Do you follow this wine etiquette?

It has nothing to do with a wine label. It does, however, involve pressing questions such as: should a bottle of wine that’s been given to you always be opened straight away, are you allowed to bring your own bottle to a restaurant, and how should you (not) behave at a wine tasting? Whether you’re a wine expert or a wine lover, with this wine etiquette, you’ll always be in the clear.

Wine etiquette

Wine etiquette can be about storing, serving and pairing wine with food, but we’re focusing on the social aspect. Following the wine etiquette below will bring you at least as much wine enjoyment. To start with the most pressing wine question right away: what are the rules when it comes to that brought-along bottle?

Cold = open

You’ve cooked a delicious meal, selected matching wines and then your guests arrive. With a bottle of wine. Do you drink that one, while your expensive Bordeaux was decanted an hour ago? No, says Beatrijs Ritsema, the godmother of good manners, emphatically. ‘If friends brought a bottle of bath oil, you wouldn’t immediately get into the bath either, would you?’ So the gift goes into the wine cellar, she advises. That sounds logical, but it doesn’t always work that way. If you receive a chilled bottle of white wine, it’s pretty obvious that it’s meant to be opened. Serve it as an aperitif, and then move on to your carefully composed wine pairing.

One lipstick mark

Lipstick is beautiful, but not all around the wine glass. Keep it neat. Drink from one spot, and place your glass down so that the lipstick mark faces you. That way, you ensure your glass stays as clean as possible, because old lipstick on the glass is horrifying. Ever heard this tip, too: lick the rim of your glass first, so the lipstick doesn’t stick. In a restaurant or café, this doesn’t seem particularly appetizing to me; perhaps test it at home first?

Bring it to the restaurant

Another contentious issue: can you bring your own wine to a restaurant? Not if it’s a five-litre jerrycan of cheap wine, but a special bottle can certainly come along for dinner. Check with the restaurant beforehand and ask whether they charge corkage, a fee to compensate for the money they miss out on because you’re not ordering wine from them. If you bring a rare or very expensive wine, it’s very gracious to let the sommelier taste some of your cellar treasure as well. Gracious—a nice word, really. You can certainly say ‘How gracious of you’ to the staff when they take back a corked wine (yuck!) and open a new bottle.

Best wine first

‘What are you drinking? Wine?’ You look at your wine rack and, sure enough, a superb Chilean wine is winking at you—one you’d actually been saving to enjoy together sometime. But you’re not going to serve that sour swill from your Christmas gift basket to your guests, are you? No, you can’t do that, the expert is uncompromising. ‘The rule is indeed: first the best wine, then the slightly less good wine, and so on, descending to the level of plonk.’ Let that be a lesson to you: always make sure you have delicious wine for drinks and nibbles in stock for unexpected visitors. Get a box right away, because it’s bound to run out.

Slurp away

Looking for a pleasant house wine for the wine rack at home? You’ll find it at a wine tasting. Be sensible and don’t wear anything white. And go easy on the perfume or aftershave—you don’t want everyone to smell only you (now, do you?). Don’t think the person hosting the tasting is being stingy: it’s normal to pour only a tiny amount, a sip or two, for tasting.

Let the wine roll around your mouth, and you may even slurp it a little—a habit you should immediately unlearn when you’re outside. It’s the only way to properly perceive all the wine’s aromas and flavours. Then spit the wine out again, otherwise after ten or so glasses you’ll be dancing hip-hop on the table with your underwear on your head, and your taste buds will lose their way if you’re too generous with the tasting. You can spit into a bucket—or, more elegantly, a spittoon or crachoir—which you pull towards you to discreetly let the wine flow into. So don’t spit on the floor, and be careful not to bend in front of people who are also making their way to the crachoir, or their Chardonnay will end up in your neck.

Chin-chin

And then there’s the toast: are you supposed to clink glasses or not? Some people consider it impolite, writes expert Beatrijs: ‘Refined gentlemen and ladies associate the sound of clinking glasses with drinking bouts, where alcohol flows freely amid the corresponding boisterousness.’ Raising your glass, briefly making eye contact and nodding is sufficient. But Beatrijs reassures us that in a small group, you can simply toast. And is there someone among you who doesn’t drink alcohol? They can join in too; with a glass of chocolate milk or apple juice, you can still wish everyone well. Cheers!

The stem is there for a reason

Of course, you hold the wine glass by the stem, not with your fingers around the bowl. You can even hold your wine glass by the base if you like. Only the queen may hold the bowl. Why? In the past, only members of the royal family had clean hands, so they couldn’t spoil the taste of the wine.

Also read:

• With this wine fridge, your favourite wine is always at the perfect drinking temperature
• Stop doing this: these 5 things go wrong with deviled eggs
• Being called morbidly obese on a terrace: there’s a lot of suffering

Quote source: Beatrijs