Etiquette Schmetiquette

Picture the scene... A table covered in cheeses, trifles, steaks salads and sorbets, no knives or forks, a bottle of Chablis stinking of wet dog by the doorway and a ziplock bag floating atop a pool of decanted Château La Fleur-Pétrus 1961 next to a stopwatch, a long faced guest looking down on his Winemakers Selection Riesling and a bottle of red in the microwave.

This sounds like a fairly messy dinner party I’m sure you’ll agree. But I’m going to explain a few things about this scene which might possibly help you out the next time you have some buddies knocking at the door... No really I promise.

First off why the ridiculously laid out table?

This is a deviation from the style of dining you’ll be familiar with, going to a classy dinner party you’d normally expect courses one after the other, bread followed by starter followed by mains followed by sweet followed by cheeses or something of the sort. This style is known as “Service á la Russe” or “like the Russians” Traditionally in France and the Mediterranean meals would be laid out all at once encouraging swapping, talking, moving, sharing and more talking. If you’ve been lucky enough to go to a traditional family meal around the med you’ll know you may well start eating as late as 10pm. When travelling with my family we once had this experience and I actually had to dive myself into their swimming pool circa 3 am to stop myself falling asleep at the table!

I want to highlight the talking – you ever noticed you tend to have a better laugh when you order food and share it around the table? This is my idea of food heaven. So no silent delicate polite eating at my house ok? Cutlery is in the middle, get it yourself.

Why is the stinky wine still out?

So you’ve opened a nice bottle only to find it stinks like a dog, well if you leave that bottle open for a day or so you might well find that fault or cork taint has “blown off” (here comes the science...) TCA is the compound responsible for this, it exists in a small percentage of corks (3-5%) before they are used in bottling– we can detect it at levels as low as one part per trillion. All science considered – I’ve known wines I opened thinking to be useless sort itself out over night, it’s worth a try before you glug it down the drain!

And the floating ziplock?

Freezer bags, for some bizarre reason are able to absorb traces of TCA  - so you may not expect to see a ziplock bag floating around the decanter in a fine dining restaurant but I don’t run a fine dining restaurant do I? Squidge it out of the way with your spoon my friend It’s soaking up stinky trace elements you don’t want to notice.

 Stopwatch?

If I ever had a hope in hells chance to indulge anybody other than myself in a bottle of Château La Fleur-Pétrus’ in my lifetime I might well set a time limit on you all to finish the bottle. Very old wines can oxidise in as little as 10 minutes and I’m not spending that kind of money on you to let it go to waste!

Why the Miserable guest?

Not that I’d ever mention it to a guest obviously the more wine I’m given at a party the nicer I will be (friends take note). Terms written on a wine label such as “Old Vine” “Winemakers Selection” “Vineyard Collection” etc mean absolutely nothing. It’s a term the lovely people at the vineyard or in the world of marketing gave that product to make it sound more appealing or better than their lowest level wine.

Red Wine in the Microwave, that looks awful!

Well, red wine if it’s too cold can taste astringent and bland, don’t bother putting it on the radiator for ten minutes which my mother always does – it doesn’t do anything! But try putting it in the microwave for 5 to 10 seconds or so.  This will help the wine open up and taste better than when it’s cold. I promise you many a Sommelier has discovered this trick, not that I would ever dream of doing this in a Fine Dining establishment... *cough*

So sit back, grab whatever you want, whenever you fancy it, get talking around some rescued wine and watch the spectacular fireworks in the microwave because somebody forgot to take the foil off that bottle of red...