The Rules of Drinking Wine - To Break or Not to Break?

If you don’t know it already, there are A LOT of rules and guidelines out there on how to drink wine properly. But who wants to live life following some pretentious wine snob’s rules? Are they even worth following and if so, when? This post is for all of you rule breakers out there!

Wine is meant to be savored and enjoyed. So why are there so many rules about how to drink wine properly, what wine should and shouldn’t be paired with what food, and when it is and isn’t appropriate to drink certain wines? Some wine purists will tell you these rules are immutable and should never be broken. But where’s the fun in that? Let’s review some of these rules and decide if and when we should break them!

• Only cook with wine that you would enjoy drinking. Have you ever seen those bottles of cooking wine in the grocery store? If so, don’t you dare buy that horrid preservative-filled swill – there’s a reason why they’re always next to the vinegars on the store shelves! Any recipe that calls for wine will benefit greatly from using a good quality wine, one that you would readily drink with the meal. Also, you will get the added benefit of drinking a wine that complements the meal perfectly. Assessment: Never break this rule.

• Red wines should always be paired with red meat, and white wines with white meats. This is one of the rules I hear most often and generally, I think it’s good advice. I have rarely found a white wine that pairs well with red meat like steak or lamb; these cuts benefit greatly from the tannins and richness of red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. But I frequently find myself pairing red wines with white meats. For example, lighter reds such as Sangiovese (an Italian varietal that is the primary grape used in Chianti) or Pinot Noir pair perfectly with roast chicken or simply grilled fish such as salmon or tuna. Assessment: Break this rule whenever the spirit leads you to do so!

• Never put ice in wine to cool it off. Winemakers go to great lengths to ensure the wines they create are well-balanced, fresh, and flavorful. Putting ice in wine only serves to dilute and ultimately ruin perfectly good wines. As an alternative, stick the wine bottle in the freezer for 30 minutes or buy a wine sleeve chiller for $10 and use it to chill your wine in 15 minutes. If you can’t wait that long to cool off and drink your wine, seek help immediately because you have a drinking problem. Assessment: Never, EVER break this rule.

• Red wines should be served at 65 degrees and white wines at 55 degrees. This rule is a good one to follow if you want to really experience the wine as the winemaker intended. Serving a wine too cold can mute and hide flavors, while serving wine too warm can make the wine taste flabby and “hot”. That said, personal preference plays a role in serving temperatures. For example, my wife Laurie and I prefer our sparkling wines on the colder side (colder than what the experts would say is ideal – but that’s how we like it so that’s how we drink it!). Here’s my trick for serving wines at the proper temperature if you don’t have a wine refrigerator: put room temperature white wines in the refrigerator and pull chilled red wines out of the refrigerator about an hour before you plan to serve them. Assessment: Adhere to this rule in most cases, but exceptions are certainly allowed depending on personal preference.

• Rose wines are warm weather wines and best enjoyed in the summer. While it’s definitely true that there are few things better than a chilled rose wine enjoyed out on the deck on a warm summer day, rose wines can and should be enjoyed year-round! Some great food pairings, depending on the type of rose (i.e., light, medium, or full-bodied) include spicy foods, roasted chicken, lamb, or salmon. And a rose on the Thanksgiving table won’t disappoint either! Assessment: Break this rule anytime!

• Champagne and sparkling wines should be reserved for special occasions. Laurie and I break this rule almost every week of the year! What a shame to deprive yourself of some of the greatest wines of the world because you think you should only have them on special occasions. While we do reserve some of our more expensive champagnes and sparkling wines for special occasions, there’s rarely a week that goes by that we don’t enjoy a sparkler for an afternoon happy hour. The fact that you can find many great sparkling wines for less than $20 a bottle should provide an extra incentive for popping the cork more often. Assessment: Break this rule with abandon!

I’d be interested in hearing which of these rules you break regularly, or whether there are other rules for drinking wine that you have wondered about.