superb wine and if you are a fan of the Henschke Hill of Grace, you will enjoy the Mesach at 20% of the price of the Hill of Grace! The Mesach is smooth, flavorful and balanced with medium to large tannins. Having had the 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994 vintages of the Mesach, I would go with the 1991 and 1994. They are superior vintages and still have some cellaring on them, whereas the 1992 and 1993 vintages do not.

To finish off the evening, we had a 2005 Château Haut Bergeron dessert wine to go with the apple strudel. This is another great example of where the a $35 bottle of wine improves with each year in the cellar. This is a great, great wine at 1/10th the price of Château D’Yquem, and most people in a side-by-side tasting cannot tell the difference!

Another darn risotto and wine post?

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Steve Shipley

Yes! (But I promise this will be the last one for a while!)

My wife made a very pedestrian, yet delicious bean and bacon risotto the other evening (if you follow the link to her post, you can get the recipe). We were a bit skeptical about how it would work, but it turned out divine. Yet, when you pick up a little fat and extra juice from the bacon, you wonder “is there any wine that will go with that?”

The wine needed to be nice, but not overpowering, and this was a situation where many of the wines I would otherwise choose, would fit in that category – they would have dominating and minimized the risotto. I needed to open a red wine to be used in the cooking process, and figured that the wine I choose would have to work for that (pretty much most wines – even ones well past there peak do!) and for serving with the risotto.

The 2006 Gabbiano Riserva was a great match and the blending of the food and wine were perfectly balanced.

Wine Texture is a big part of of how I perceive how good a wine is, especially when served with food.

A wine can range from tepid (usually a very old wine or a poorly made wine in the first place with poor grape selection) to smooth (like some beautifully aged Pinot Noirs or Cabernet Savignons) to having a bit of friction on your cheeks (usually from the tannins in a wine built to last a long time, but where the tannins are not completely integrated yet), to gritty (where the tannins are big and far from integrated). A good example of a superb, yet ‘gritty’ wine was the 2006 Seppelts we had with lasagna. Both the food and wine were gritty and matched beautifully. I needed to accomplish the same with matching a wine to the bean and bacon risotto.

I needed a wine for the bean and bacon risotto which was smooth, yet still possessed some character and fruitiness, and would still compliment the bit of fat and extra juice. The 2006 Gabbiano Riserva was a perfect match. Like Goldilock’s, “not too big and not two small, but just right!”

Drinking Responsibly and Getting Your RSA

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Steve Shipley

I have been thinking about writing a cheeky little entry on Breakfast Wines, but wanted to make sure everyone understood that I do not advocate nor do I drink wine or other alcohol in the early morning myself! However, there are some wines that match up beautifully with all-day breakfast menus which are worth mentioning, so that blog is soon to follow.

But first, I wanted to discuss responsible drinking behaviors. Whenever I host a dinner party or an evening out – among friends or with business associates – I alway alert people to the need to monitor themselves and each other to ensure we are drinking responsibly and will get get home safely. A number of RSLs and other restaurants in Australia now have free Breathalyser machines so you can check your alcohol levels before leaving the venue and help decide if you are able to drive or should catch a ride from a friend or grab a taxi home. I applaud them for that!

Providing this type of awareness is even more important if you are hosting a wine tasting evening with multiple bottles of wine to try. We provide spit buckets, so you do not have to swallow everything you put in your mouth. However, many people do not believe in the this, and feel they are wasting good wine by spitting it out! (There is some truth in that, but if you are going to sample 10 – 20 different wines, some maybe several times, there could be a danger in swallowing it all!) Therefore, we start every session with a warning of the perils of imbibing too much and some tips on being a socially responsible drinker.

And especially for your loved ones and even if you are at home and not driving, you should be drinking responsibly, or accidents can happen!

We plan in advance our travel based on how much we think we are going to drink. If at all possible, I like to eat and drink at home, or go to one of the BYO restaurants down Kent Street from where we live such as Fish on the Rocks or Curry at the Rocks. Both allow BYO wine (and serve a decent selection of wines and other beverages). Then I can walk to the restaurant and back. Same if I am visiting my favorite steak house, The Cut Bar & Grill.

But one of my favorite new restaurants is HUX @ Nortons, run by Jay Huxley, Masterchef finalist from last season and he does the most amazing pub food in the world! Since it is further away and the train is not easy to use to get there, we either drive over and I will have one drink and drive home. Or if I have two or more, then Deanna drives home. Or if we both know we want a few, we will walk over (about a 75 minute walk) to get some exercise and then take a taxi home. Regardless, a trip to HUX is always worth it!

Minimally, if you plan on doing wine tastings for sale, working at some wine events with friends, or occasionally helping out in a cellar door, in Australia, you need to acquire your RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) certificate and card. This is required training for anyone in the field. We are going to get ours very soon. We signed up for a class last year at our vineyard, but it was canceled unfortunately.

In NSW, it was previously required that you attend a 6-hour (basically give up a day!) classroom course to get your certificate which was an impediment for us as busy as we have been during the last year. But now, with the new legislation that came into effect on 1 July, 2012, you can take an on-line course to qualify for your RSA. There are a lot of different places now to get your RSA, so check out what the best approach is for you. We are going to take one of the on-line courses, but you may want to take it in person and use the opportunity to socialize and network with others

I provide links above for both an on-line course and an in-person course, but am not recommending them over any other course. I have not attended or heard good or bad about either of them or any others. Most courses cost between $50 – $150, but I expect there is very little difference in course content or value.

