Wine guide :  a useful tool to help you find your way in the complex wine world

Whether you are new to the world of wines, or you are an old hand at handling the, at times quite complex, matter of wines; a wine guide always helps you in knowing how you are faring at the altars of Bacchus. A good wine guide is exactly that - a guide, that gently points to the things that you should and should not be doing to that glass of wine.

Lets begin with the actual process of buying. Before you set out to the nearest store to stock up on the stuff, its always wise to jot down the varieties that you would like to have in your den. Will it be all white, all red, all sparkling, or a heady mix of all? What quantities should you begin with? Do you have a sufficient and correct place to keep them? This is a critical time when its good to have a wine guide who can hold hands and show you around.

Be patient while you shop. Look at how the wine bottles are stacked in the stores. Are they kept directly under the sun, or are they being "stunned" by freezing cold? Are the corks properly placed? Also, quite a few wine  shops provide you with the facility of tasting the wine before you buy. This is also an opportune time to try out stuff from exotic lands - these days, its quite easy to find wine coming from far-off places such as Chile, New Zealand, Italy, et al. And there is a rich diversity of varietals in both red and white wines. Be patient while scouring the market, and let your intuition be your wine guide; you might stumble across that particular wine that really brings you heavenly bliss!

If you envision becoming a serious collector of wine, its best to start with a wine cellar immediately. With less ambitious plans, however, you might be better off by allocating a special space in your den that does not get direct
sunlight, is steadily cool (say about 55 to 65 degrees farenheit) all twenty-four hours, and guides your wine treasure to graceful ageing naturally.

How you serve your treasure to your friends can make or break the quality of the wine. The thumb rule is to chill white and sparkling wines - may be around thirty minutes in the freezer immediately before serving should do the trick. Red wines give their best performance when at room temperatures. Let your judgment be your guide in these matters - for example, a very full-bodied red wine "might" best be slightly chilled, and a complex rich white wine would like to be served at room temperatures, in order for it to
give out its aromas with maximum effect. The fine art of uncorking a bottle too might be intimidating at first instance, but after a few attempts, you should be able to handle it quite well.

As important as the choice of wine that you buy, is the glassware used to serve it. Not everybody would be able to buy Riedel - the best glassware there is - but its best to be guided by certain ground rules, especially if the wine that is going to be poured has an expensive tag. Tulip-shaped glasses are the favoured ones. Red wine glasses have a larger and wider rim than white wine glasses. Sparkling wine glasses are slender and tall, and better known as Champagne flutes.

Its always a problem to handle wine that is left over after the party is finished. Wines guide you with their smell and look automatically after some time has elapsed. White wines have the ability to sustain their character for about four days at the maximum; red wines cannot do so beyond two. Though inexpensive devices exist that help extend the life of the wine, its never beyond a few days.

There is a huge knowledgebase available in the libraries and the internet for the wine enthusiast to learn more and more about this very exotic liquid of the gods. Every wine producer with a presence on the web have their own
wine guide that distills years of experience in a few sheets; and it takes immense interest and dedication to build up expertise on the subject.
 

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