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155 pages

English

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Everything you need to know to live properly in the world of wine - from how to properly how a glass to how to toast at a wedding to how to properly evaluate wines in a restaurant. Contains many educational Appendixes on related topics such as how to read wine labels from major wine producing regions around the world, glossary of terms for winemakers, and wine poetry.

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Etiquette

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Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	05 septembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781456604967
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0498€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Wine Etiquette Guide
Your Defense Against Wine Snobbery
by
Chuck Blethen – Vigneron in Residence
Jewel of the Blue Ridge Vineyard
Marshall NC

Copyright 2011 Chuck Blethen,
All rights reserved.

Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0496-7

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the years of winemaking and wine drinking with friends, family and business associates.

Special thanks to my wife, Jeannie, for her help and hours spent tasting, learning, and building our wine room. She couldn't resist reading my second edition with a red pen in hand, and when she was done, the top of the book bristled with little red tabs! This third printing contains her careful proofreading corrections.

To my son, Brian, I offer my gratitude for his companionship in wine making, mead making, beer making and all the work that goes into those processes. His sense of humor has kept me laughing at myself, and our many mistakes, as we traveled the path of becoming good brewers and winemakers.

My Australian friend, Peter Went, was kind enough to read my book and write the foreword to the Wine Etiquette Guide. I give him my gratitude as well.

I was assured that there had been no trees unnecessarily sacrificed in the proofreading process although there may have been some electrons temporarily inconvenienced.
Foreword
The consumption of wine in the 21 st Century may seem greatly removed from the accidental discovery of fermented grape juice during the Neolithic period. Scholars have shown that wine has always been revered as more than a simple beverage. If there is a hierarchy of drinks, then surely wine is at the top!

Ancient civilizations reserved a special place for wine no doubt due to its initial rarity, effect and safety. Wine drinking was indicative of civilization and refinement. From the earliest days, the consumption of wine was associated with rituals and etiquettes which enhanced the enjoyment of this most complex and variable liquid.

The pleasures of wine are visual, olfactory and gustatory. Chuck Blethen’s guide explains the modern conventions for the enjoyment of the multitude of wine styles available to today’s consumers. In truth, these behaviours are the result of an evolution through thousands of years of experience.

All aspects of wine etiquette have been explained. From the selection of a suitable wine and removal of the stopper through to serving temperature, glass shape and size have been discussed with clarity. Here is a concise yet comprehensive guide to the appreciation of wine.

Wine is consumed in many contexts. The appropriate etiquette may vary according to the situation. Chuck has considered the possibilities. Readers will feel comfortable in any wine setting, from a formal dinner function to a casual wine tasting at a winery.

Chuck has presented his work in an entertaining and encouraging manner. The reader will not only learn much about wine and its interaction with food, but will be stimulated to try more varieties and styles from the wonderful world of wine.

Peter M. Went - BSc(Hons), BAppSc(Wine), DipEd
Lecturer and Winemaker
Hunter Institute of TAFE
New South Wales
Australia
What is Wine Etiquette & Why is it Important?
"There is no accomplishment so easy to acquire as politeness, and none so profitable."
- George Bernard Shaw
Etiquette is defined as those rules that govern social behavior, and they include socially acceptable rules of behavior to be used by all members of a given society on every social interaction, from saying “excuse me” when you cough to handling unruly children in the supermarket.

Good manners and use of proper etiquette are a manifestation of your personality. These are not legal rules and they don't have to be followed - but it is these rules that help to keep order in society.

Telling someone thank you for picking up something you’ve dropped, or letting someone get in front of you in your driving lane, can make a person perk up and smile for the rest of the afternoon. Everyone is affected by your etiquette skills whether they are good or bad.

Etiquette comes from the French word "etiquette" and literally means "ticket." The rules and regulations set down by the court in France were written on tickets and posted in castle courtyards for all to observe and obey.
Wine Etiquette
“In victory you deserve champagne, in defeat you need it”
- Napoleon
Assuming that you have mastered good table manners and learned all about food etiquette (if not, see Appendix A), you are prepared to move on the next level of social sophistication – wine etiquette.

