Clare Maxfield with Glenn Ridge_2606
G: 11 to 10. Image consultant Clare Maxfield joins us to talk about wine etiquette.
How are you Clare?
C: I’m really good, Glenn.
G: I would have thought wine etiquette would have been that if we are talking wine you would have brought some wine in?
C: Do you know what? I was considering that, but I was considering the hour of the day it is. I thought, maybe not.
G: 12 o’clock somewhere.
C: I know it is. Not here.
G: Not the right time. It’s got to be somewhere.
Wine etiquette. Now this is a very interesting subject.
C: Wine etiquette has been around forever. It’s almost one of the first etiquettes to start because it is all about how we exist and you know, work with each other but it is still very important today.
G: What are you talking about here? Are you talking about for example, my idea of wine etiquette is if I go to someone’s place, I always take the worst bottle of red because I have to get rid of it somehow.
C: And you know how I was having you out for dinner next week? I think we’re going to cancel that one.
Wine etiquette for me is about when you take a gift to someone, what kind of gift and what you have to expect them to do with that gift or not do. It’s also what glass to put it in, how to serve it to someone, where to pair it with meal.
So there is a whole lot around wine etiquette. It’s not just the case of popping down to the local Bottle O and picking up a bottle of wine.
G: I disagree. What if I take a good bottle of wine and think – “this would be really nice” and so I taste it with some friends and then they don’t open it. Do I have the right to say this “Listen, I want my wine back home.” I’ll come and get a bottle of Ben Ean (moselle – a popular wine in the ‘70’s),and replacing it during the week, would it be nicer that way?
C: Well, you are going to struggle finding a Ben Ean. No. And you don’t want to be taking it back. But what I would be recommending, if you’ve found a bottle that you think is absolutely exceptional…
G: Yeah
C: And you’ve taken along, and let’s say, it’s a really heavy red and they are doing a nice light fish dinner that requires a nice light white (wine) then what you might say at the end: “look, can we just try this, because I brought this along to share with you guys. I really want to share it with you.” So there’s nothing wrong in having that approach of explaining you want to share and not saying: “I can’t stand what you’re drinking, can you open mine?”
G: Please, quickly. What about for example, if you have what you think is a good bottle of wine and you take it there and when they opened it, it’s gone off?
C: Well then it goes…
G: Should I be embarrassed or should I think: “Oh well, that’s luck of the drawer.”
C: If it has a cork in it, and not many wines have cork in them anymore, there is a chance it may go off.
G: Uh-huh
C: And so that is almost the luck of the draw and that’s just unfortunate. If it has got a screw top which doesn’t have the same finesse in opening it, but it keeps the wine better longer and it doesn’t taste any good, well that’s just bad choice.
G: Okay, so that is bad luck.
C: Yeah.
G: That’s just the way it goes.
C: Yeah.
G: What about glasses? What should we serve – wine in?
C: Okay, now.
G: They are changing all the time though. Youngies, they are doing it differently now.
C: They are. And in fact, I was reading an article the other day where some of the regions in France on champagne, some of the big houses are actually taking wine to more of a champagne more of red wine stemless glass. Interesting. I am still studying more on that.
G: So vegemite glass are we talking about there?
C: Well, more than a vegemite glass. Maybe a Nutella. But what you want to have is your red wine glass.
What you want to have is a really big bowl to it because you want the aromas to go on the glass in the very small opening so that your nose catches all those flavour.
For white wine, you want it more kind of a tulip shaped and your champagne, very long and skinny to grab all those carbonated bubbles.
G: Yeah. Is there anything wrong with putting a straw in a champagne bottle? A couple of straws maybe?
Hey, on a serious note, what do you think…? So how do you take a bottle of wine to someone’s place and it’s a nice dinner and everything…, nice night, they don’t get to open your wine and then all of a sudden you invite them back to your place a couple of weeks later and they bring your bottle of wine back – It’s that having being a cheapskate
C: No. You know what? I actually got some friends of mine who do something similar to that. If I go to their place with the wine that doesn’t get opened, they will put my name on a tag, and when I go there, they will pull it out because – they’re you go, I want to share it with them.
I sort of say, if they will bring it back, yes you could sit there and go “it’s a little bit tight.”But If I’ve taken a wine, it’s a wine I want to drink. So, I’d be happy to see it come back.
G: But if it’s a wine I want to get rid of, then, I’d make sure we would not open that one on that night and take it back. We could have this wine taken back between couples for…
C: It would be a bit of a boomerang wine for a while there.
G: Alright. Well, we got to keep our eye. There is etiquette and it doesn’t have to be snobby to have wine etiquette then?
C: No, no. And look – you sort of see people who are tasting with wine. And you think “what are they doing? Slurping and sucking it and spitting it out?”
And uhmm… So all that they are doing is just came to know the wine but taste it. And do you know the most important thing is drink what you like.
G: And if you enjoy, do it.
C: Yes.
G: See you Clare.
C: See you Glenn.
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