Blow hot and cold
There are usually more rules and complications regarding the correct methods to drink wine than there are theories about the origin of mankind. The kind of glassware to use, the correct technique to hold the glass and sniff it, the right temperature to drink it at…everything makes a big difference.
The warmth of the drink, more than anything else, is critical to how the wine tastes, says Sovna Puri, head of tasting and training at Sula Vineyards. “Wines with greater acidity or sweetness are to be chilled more than those with more robust flavours. So a sparkling wine or a dessert wine will be served chilled at about 6-8 degrees, while a red Shiraz can be had at 14-18 degrees. Similarly, a Sauvignon Blanc should be cooled down to about 10-12 degrees, while an Oak Chardonnay is drinkable even at 14 degrees,” Puri says.
Failure to cool the wine properly, she adds, will ruin the whole experience. “Too cold, and you end up destroying the flavours of the wine, while too warm will be unpalatable,” she says, adding that the term “room temperature” here refers to the European temperature of about 16-18, not 30 degress like it is in India.
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