8 Mistakes you might be making when drinking wine

Although you may think – how can you hold a wine glass wrong? There is actually a right and a wrong way of doing so. Hold the glass by its stem with your thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Why does this matter you are thinking? Well by doing this you do not heat the bowl of the glass, allowing for the wine to stay cooler.

Has a wine snob told you to always buy corked bottles? Thought so! In the past, yes a screw top potentially meant a cheap bottle but in 2017 that’s not the case. Winemakers are starting to move away from their traditional methods, meaning that the screw top you said no to, may well be the best bottle of wine you could have ever tasted.

Wine is not a pint of beer; you do not need to fill it right to the top. Pour less wine into your glass, swirl it and let the wine breathe. By swirling your wine, you allow the wine to release more of its aromas helping you to appreciate it even more.

We all do it, buy because of the brand or the label. It happens in every industry whether it’s the new Rolex or Hugo Boss top. But when it comes to wine avoid doing that at all cost. We are all different and enjoy different flavours, buy the wine which you like the taste of most and not the label. That Australian red your friend is drinking tastes completely different to the South African Red you may like.

The wine market is a very competitive place; there is a vast array of wines covering many regions and countries – Why do you think all good restaurants have wine sommeliers?  Ask them for their advice, tell them what price you would like to spend, a region if you have one and they will find a wine which will be suited to you.

A lot of people will say drink a red wine with red meat or a white wine with fish but these are guidelines which are useful when you first start out drinking different wines. It is ok to move away from these rules with certain dishes – Take Tuna steak for example, this will pair very nicely with a light red or a steak could pair with a dry white. Experiment and find pairing which you enjoy, we are all different and enjoy different tastes.

We are all guilty of being poured a wine and drinking it down without even thinking about what we are drinking. Instead start to think about the wine you are drinking, where is it from? What type of grape was used? What do or don’t I like about this wine? By thinking about these questions you will slowly learn about the wines you drink and start to understand what wines you like and why.