First of all may I thank everyone for their feedback so far. All constructive comments are important as they will help to shape and improve the site over the coming months. So keep on responding!
I intend to publish all responses every month for the benefit of all to see, but please let me know if you don't want me to mention you by name!
1 Hannah from Cardiff has asked what the terms 'tart' and 'flabby' mean
in relation to tasting wine:
A wine is described as 'tart' if it has too much acidity (tartaric acid). A
wine with too much acidity will make your mouth water. A wine is described
as 'flabby' if it does not have enough acidity to give it some backbone - it
would just taste light and weak in the mouth.
2 Geoff from Whitchurch has asked what's the difference between wines that
have been aged in oak and wines that have not:
A wine that has not been aged in oak will have no oak or vanilla flavours.
A wine that has been aged in oak will normally taste of oak or have a soft
vanilla flavour. So much depends on if the oak casks (called barriques) are
new or old and how long the wine has been left to mature in the cask. If the
casks are old they will impart a soft oaky flavour and will also slightly
soften the tannin in the wine. If the cask is new it will give a pronounced
flavour to the wine and will considerably help to soften the tannin.
A prime example of oak ageing is the Faustino V highlighted in the February
review.
3 Mark from Cardiff found the reviews to be helpful in deciding what
wines to purchase for a large family reunion.
4 Maria has also emailed to say that she tried the 'Argento' malbec and
rates it highly. In addition she said that Sainsbury's currently have this
wine on offer reduced from £4.99 to £3.99.
A number of emails received seem to cover the same general points, so I
will try to answer as many of them all in one go!
5 Why is red wine red?
Grapes used for making red wine are coloured red/black/purple. The colour
is extracted from the grape skins during the fermentation process, that's
how the wine gets its colour.
6 Do I have to decant wine before drinking?
Not normally. The whole idea of decanting ( transferring the wine from the
bottle into another container) is to prevent the sediment in the base of
the bottle getting into your glass. In order to avoid this you would tilt
the bottle and pour the wine carefully into a clean vessel taking care to
ensure that the sediment remains in the bottom of the bottle.
Decanting is normally only necessary with big, powerful red wines that
have thrown a sediment. All the wines reviewed to date are reasonably
young and will not need decanting.
7 Steve from Taffs Well asks: How long does red wine need to breathe for?
This is a very good question as there seems to be a lot of confusion over
this issue from many people.
Just by pouring wine it into the glass and gently swirling it around will
help to oxygenate the wine and as a result will help to release its
flavours more easily. It has been scientifically proven that a bottle of
wine once opened, only the wine in the neck area of the bottle is allowed
to breathe as it is the only area in contact with the air. So you would be
wasting your time waiting around expecting the entire bottle to breathe!
By pouring the wine into a clean glass/ceramic jug is another way of
exposing the wine to the air if you feel that this is necessary.
8 Mike from Barry has raised an interesting question in relation to serving
wine at 'room temperature'.
Many labels on the reverse of wine bottles say that you would need to serve
the wine at room temperature but what exactly does this mean?
As a general rule I always serve my red wines on the cool side, around 15-20
degrees celcius, but no too cold as this will prevent the wine from exhibiting its flavours. The problem I encounter while eating out/visiting friends is that they tend to serve the red wine entirely too warm despite my constant reminders.
9 Tom Saunders from Cardiff has emailed with a number of questions about
champagne bottle sizes:
Nebuchadnezzar - a very large bottle holding 20 x 75cl bottles
Jeroboam - 4 bottles
Rehoboam - 6 bottles
Methuselah - 8 bottles
Salmanazar - 12 bottles
Balthazar - 16 bottles
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