I highly recommend that everyone take their RSA to ensure you know the basics of responsible drinking and service of alcohol, regardless if you want to work in the field or not. And now, that I have that off my chest, I can write the blog on breakfast wines that I have been dying to get out there!

What’s in a glass?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Steve Shipley

I love my drinking experiences, regardless if it’s wine, coffee or tea, and the glass makes all the difference. The wrong glass with a great wine can choke it in terms of diminishing it’s bouquet, or splashing the wine to the wrong place on your tongue. Why is this important? For starters, the tongue location differs in terms of being able to sense sweet, bitter, acidic tastes. In general:

The tip of the tongue detects sweetness
The inner sides of the tongue detect sourness and / or acidity
The outer sides of the tongue detect saltiness
The back of the tongue detects bitterness and / or alcohol

I lifted this from a post in What’s Cooking America on tasting wine, which provides a simple, yet very good overview on the topic.

It was about ten years ago when I walked into a bottle shop to pick up some decent Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. When checking out, I was approached by one of the bottle shop clerks to ask if I would like to sample some wines from different Riedel glasses. My immediate reaction was “Leave me alone! I am spending my money where it is most important – on the wine!” He was quite confident that I would be able to discern a noticeable difference due to the glass, so I decided to take the challenge, if nothing else, just to prove him wrong!

I tried the Cabernet Sauvignon in the Shiraz glass and the Shiraz in the Cabernet Sauvignon glass and then switched them around. My cursing was audible as I could definitely smell the difference and the enjoyment factor was enhanced when having the right wine being ‘nosed’ in the right glass. Then I tasted each combination and was sold. The reason for the cursing was that I knew I would be shelling about $400 for Riedel glasses (my first set of many!) But make no mistake, for someone who loves their wine, you can tell the difference and it does enhance the drinking experience. And aesthetically, the beauty of looking at and holding a perfectly balanced glass adds further to the pleasure!

For a great blog on what Riedel glass to drink with what wine, see the blog Confessions of a Wino by Alastair Bathgate The post provides very useful information on which range to select and what glasses within the range to select. I agree entirely with Confessions of a Wino’s assessment that the best style to pick from is the Vinum. I also agree with his basic selection glass types as being suitable to cover most wines in your cellar. However, for me, with the amount of great Australian Shiraz I drink, I need to have the Riedel Vinum Shiraz glass also, and I have the Riedel Vintage Port glass for the occasional port when late night reading. But Alistair is absolutely correct in that you can go overboard if not careful. Each Riedel glass is between $25 and $40 in the Vinum range and higher for the Sommelier range.

Why does the shape of the glass make a difference? The first reason is the shape (overall size of the globe and opening at the top) influences the concentration of bouquet as you ‘nose’ the wine. This is an important initial part of the wine drinking pleasure. And secondly, the shape and diameter of the globe and the tightness or wideness of the opening determines where the wine is most likely to end up on your tongue and in your mouth. As mentioned above, this can have a huge impact on the tasting experience and what types of flavors you are experiencing.

I also have a set of the O Riedel glasses which are the same shape globes, but without the stems for easier transport. I avoided getting these for a long time as I did not find stemless glasses to be aesthetically pleasing. But after too many bad restaurant experiences (regardless if it was a BYO or not) which did not have proper wine glasses, I felt compelled to bring my own. I am really glad I do now, but you need to be careful when picking up the Pinot Noir and Montrachet glasses as they are very wide and difficult to hold onto to, especially after a bit to drink!

But it is not just my wine drinking that is influenced by great glassware. My coffee drinking also benefits from it. There is one large difference though between wine and coffee for me. I do not drink wine to get drunk. I drink wine for the flavor and the manner in which it enhances an eating and social experience. While I also drink coffee for the taste and pleasure, I additionally drink it for the caffeine and ‘perk-me-up!’ Therefore, I can really enjoy my first coffee of the day even if it is in a cardboard or Styrofoam cup! Yet, if I am making it at home or work (which I usually do 95% of the time), I use glasses made by Nespresso Citiz.

The Nespresso Citiz glasses cost quite a bit. The “Lungo” glass viewed to the right costs about $18. The “Expresso” size is a little less and the “Latte” size a little more. Yet, this is not much for something I use several times most days of the year!

The glasses are double insulated, keeping the coffee hot while protecting my hands from getting warm. Additionally, the beauty of seeing the coffee parabolically shaped adds significantly to the aesthetic experience.

Bodum makes a line of see-through glassware similar to Citiz, and at about one-third the price, but they are not as nice in terms of balance and feeling when being held, and have a plainer design and etching. Yet, they still provide a beautiful see-through experience and have double insulation.

My glassware is worth it in terms of enhancing my drinking experiences, and I would not do without! If you plan to spend money on good wine and good coffee, spend a little extra on good glassware. It is most definitely worth it!

SAZ in the Cellar

Wine appreciation and enjoyment

Tag Archives: wine drinking