Wine is often the beverage of choice at a dinner party, yet frequently the hosts, as well as the guests, do not have a basic knowledge of wine etiquette & protocol. Some etiquette rules are throwbacks to that stuffy, bygone era when you could not enter the best restaurant in town without a coat and tie. However, there is an explicit relevance to the etiquette of wine.

To be clear, there are oenophiles, those foremost connoisseurs of fine wine, and there are wine lovers, or those who just appreciate wine. The former tend to be more severe in their treatment of wine. The basic tenets of wine etiquette and consumption that follow are for those of us who enjoy a glass or two now and then, perhaps even collect and own a small wine rack or cellar and want to enhance our knowledge, appreciation and, above all else, enjoyment of wine.

Have you ever sat across the table from someone who has atrocious table manners? Like someone who was eating mashed potatoes with their fingers? That is how a well-mannered person with good wine etiquette skills views a person who ignores proper wine etiquette. My intention in writing this book is to provide the reader with sufficient information about wine etiquette to be able to be seen as a well-educated person around wine – not as a person eating mashed potatoes with their fingers.
What is Wine?
“Wine gives strength to weary men”
- Homer
Wine is usually fermented grape juice. You can make consumable wine from almost any non-toxic fruits, vegetables, leaves, bark, wood, roots, flowers, grains, seeds, pods, honey, and leaf or flower buds. Wine can also be made from sap, nectar, moss, lichen, fungus, algae, seaweed, corn silk, coconut milk, germinated seeds, animal blood, and even animal urine. When I refer to wine in this book it will be the grape variety.

The first mention of wine in recorded history dates back to 5000 BC. The popular drink of the time was mead – honey wine (See Appendix F). As populations grew, so did the demand for mead. The available honey to make mead was seasonal and was fixed by the availability of wild honeycombs in the forests. The scarcity of honey lead to the discovery that grape juice could serve as a source of sugar for the wild yeast to convert to alcohol. Grapes could be planted in large quantities and had a broad geographical growing area. There is a bottle of wine made by the Romans in 325AD that was unearthed in Germany in the late 1800s. There are many references to wine in most religious texts and in ancient writings from all cultures around the world. You can find dozens of books written on wine history alone. You only need to know that it is an old alcoholic beverage that has a long and colorful history that has been ingrained into the cultures of most countries around the world.

Wine consists of water, alcohol, sugar, various proteins, coloring agents, flavors, tartaric acid, malic acid, lactic acid, citric acid, tannins, yeasts, clarifiers, sulphites, and certain types of bacteria. That is a lot of components for a beverage that is thought of as an agricultural product. However, over the centuries, wine has been integrated into our culture.

One should be aware that there are those people who have allergies to wines, or various chemical components of wine. It has been estimated that about 10% of the population at large is allergic to the sulphites in wine. Their allergic reactions can range from a mild headache to a migraine headache to severe throat swelling necessitating a trip to the emergency room of a hospital. Good commercial winemaking methodologies require that wineries have various sulphite compounds added to wine during the fermentation and aging processes. Primarily, it is for safety reasons – small concentrations of these sulphite compounds prevent certain bacteria from growing in the wine that can cause the wine to have a bad taste.

Some bacteria can actually have a positive effect on wines. For example, malolactic fermentation is caused by bacteria that exists in all grape juice in trace quantities. Some wineries do not deal with malolactic fermentation prior to bottling. There would actually be a danger of bottles exploding if malolactic fermentation were allowed to proceed in the bottle. The presence of sulphites prevents this from happening in commercial wines. Sulphites also inhibit the growth of yeasts in the wine. Most experts agree that sulphites also prevent browning of grape musts during the winemaking process and enhance the flavor of the finished wine.

Overall, the addition of sulphites is a good thing in the winemaking process. Just keep in mind that some people cannot drink wine because of the sulphites or other chemical components in wine. Also keep in mind that some people are more allergic than others to the same concentration of these chemical compounds. Most commercial wineries today have sulphite concentrations ranging from 30 parts per million (ppm) to 100 ppm at the ti