Got home tonight after doing some administrative stuff at the bar and was happy (as well as deliciously suprised) to find a forgotten bottle of ’06 Pauillac in my bag. I instantly remembered that I’d taken it with me a few days ago from 13. It had been with me in my bag since. And today, while I was out running errands and whatnot, it had been left in my old Jeep. It must’ve baked in that bag while I was in an hour-plus-long meeting with my business partner (and friend *that “friend” part was written just there on the off chance that he reads this post). Well, what to do with a hot bottle? And, indeed, it was a little hot when I took it out of my bag. At first, upon finding the bottle, I thought, “Oh, hell yes!” Then, I remembered how hot it had been all day and that this particular bottle had obviously been kept too warm for a significant period of time. “Cooking” of a wine (by the elements, not in your kitchen) is called “maderizing”. Interestingly enough, this is a term taken from the process of transporting old Madeira wine to ports of call. I’ll get into that later. This post is about “wine tips”. So, I discover a bottle of wine from a great producer (in this case, it was Rothschild) from a very famous region in Bordeaux, Pauillac. I felt the bottle with my hands… yep, it was pretty hot. So, back to the initial question: What to do with a hot bottle? This is the tip, in a nutshell. Upon opening the bottle I poured an oz or so into the glass and took a long, deep sniff. Dang! It was hot, not hot in temp but hot in alcohol. Nothing but alcohol was showing on this wine. But, I took a drink anyway… not bad at all, not at all maderized, but still, it was hot. So do I chill the bottle before consuming? Do I cool down a glass of it with an icecube? Hell know.I turn, instead to chemistry and physics. Here’s the tip: should you encounter a warmer than ideal bottle of wine simply pour the wine from the bottle into a glass at a high altitude,i.e. pour it into the glass from about six to eight inches above the glass. This serves to sufficiently aerate the wine (making a somewhat frothy elixir appear in the bowl of the glass). The process of aerating the wine works to cast away some of the alcoholic strength in the wine. I took a sip, and, sure enough, the alcoholic thrust had all but subsided. Now I was presented with a very nice wine of Bordeaux that had suffered through a period of warmth and yet, had emerged basically unscathed. I am drinking a glass as I right this. And… it is only getting better with every minute in glass. I corked the rest and I will revisit it tomorrow… probably after work, in the shower no less… By the way, a glass of wine in the shower is a wonderful sort of occupation that every living man and woman on earth should explore whenever the oppurtunity presents itself. A great wine to have in the shower is the declassified wine of Lappier Morgon’s called Raisons de Gaulois, a Gamay based wine that delivers beautiful earth and bright cherry fruit inflected with strawberry, raspberry and… believe it or not… dark chocolate.
Now, wine tip numero dos: I can personally vouch for this one. A night in Marfa, Texas with only one bottle of wine to drink by the pool at the Thunderbird Motel. And, it was corked. No wine shops open in Marfa (at any hour). So, what to do? The idea of not drinking from this bottle just isn’t an option. So, I made a make-shift decanter out of an ice bucket, decanted and inserted a large sheet of Saran Wrap into the bucket. 3o minutes later and my wife and I were enjoying a fine bottle of Chateau Margaux from an old vintage. Some chemical process within the makeup of the Saran Wrap (don’t ask me what it is) works with the bacteria that renders a wine “corked” and totally absorbes it. Fetch the Saran Wrap from the decanter (read: ice bucket or any other vessel you find) and your wine should be suitably clean and ready to drink.
Just two little tips I think you will probably, at some point in your wine life, find effective and, perhaps, life-saving.
Cheers!