Five myths about wine dispelled
Wine has intrigued man for centuries. From being drank from barrels by the Vikings and English soldiers, it has now become a refined man’s drink. It’s not the sort of drink that is chugged down like beer, but it is something that can be enjoyed and appreciated.
There are a number of myths about wine, considering that a lot of people are self proclaimed sommeliers! We shall discuss a few of them here.
Myth #1: Wine will go bad if kept open for more than a day.
This is the most audacious myth ever. It has been claimed that wine will turn into vinegar if kept uncorked for more than a night. This is definitely not true. This sort of rumor has, in fact, led a lot of people to actually throw away very good wine thinking that it has gone bad. And a lot of people just don’t open wine bottles with the impression that they might not be able to finish it and that it will be a waste.
Myth #2: drinking wine will increase your chances of living longer.
Alcohol intake of any kind will only harm your liver. If you chug down wine in liters and expect to live a hundred years, you are very much mistaken. It has been found that wine does have certain ingredients which help in preventing clogging of arteries and also help keep the skin young. But you can get the same ingredients from a glass of grape juice, only there will be no alcohol in it to puff up your cheeks and cause liver cirrhosis.
Myth #3: uncorking a bottle of wine will help it ‘breathe’
It is true that you need to let your wine breathe. But simply uncorking a bottle and expecting it to do so is not right because the mouth of the bottle is too narrow to be of sufficient help. You need to use a decanter and let it stretch its ‘legs’… now I am sure you lost me!
Myth #4: If ‘legs’ are noticed in the wine, it is of high quality
Legs or tears are the droplets which will slowly stream back into the glass when you swirl your wine around. A more pronounced stream only shows that the alcohol content in the wine is high. It does not in any way show that your wine is of high quality.
Myth #5: The smell of the cork can tell you a lot about the quality of the wine
The smell of the cork is in no way related to the quality of wine. You might have been offered the cork by your waiter or sommelier at some restaurant, but they do this just to let you know that the cork is undamaged and not tampered with. If your cork is damaged, you can ask for another bottle since your wine is most probably doctored. And one more thing, you also should try to read the date on the cork. That date should match with the one on the bottle. This will show that the bottle has never been uncorked since it was bottled.
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