Funny drink, wine. Depending on what you do with a bottle it can either taste exactly the same as when you bought it, or appear radically different. If you cellar a wine it will change in nature, and if you serve it at a range of temperatures, with a range of different foods it alters again. Can you say the same for any other alcoholic drink? Cellaring wine means various things to various people. The term itself conjures images of dark, cobwebbed caverns loaded to the rafters with all forms of ancient and venerable liquid delight, carefully awaiting their day of reckoning. On the other hand, the wine cellar might be that little space behind the wardrobe, under the stairs, the house or the bed. It might even, God forbid, be in the living-room. In this age of high wine sophistication it has become fashionable to put those natty wooden wine racks on display in the lounge room, and then to fill them with all manner of wonderful wine (of course with the most expensive amongst them careefully placed on top). Personal experience suggests that these raks are most frequently located near the heater or fireplace, and in the more ostentatious rooms are even spot-lit with low voltage tracer beams. The idea, clearly enough, is to impress guests. However, the wine-wise spectator will immediaely realise the catastrophe at hand. Heat and light destroy wine. Wine has to be stored in the dark, which is why cellars are so dimly-lit. So if you haven’t the room to devote to a dark cellar, just keep your wine in boxes. Temperature is critical. Just as destructive as high temepratures are the changes from day to night, and from summer to winter. It’s extraordinary, but true to point out that if two bottles of the same wine were cellared in Brisbane and in Hobart, the chances are that the Brisbane wine will become ‘older’ and more developed sooner than the Hobart wine, simply because of the greater all-round temperature. So where does that leave you at home? Keep your wine in a well-insulated spot, preferably away from an external wall, heater, fireplace or air conditioner. If under the house is cool and dry in summer, it could be the answer. You can only do the best you can. All wine sealed with conventional wine corks should be stored on its side. I make the distinction of ‘conventional’ corks because wines with resealable corks with plastic tops or the screw-top caps can be stored upright. If a normal cork is allowed to dry out, wich occurs after a few weeks in an upright attitude, air gets in. If air gets in, so will the minute micro-organisms that can detroy wine. So the wine will not only be oxidised, but it runs the risk of microbioolical spoilage as well, which is usually fatal. So, if your wine cellar is like most others, and is dispersed over all corners of the house from bedroom to basment (should you be so lucky) take those three hints to heart. Keep those bottles dark, on their sides, and as cool as possible. Ten degrees Centigrade is ideal, but not always practical. Serving the drop is another interesting part of wine’s journey from ground to glass. You have cellared the wine correctly, you have presented it at precisely the right temperature, you have even left the red breathe for exactly the right time down to the millisecond, and by now you are getting very thirsty! Trouble is, the wine’s full of gunk. This could be embarrassing, for there’s no other wine in the house and the boss is due for dinner in five minutes. If you had the time, you could possibly browse through your library of old wine books and see that they all suggest pouring the wine through a couple of layers of hessian and into a decanter. Fantastic. Now where did you last put the hessian? Don’t panic. The hessian of the 1980’s is the coffee filter paper. Grab a couple and pour the wine through them, and into a clean decanter, or into another used bottle if no decanter can be found. All but the very finest sediment will remain in the paper. Then you can really relax. However, should you have more time to plan the whole affair, you cold do even better. If you have a bottle which you want to drink on a particular occasion, and you consider it old enough to have thrown a crust, take a look by holding it up to a light. See how fine the sediment is. The finer it appears, the longer it will take to settle. Then leave the bottle standing upright for two or three days. A few hours will do for a coarse sediment. Once the sediment is at the bottom, count how many people will be drinking the bottle, consider the size of the glasses you will use, and work out whether or not you can pour the whole bottle out in one fell swoop. If you can, just remember while you are pouring it not to tilt the bottle upright after every glass is poured, thereby shaking all the sediment right back in to the remaining wine. Keep it tilted throughout the entire operation at the lowest possible angle so as to prevent the contents from tipping out, unless of course you have firstly aimed it at a glass. If you question your ability to keep a steady had throughout this most delicate operation, buy one of those little wicker baskets designed exactly for that purpose. They also allow you not to have to pour the entire bottle at once. However more drastic measures may be required. For example, if there are only two glasses to fill at any one time, you will have to decant. After the bottle has been kept upright for the required period, and just before serving, open it and pour directly into a clean decanter. Only stop pouring when the sediment starts to enter the decanter. You can check on this by holding a cigarette lighter or a torch under the neck of the bottle as you pour, giving a better view. Don’t stop midway through the job – you will only mess up what remains in the bottle. A couple of final hints. Australians always try to over-fill their glasses – sometimes to the top. This has dire and unfortunate consequences when wine buffs pick up glasses and begin to swirl them around. It also prevents you smelling the wine, which takes away much of the pleasure. A rule of thumb is to fill the glass to its widest point, and always to try to leave at least an inch of empty glass at the top. And when you come to distribute the contents, it will dribble a lot less after each glass you pour if you give the bottle a sharp twist as you pull it away.
