Over the centuries, wine has attracted a large number of myths and strange practices, many of which are believed to work despite the fact that there is no logical basis for them to do so. An absolute belter is the notion that by placing a teaspoon into an opened bottle of champagne you can help it from becoming flat. Sadly, it doesn’t work either. However, the notion that by inserting a teaspoon into the neck of opened bottles of Champagne to preserve its effervescence was actually taken so seriously that the Interprofessionnal Committee of the Wine of Champagne actually tested it out. Having obtained six bottles of the same Champagne, they poured two glasses from each. Results were compared by sealing two bottles with a gas-tight stopper, inserting teaspoons into two of them, and leaving the final two opened. The bottles were all left for 24 hours in a refrigerator set at 11 degrees Celsius, before being tested again for carbon dioxide gas pressure. As you might imagine, the gassiest bottles were those with the gas seal, while there was no difference whatsoever between the bottles left open and those with teaspoons sticking out of them. Makes a nice story, though, even if the Interprofessionnal Committee of the Wine of Champagne were apparently a mite embarrassed that the word got out about their research. Other great wine myths include the apparent need to rotate all the bottles in your cellar each day, a process that would actually do more harm than good. Another myth that needs some serious debunking is that just because a wine has a gold medal on its label, it’s top quality. That, of course, is another story. On the same track, another equally misleading myth is that if a wine has ‘reserve’ written on its label, it’s (i) better than other wines from that maker or (ii) actually reserved on the basis of its quality for the winemaker’s or shareholders’ personal consumption. All the word ‘reserve’ usually means is that (i) the bottle is heavier, (ii) the label is larger, (iii) the wine is oakier and (iv) its cost is higher than any corresponding wine from that company.
