GoGoKitty’s Wine Secrets

There is nothing quite like a good bottle of wine.  Its bouquet, colour and taste are important characteristics that will influence your purchase decision.But if you want to maintain that wine in excellent condition, the way you store your wine is just as essential as finding that perfect bottle of wine in the first place. To properly store your wine collection you need to consider how to insulate and how to maintain the correct humidity and temperature.

The right wine rack can help keep that expensive bottle of wine from turning into supermarket vinegar as any wine should never be stored upright and always kept slightly angled.  Equally important is the need to select wine racks that fit in with your home décor and express your personality.You can find some of the funkiest looking things that are considered wine racks ranging from multicoloured plastic ink blobs to what looks like an inside out peg board with wine bottles clipped in by the neck, hanging on the wall. Some are made from solid metal castings and are prime examples of functional modern art.   Giving these as wine gifts may also qualify as an artistic donation, but often function is sacrificed on the altar of form in the more unusual offerings.

The best wine racks are still probably the more traditional wood and metal creations that can look impressive as functional modern art.  Wooden wine cabinets will also store wine perfectly and conveniently and look great as a piece of designer furniture.Wine racks, whether ready-made or flat packed for self assembly, are designed to be versatile and robust using solid wood blocks and 18-gauge bright galvanised steel.The most popular choices tend to be Black Walnut, White American Oak, Maple, Douglas Fir or Ash.  Softwood racks are generally built from grade ’A’ furniture pine and it’s these which are usually supplied ’flat-pack’ for self assembly.

There are manufacturers out there to meet the needs of any person looking for a wine rack. Whether or not you are looking to custom build your own or buy one that is already made, there are literally hundreds of options available.

The growing prevalence of celebrity names (alive and dead) associated with wine seems to be a trend that’s almost irresistible.  True, we haven’t yet had a Michael Jackson cabernet, but the vineyards are crawling with vintages from dead celebrities including Elvis Presley (Elvis Blue Suede Chardonnay 2001, Jailhouse Red Merlot 2002, and Blue Christmas Cabernet 2002) and Jerry Garcia (Garcia Cabernet Sauvignon 2001) to name but two.Many other breathing celebs such as Sting, Olivia Newton John, Bob Dylan and former Bond girl Carole Bouquet (excellent name for a winemaker!) have recently started hawking their own wines or associated themselves with commercial vintages.

But before you consider breaking these publicity seekers on wine racks it’s best to realise that some seem to be doing it for the right reason: they are interested in making good wines.French actor Gerard Depardieu produces an excellent Lys de Volan Condrieu 2003 with the acclaimed Northern Rhone winemaker Alain Paret.However, the king of serious celebrity winemakers has to be Francis Ford Coppola.A wine buff from his childhood days on Long Island, Coppola got into the wine business in 1975,using the profits from the first Godfather movie to purchase most of Napa Valley’s Inglenook estate.  He has been one of the seminal figures in the valley’s rise to international acclaim and Niebaum-Coppola wines still command a dedicated following and make excellent wine gifts.

Other equally serious and perhaps unexpected wine making glitterati include golf players Ernie Els and Greg Norman who own vineyards in South Africa and Australia, respectively.The Greg Norman Limestone Coast Shiraz 2002 is quite restrained on the palate (particularly welcome in an Australian syrah).   At the other end of the spectrum must be Australian cricketer Shane Warne.  More used to a bottle opener than a corkscrew from his hard partying days, Warne’s foray into more genteel booze was greeted with a certain scepticism that he did nothing to dampen.He confessed it took him a while to understand what red wine is and what made a red and a white wine different!

The general public love wine, but not many of us are aware of all of the different wine accessories that you can buy to go with your wine. Bottle bags, wine glasses, corkscrews, buckets and wine bottle coasters are only a few of many wine accessories that are available for you to select from, and the most important step is to make yourself more informed on all of these different wine accessories so you can make an educated call vis what you want and what you do not.

