Maintaining Your Wine’s Coolness

Keeping Wine's Coolness, Bedore Tours

The same can’t be said for wine. Wine touts a reputation for culture and class, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that it has to be treated differently. From a wine becoming “corked” to the integrity of the flavor changing, you have to make sure that you take note of a few things so it is still what it should be when you actually open a bottle.

For continued storage at home, you really like to acquire a wine refrigerator where you can set the temperature. A regular fridge is too cold to store wine in for a substantial period of time, and having a fridge that is suited specifically for wine storage will keep all your vintages at the ideal temp for the duration of their shelf life.

If you’re on a wine tour with Bedore Tours and end up purchasing several bottles to take home, how do you keep the wine from being altered by the temperature in the car when the bottles are lying in the sun? If you’re going on a picnic excursion to the lake for the afternoon, what’s the best way to keep the wine chilled until you’re ready to open the bottle?

Always keeping it cool for a few hours.
When you’re only purchasing a couple of bottles and don’t have to keep the wine cool for hours on end, consider acquiring a neoprene wine tote. They’re not costly, and there are various readily available on amazon.com that you can check out, with different sizes, too. A number of the bags will hold a couple of bottles, and some will hold three. They’re compact and easy to carry around for the afternoon if you’re on a wine travel and don’t want the pair bottles that you obtain to go bad by leaving them in the car.

Keeping your wine for a few hours (or on a road trip.)
If you need the wine to stay great for quite a while, think about investing in a thermoelectric cooler (one made by Igloo or Coleman, for example). These keep the wine (or other beverages you want chilled) at a good temp by plugging in the cooler, or utilizing your battery outlet in the car as you travel.

For delivering wine to friends or sending it home.
It’s a great idea to invest in styrofoam wine shippers that keep the bottles protected when you have to ship wine. Because they’ll prevent the bottles from moving around inside the box and potentially cracking, they’re also handy.

For getting the wine bottles cool rapidly.
What occurs if you have friends get there for dinner and you neglected to have the wine chilled and all ready for serving? It’s pretty handy to buy a wine cooler sleeve to have on hand. Basically, you buy it and freeze it for some hours ahead of time, and then you can pull it out of the freezer, slip the wine bottle inside, and it will cool the wine in just a matter of minutes. Not a bad strategy to buy one and have it in the deep freezer so it’s ready whenever you need it.

Keeping the bottle on its side allows the wine to be touching the cork, and this is important so the cork doesn’t dry out. If it dries out, your bottle of wine will likely become “corked,” destroying the integrity of the wine’s flavor.

It appears to be tricky, but it’s really just about learning the tricks of the trade. Once you recognize with what you need to bear in mind, you’ll have the capacity to keep your wine unspoiled and fresh so your dinner party (or beach gathering, holiday fun, or celebratory occasion!) will be on point with Bedore Tours.

Read more
No Comments

Keep It Tasting Better

great tasting wine, Niagara Falls American Side

While it’s a favorite for special occasions, trip to Niagara Falls American Side, dinner parties, and sometimes as a way to wind down at the end of a crazy week, you have to be careful with wine so it doesn’t go bad before you open the bottle. Here are things to watch for so your wine will be as expected when you’re ready to serve it.

If the same thing turns out to wine, it’s a different story. This is why people purchase wine coolers and refrigerators to keep their wines at the correct temp, and it’s the impetus behind portable wine coolers when you’ve made a purchase and want to keep it at an appropriate temp until you get home. Basically, if your wine gets hot, it’s toast.

Tannin. When grapes are pressed, the juice can submerge with the grape skins, and the length of time that the skins and juice marinate together determines the tannin of a wine. The tannin has an effect on both the feel of the wine in your mouth, including the taste. For some more deets on tannins, this article has some helpful 411: http://vinepair.com/wine-101/guide-to-tannins/.

If you’ve ever wondered why wine doesn’t taste the same if you leave your glass on the counter overnight, it’s because once you’ve exposed it to the air, oxygen starts to mix with the wine and the taste is affected. Swirling it a little bit allows an initial mix of oxygen with the wine and releases some of the flavor when you’re getting ready to taste it.

News flash: All those differently shaped wine glasses … are they just for fancy show? Check out this article as a reference, but a camera was actually developed to photograph the vaporization process of various wines once they’re poured into a glass, and they’re not all the same. Because smell impacts taste in such a prominent way, it’s a good approach to use a wine glass that is shaped to favor the type of wine (and its vaporization process) that you’re providing in it.

And, this last one is a no-brainer. The grapes you use make all the variance. No matter if you’re making red wine, white wine, or mixing some new grape varietals together for a fresh combination, you’ll get a various taste. Guaranteed.

And one final side note to expect? Whether your wine is corked or not, because that alters the taste, too. To better understand what a “corked wine” is and how it takes place, take a look at this helpful article: http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/learning-to-sniff-out-corked-wine.

While you can’t leave your wine out in a hot car like you can with water, being mindful of these things will help you avoid opening a ruined bottle– cuz that’s always a disappointment. Keep it cool, be mindful of tannin, take care to not let it sit out, use the right stemware, and be sure to choose your favorite vintages that highlight the grapes you like most. Do those aspects, and you can’t fail.

And, if you’re interested in learning more about grape varietals, touring vineyards, and being exposed to new vino as you taste several combinations, contact us to schedule a wine tour today. This is an excellent activity to delight in with friends, and you can unwind and appreciate the vineyards while we attend to the driving. You can also enjoy Niagara Falls American Side with us!

Read more
No Comments