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THE EXOTIC DRINKING BOOK
Actually our first experience with wine service is utterly simple,
easy, and without any more problem than a little chilling
if,
and where,
indicated.
THE FIRST ABC of WINE SERVICE
White Wines:
go with seafood, light-meat poultry; with fruits, sweets, and
desserts.... Champagne, although white, is traditional with game or
throughout any meal,
if
and when desired.
Red Wines:
go with meats generally, and dark meats in particular; with
entree, game, and roast.... Port goes with cheese.
Not with Salad: as a general rule wine is skipped during the salad course,
the acid dressing interferes with the true wine taste.
WINE TEMPERATURES
White wines must be chilled, except of course the tawny fortified
types like sherry, Madeira, Marsala and so on.
Red wines should never be chilled, except what we buy as Sparkling
Burgundy.... Bordeaux red wine should be served a trifle higher in
temperature than -the dining room. . . . Burgundy red should be
slightly cooler, or as it comes from cellar.
The easiest way to handle a red claret wine is to decant it and let
stand in the dining room for three or four hours before pouring, see
Pages
195
&
196.
Serving a red wine really chilled would hamper its taste and flavour
severely. For further thoughts on red wines in the Tropics, turn to
Pages
197
&
198,
and not too distant, below.
SIP WINE, DON'T DRINK IT
Somewhere the fiction got about that wine was made solely to
quench thirst. So it may be, beside the hearth of our worthy and
horny handed son of toil, perhaps, but no amateur worthy of the name
ever gulps decent wine. Water is for satisfying thirst, wine is to be
sipped and enjoyed.
'
First twirl a half filled glass, and watch the lovely jewel-like colour
fan up on the empty inner side; then sniff it in leisurely fashion to
catch the bouquet.
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