‘Wine shuts down': Nobody wants that at a party
A misstep or two, and the night's notes could turn sour. But these easy steps will help ease wine anxiety and make the evening's tasting experience more enjoyable.
Bobby Stuckey, a master sommelier and co-founder of Colorado's Frasca Hospitality Group, says the biggest mistake hosts make when serving wine is they don't taste it before pouring it for guests.
'You're hosting, you're busy making sure everyone's comfortable, and you just open a bottle of wine and pour it,' explains Stuckey. 'It doesn't matter if it's $1,000 bottle or a $20 bottle, there is a chance it has this cork taint. You just want to smell and taste the wine.'
A wine with cork taint, commonly referred to as being 'corked,' often has a wet-cardboard or moldy aroma and could taste bitter or stale. The taint is caused when a chemical compound, 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA), interacts with bacteria or fungi in the wine bottle's cork.
Carlin Karr, director of wine and beverage at Stuckey's restaurants — including Michelin-starred and James Beard Award-winning Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder — believes roughly 1 in 10 wine bottles are off in taste, or corked.
'Taste each bottle before your guests arrive,' says Karr. 'Make sure every bottle tastes perfect for your guests and that the wine is at the perfect temperature for your guests when they arrive.'
Karr and Stuckey both agree that wines aren't being served at their optimal temperatures at dinner parties. They say white wines are being served too cold, while more full-bodied reds are being poured too warm.
'You want that white to be expressive,' says Stuckey. 'If it's too cold, if it's almost freezing, like, it's going to really tighten up. The wine shuts down. Let that come closer to the red wine temperature.'
Conversely, they say, red wines should be served at a temperature closer to the temperature they're stored in a wine cellar. Karr says 60 degrees Fahrenheit is roughly the ideal temperature to drink most wines.
Karr also describes red wine as having an 'arc of enjoyment.' When a bottle of red wine is opened, it begins its climb to peak taste as it's exposed to more oxygen.
'Wine is alive. You have to think of it like a living, breathing thing,' explains Karr. But, she says, it will reach its summit, and then quickly reach a downslope if it gets too warm and begins oxidizing from sitting out too long.
'One of the biggest errors that people make with wine at home is they over-decant red wine, or they decant wine way too early, especially with older red wines,' she says, referring to the moment when wine is poured from one container into another — typically from the bottle into a carafe.
'What ends up happening is that older red wine, or even like maybe a 10-year-old red wine, is sitting in this big decanter for hours.
'It actually gets too much air and so it kind of dies in the decanter, and by the time it goes into the glass when you're enjoying it with guests, it's kind of gone.'
She says the ideal time to open a bottle of red wine is just as food is being plated in the kitchen.
'You want to have it right before you're putting the food on the table,' she says.
'If I'm cooking all the food, I task my husband with decanting the wine. And so while I'm serving up the food, he's doing that.' And, she adds, if hosts have larger-bowled Burgundy wine glasses, those work exactly like a decanter.
The best way to make your wine-hosting duties easier, according to Stuckey and Karr, is to give your guests one glass for all the various wines you're serving.
'Don't overthink it,' says Stuckey. 'Give everyone one glass. If they're going white, red, back to white … just have one glass.
'Once there's wine in that glass, it's ready to be used to drink. We say that it's 'been prepared.' Don't make your life too complex by trying to have an extra glass for each wine.'
Karr agrees.
'Let everyone just drink out of one glass. They'll be fine, and you don't need to rinse with water in between. Wine is the perfect rinse.'
And her last hosting suggestion: drink more Champagne.
'Welcome everyone with Champagne,' she says. 'Give them a glass of bubbles. It is the perfect thing to excite the palate.'
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