There are two schools of thought on uncorking. One is that you just smell cork, which is my theory. There are people who claim they can tell by smelling the cork if the wine is bad. What you can tell is if the cork comes out in a whole bunch of little pieces! #winetasting @WineandSongChicago
If people pay $150 at a restaurant for a bottle of wine, they want to see the whole ceremony. They want to see the cork come out and smell the cork. #winetasting @WineandSongChicago
One fallacy about champagne is that it spoils easily. It does not until you open the bottle. Once you open the bottle, the clock starts ticking quickly because the carbonation just goes out the top. A very good champagne will keep for a long time because it's in a big heavy bottle. The trick is if you're going to store a wine, keep the cork moist.
If you’re paying four times as much money for champagne, you should be getting more flavors and more complex flavors.
There is no such thing as bad champagne. It ranges from “OK” to “Oh my God.” Most people who know one champagne that's actually champagne know Veuve Cliquot. They do great advertising. They do great product placement. They have all kinds of celebrity endorsers. They have great big, wonderful parties in New York and Paris, and even Chicago occasionally.
There are no wrong answers. It’s your palette. It’s your money. My mom was a classic little old lady. She loved White Zinfandel. And every so often, I would bring over a big bomber Napa Cab or Bordeaux. And she’d take a sip and she’d go, “How can you drink that stuff?”
Start by looking at your wine. Sparklers have different colors. Some have big bubbles or small bubbles. Some have lots of bubbles. Smell it and taste it in the back and sides of your mouth.
Taste impressions in wine tasting are called notes. The most common ones are fruit notes, including strawberry, raspberry, apple, cherry and melon.
