How to drink red wine: 5 tips

Red wine is a classic drink that can be consumed on many different occasions, with your friends one night out or simply at home, relaxing from the workday. However, as many other things, drinking red wine is a delicate art that has its own rules to follow. If you want to impress the people close to you with new interesting facts or with your manners, while drinking red wines like a classic such as Amarone, you should know about the basic knowledge of red wine etiquette. Here’s a few tips to follow, in order to drink your red wine more fashionably.

How to drink red wine

The delicate and subtle art of wine drinking etiquette is not easy, but once you will learn and master these few tips, everything will look much more simple and elegant. The drinking etiquette comprehends a few steps, such as learning how to open a bottle of wine and serve it to the others, or let it decanter, up to holding a glass of wine in the proper way.

How to open a bottle of wine

Before even learning how to drink a glass of wine, according to the proper etiquette, you should, most importantly, learn how to open a bottle of wine, in the most correct way.

• First of all, you should open your trust-worthy double edged corkscrew
• Use the small blade, in order to cut the foil, around the neck of the bottle, below the lower lip
• Insert the corkscrew at the exact center of the cork
• You should rotate the corkscrew around 6 half turns
• Lever the corkscrew to get the cork out of the bottle
• Finally, use a napkin, in order to clean the bottle from any sediment on the bottle

Decanter wine

Decantering some good wine is not only a very beautiful way to serve your wine, but it also has various benefits for the wine itself. In fact, decanting wines allows them to breathe more, enhancing the scent and the flavor, but also to separate the sediment from the liquid, especially with red wine. First of all, you should put the bottle upright, before opening it. Once you have opened it, tilt the bottle and slowly pour the wine in the decanter, avoiding the sediment. In the end, according to the type and the body of the wine, you should let it breathe for a while. For example, white wines like Bianco dei Leoni or sparkling white need less decanter time, in contrast to medium or full-bodied red wines, which will take more time to decanter, before you can taste and drink them.

Hold a glass of wine

There is a certain style in every movement, while drinking wine, and this includes also holding a glass of wine. The etiquette states that there are different ways to hold a glass of wine accordingly, in order to look better, but also to preserve the wine. You should use a wine glass with a stem, holding it by the base, pinching it by the base or the lower part of the stem. In particular, you should make contact with the stem with only your thumb and your forefinger, in order to be more gentle and delicate.

How to drink red wine without staining your lips

If you ever tried to drink red wine, while being on a night out, you may have encountered a few impractical issues, such as staining your lips. Drinking wine, especially red wine, can create this kind of problem, but there are some tips to follow, in order to avoid that.

• Firstly, you should know the wine that you will drink. In particular, you should choose a wine that has lower tannins. In fact, tannin, the substance that is present in grape skins, is the main cause of lip and teeth staining, so it should be the first thing to notice, whenever you choose a wine, if you don’t want to stain yourself.
• Another tip could be to always stay hydrated, drinking plenty of water in between your wine glasses, so that you can wash your mouth and avoid wine stains during your night, without renouncing your well-deserved red wine.