How to serve wines at the table- wine bon ton

How to serve wines at the table- wine bon ton

Small secrets to use at home to serve wine in an elegant way: the choice, the order and most of all the way of serving

 

Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The first problem is obviously the choice of wines. Real wine lovers decide first on the bottles and after on the food to be matched but usually the menu is chosen first.
As for food with wine too the main rule of table etiquette is that there must be a crescendo of intensity. Obviously lighter white wines to begin with followed by the more robust and powerful ones or young reds. Sometimes it can happen that a young red is served before a great white. It is not a mistake but the underlining of the intensity on the nose of what is in the glass.
For red wines the order is based on age with small exceptions connected to the structure of the wines. Sometimes in fact the deepness and the length of a great Barolo or a great Brunello force a change in the usual rule , so these get served after older wines that are though less intense. The temperatures go from 8°C for sparkling wine, to 10°C for white and rosé, to reach 18°C for young red wines and 20°C for aged reds. To this general rule are the exceptions of desert wines, which are served at the end of the meal. Sometimes are served cooler so as to not overdo the sweetness.
However it is advisable to not put wines from your kitchen fridge on the table, a sit goes to 4-6°C , a sit is not advisable to keep wines at length in the house fridge a sit slowly “kills

them”. Much better to use a glacette (wine cooler)and cool the wine at the last moment. Never but never use the blast chiller which creates a shock able to ruin a forever the aromatic richness. On the other hand, when there is the need to warm red wines at the last minute, the heat from the flames in the fireplace , or worse still the microwave oven are extremely damaging.

Obviously the bottles must be opened and tasted before sitting at the table so as to avoid unpleasant surprises such as a corked wines. This operation must be brought forward for older wines. Better to open them the evening before and possibly pour them into a decanter so as to get rid of the sediment on the bottom. When the decision to taste an older bottle of wine is sudden the decanter does become an indispensable instrument.

According to the wine serving etiquette it is better not to put the bottles on the table but to exhibit them on a table nearby lining them in the order in which they will be served.

 

At the beginning of the meal, before serving the wines water must be poured out. Still according to the same etiquette the goblets must be filed for one third and then served again.

To avoid drops of wine on the table cloth a drop-stop is definitely the best means. It is not expensive and even the less expert give a good show.
Wine must be served to the guest from the right. The glasses to be used during the meal must also follow the same order right to left.

First the ladies and then the gentlemen. The order is the same as for food and is based on the importance and the age of the guests, the last must be the younger or the owners. When there are many wines and it is not possible to put a glass for each one. It is best to ask the guests to pour away the left over the wine into a container (generally a

ceramic jug) before pouring out a new wine.
Too many wine serving rules? Scared of getting it wrong? Practically speaking everything is a lot easier than what it seems reading this description. All you have to do it try!