The wine world is full of rules, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – particularly for people who are just embarking on their discovery of good vino. “It’s useful for a lot of people to have a structure to begin with,” says wine merchant Isabelle Webster of P&V Wine Merchants. “If that structure comes in the form of ‘pinot grigio is light and dry, pinot noir is light and fruity, shiraz is full-bodied and jammy’ – that’s fine.”
But not every rule is worth listening to, and some are little more than gatekeeping. “I think sometimes the rules keep people out or make people feel dumb, and that is the worst feeling in wine,” says Webster.
So how should we approach rules? Is it wrong when someone decants a young wine, or if they only drink preservative-free? “Rules are made for breaking. Learn them, understand them and then get rid of them,” says Webster.
With that in mind, here are her thoughts on some of the most popular wine rules.
There’s a correct food pairing for every wine
It’s often repeated that red meat goes with red wine, but it’s never wrong to simply follow your heart. “Drink what you enjoy with food that you enjoy,” Webster says. Ignore the hard and fast rules, but Webster has a “soft rule” to help you along. “I like to think about what the final condiment would be to a meal and find a tasting note in a wine and pair it like that instead,” she says. “Like cab franc’s really beautiful with lamb because it’s minty – that’s the kind of loosest way that I would ever suggest.”
Only drink from “proper” glassware
On wine shop shelves you’ll often see glassware made just for chardonnay or shiraz or burgundy. While it can be nice to have a range of glasses, your appreciation of wine likely isn’t going to hinge on the “right” glass. Rather, find one good-quality glass that you love and leave it at that. “I really enjoy drinking out of a square tumbler from Maison Balzac,” says Webster. “Choose a really beautiful glass that becomes like your coffee mug. I guarantee you’ll enjoy drinking out of that more than thinking how big your pinot glass needs to be.”
Serve wine at the correct temperature
Temperature absolutely affects the flavour of wine, so Webster has a few easy pointers. “Start with reds around 12 degrees and let them take you on a beautiful journey,” says Webster. “Your fridge is about 4 degrees and I like to drink whites around 8 – but just cup it with your warm hands until it’s around the temperature that you enjoy.” Like all the other rules to do with wine, though, these aren’t unbreakable. “I like a white wine in winter at room temp,” says Webster. “If you want a red wine on the beach in summer, great – grab a really light, chilled one.” Brown Brothers Tarrango is an example of a good one to take with you to the beach this summer.
Sulphur is bad
Sulphur is used in wine as a preservative and, while some people don’t care, others maintain that it’s wrong for health and style reasons. In general, you tend to find less sulphur in natural wine than traditional styles, where preservatives provide consistency. “Natural wine is like alchemy – you’re turning something into something else,” she says. “Conventional winemaking is like a really accurate science – you’re working with a set of hypotheses towards an outcome, and you’re going to take steps to get there. Neither of them are wrong, they are just different, and a good wine is a good wine.”
Save the decanter for old wine
“A decanter is like a time machine – it takes you to the second glass,” says Webster. “The wine’s been tight in a bottle and decanting allows oxygen to open up the flavours. It’s the same reason why we swirl a glass of wine.” Conventional wisdom says that only years-old wine needs decanting, but Webster’s happy to ignore that. “When I was working at Acme we used science beakers as decanters,” she says. “Dining out is expensive and if a table wants a beaujolais gamay decanted to feel special about spending $150 on a bottle of wine, who am I to say no to that?”
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Brown Brothers. Brown Brothers Tarrango is available now at Dan Murphy’s and Brown Brothers