One of the best wine accessories is the wine bucket. Wine buckets allow you to present your wine or bubbly in style, and so they are especially useful for when you are throwing parties or get togethers. There are even wine buckets that you can purchase that hook onto the side of your table, so even if your table is full and you don’t have any additional space you can still fit your wine bucket on there.

Another accessory is the corkscrew, which is really one of the necessary wine accessories because you want this to essentially open the bottle. There’s a plausibly endless variety when it comes to corkscrews, and so you can truly make your decision based totally on your own preference and style. Just make sure that it is one which is simple for you to handle and use so you do not have any difficulty when it’s time to pop open the bottle.

Wine glasses are also critical accessories, and you would like to ensure that you’ve got the right glasses for each different occasion. For example you may wish to have more casual wine glasses for when it is just you and your other half, and costlier, detailed glasses for when you have company. Wine racks are helpful if you have a big selection of wine sitting around your home, while if you often only purchase wine once in a while then you actually have no requirement for a wine rack for storage.

Wine racks are great because they give you a place to store your wine where you can show it off superbly and yet not take up any more space in your kitchen or den than you would like to. There are lots of great firms that offer wine accessories, and so you can really go out and have a chuckle when you’re looking round for wine accessories to add to your collection.

Fine wine is expensive and relatively fragile but ages superbly in the sort of conditions found in underground cellars.  Most wine storage systems attempt to replicate this environment as closely as possible for a really healthy wine.  There are a number of companies who will cellar wine for you, but if your wine is intended for consumption, off-site storage has its drawbacks. You can’t just pop in and retrieve the bottles you want when you want and there are delivery charges each time you put in or take out—costs which soon mount up.

As a result, where space affords, most wine lovers find it more convenient to keep their wine at home and the bottle opener handy. Wine should be kept at a cool constant temperature in the dark, so for those of us lucky enough to have proper cellars, storing your wine in a wine rack will provide close to the ideal conditions.  That’s especially true with cork-sealed bottles which are best stored horizontally rather than upright.Humidity is also an important factor because it helps keep the cork in good condition. In a humid cellar a sound cork can comfortably last for around 70 years.

For most of us city dwellers, though, where living space is at a premium, a cellar is not available.  In that case a wine cooler or wine cabinet is the most versatile and affordable way of storing wine at home. Temperature-controlled storage conditions of some kind are a necessity as the vast majority of homes in the UK are not air conditioned, and during summer ambient temperatures can reach as much as 30° C. Wine coolers come in several different shape and sizes, ranging in price from the relatively cheap to the enormously expensive.Some are little more than adapted refrigerators, while the top of the range models are quality pieces of furniture designed with wine storage in mind.

The right glassware is an integral part of the wine appreciation. t’s true that you can get wine in cans or cardboard cartons and perhaps there may come a time when we drink wine through straws.Hopefully that day is a very long way off, because that would ruin many excellent wines and put the corkscrew makers out of business!

Good glassware (not necessarily expensive glasses)   is central to the enjoyment of a good wine.In fact, very expensive glassware is often not a sensible choice as the designs tend to have long stems and a high centre of gravity.A glass filled with wine is inherently unstable and there can’t be anyone who hasn’t tipped over the occasional glass during a conversation or meal.Wine glasses will break and there’s nothing you can do about that, aside from buying glasses that are fairly sturdy and reasonably priced.

A good wine glass ideally it should be made of glass. It should be perfectly clear with no tints or opaque colours because apart from just holding the wine, decent glassware should also display it. The true deep colour of a wine can be a beautiful sight in a clear, clean glass just as a range of bottles can be impressive in a well constructed wine rack.A glass should also enhance and preserve the wine’s bouquet. Good wine glasses are narrower at the top than at the bottom to concentrate the aromas of the wine. Experienced wine drinkers swirl the wine in the glass before taking the first sip to release more of its bouquet.

So if you plan to buy wine-related gifts this Christmas, any decent collection of wine glasses will do the trick. The only truly unacceptable wine glass is the one most associated with the high life in popular culture and the cinema - the saucer-like champagne glass - guaranteed to make the wine go flat in record time. They are perfect for a shrimp cocktail starter, but otherwise for champagne and sparkling wines use a flute.