1) Wine goes bad and starts turning into vinegar about a day after popping the cork.
FALSE: A freshly opened bottle can last more than three days, and typically the wine gets better as time goes by. Independent Studies by the Wine Institute have shown that wine drinkers actually prefer a wine the longer it has been opened (those studied preferred 3 days old to 2 days old, and 2 days old to 1 day old etc.).
To my mind this is the most insidious myth, so I put it first. It’s insidious because it causes people to either not drink a wine because they fear they won’t be able to finish the bottle in one night or, even worse, to neglect or throw out perfectly good wine because they think it has gone bad.
2) Uncorking a bottle for a few hours before drinking to “let it breathe” will improve and soften the wine.
FALSE: This one is a little controversial, but tests show that simply uncorking a bottle of wine doesn’t do much to let a wine open up due to the small surface area of the wine exposed to air. One good analogy I’ve heard: Expecting a wine to breathe by popping the cork is like expecting a weary traveler to feel refreshed from a long plane ride by simply opening the cockpit door.
To really let the wine breathe you need to decant it and let it stretch its legs. And speaking of legs…
3) Wine “legs” or “tears” indicate high quality in wine.
FALSE: “Legs” are the viscous clear streams of fluid that run down the inside of a glass after the wine has been swirled. In general more pronounced legs do indicate a greater amount of alcohol in the wine, but legs or tears indicate nothing about the quality of the wine.
Fredric Koeppel explains it well:
“It would require several paragraphs to explain this phenomenon fully, but the short version is this: The contention between the surface tension of the wine and the interfacial tension that acts between the wine and the inner surface of the glass draws the liquid up the inside of the glass to the point where, exposed to air, the alcohol evaporates, the surface tension of the remaining water intensifies, and the water forms a drop that clings to the glass and slowly slides back down.”
4) Smelling the cork can tell you something about a wine’s quality.
FALSE: Smelling the cork won’t tell you anything about the quality of the wine. The waiter or sommelier at a restaurant will hand you the cork so you can check to see if there is mold or if the cork is broken, but smelling it won’t tell you if the wine is corked or not. For that you need to smell the wine itself.
Also, for you CSI types ordering the older, more expensive wines, the cork should have the vintage date on it and it should match the vintage printed on the label. If it’s different, you can ask for a new bottle since the one you’ve been given has been doctored!
5) You need a different wine glass for different types of wine (Burgundy, Bourdeaux etc.).
FALSE: Slews of tests have shown that a standard ISO wine glass allows you to pick up the bouquet of both red and white wines as well or better than specialty glasses.
In general, as long as the glass is taller than it is wide, whatever you choose to serve your wine in will be fine.
6) “Old Vine” and “Reserve” have specific meanings that guarantee quality.
FALSE: The terms “Old Vine” and “Reserve” have no legal or generally agreed upon meaning. An “old vine” to me might be 120 years old, but to another winery wanting to market its wines as “old vine” 35 years could just as easily suffice. Likewise “reserve” can mean the best 4 barrels of production in one context, or a couple million cases a year in another. While the terms give some information about the wine in the bottle, it’s best not to assign too much weight to them.
7) Dom Perignon invented Champagne.
FALSE: Our favorite monk is famous not for inventing Champagne, but for devising the mushroom cork and metal closure that allowed vintners to keep the bubbles in the bottle. The pressure in a bottle of Champagne is about 90 pounds per square inch, which is roughly 3 times the recommended pressure for filling automobile tires. Because of this, at the time Perignon invented the closure, people were having a difficult time keeping the corks on their bottles.
The first winery in Napa was Mondavi.
FALSE: Charles Krug Winery was the first, founded in 1861. Mondavi was the first to open a winery in Napa after prohibition ended however, and has since bought Charles Krug.
9) The first winery in California was in Napa.
FALSE: The first winery in California was Buena Vista Winery, established in 1857 in Sonoma County.
10) The first winery in the US was in California.
FALSE: Not even close! The very first commercial winery was established in 1823, and was located in Missouri. Interestingly the very first AVA recognized by the BATF was in Missouri as well: Augusta.
Bonus link: More wine myths at Grape Radio.
This post is a part of the Problogger.com List Project.
Following Grapes On Their Journey To Wine…
Vinography: A Wine Blog provides a handy list of wineries that maintain blogs. See the site for the complete list. Here are a few I’ve pulled for you to peruse at once (over a bold Cab, perhaps): Pinotblogger Mia’s……
Here are a couple of questions for you regarding the whole “wine goes bad in 1 day” myth. Should I decant all of the wine if I don’t plan to drink all of it in one sitting? Or should I leave the rest in the bottle (corked, in the fridge, after opening)? What about double-decanting and then storing the wine in the original bottle again? What’s the best approach for someone who will be drinking maybe 1 glass/night without anyone else’s help? *)
Best way from the tests I’ve seen is to pour yourself a glass, recork, pour glass, recork etc.
Depending on the type of wine it should keep a little over three days, which should be enough time for you to finish the bottle.
The pinots I enjoy most are ones with an ephemeral floral nose and, because the terpines that create that nose are so volatile, most of the time the floral component is gone by the next day. So if you have a wine with a delicate nose, try and enjoy it the same day. Other than that, observe the three day rule!
Hope this helps.
That does help…although it means I’ll need to increase my alcohol consumption quite a bit to get at some of those Pinots I’ve got stored. What about nitrogen in the bottle? Have you had any experience with that sort of thing? Is it just a gimmick? I understand the concept, but in practice I don’t think it matters too much when I’ve tried blowing nitrogen into the wine bottle to replace the “air.”
[…] Top 10 Wine Myths by Josh […]
Nice list. Good to hear that I don’t have to drink out of Riedel for the rst of my life. Plus I’m a bit fed up with big legs on wine.
[…] Top 10 Wine Myths […]
I’m glad for this list because I actually learned something about wine today, thanks so much! Our list is up if you’d like to look… have a great day!
Thank you for #1 — that’s something I’ve been wondering about for ages. So is 3 days just about the maximum, then, in terms of how long uncorked wine will last?
interesting….. Dom didn’t event Champagn…. he put the pop in the party
http://joshmaher.wordpress.com/2006/08/14/top-ten-reasons-you-should-not-blog/
[…] And be sure to check out Top 10 Wine Myths as well. […]
[…] Top 10 Wine Myths [a taste of revelation] […]
A terrific list! My day job is as a wine seller, so I was thrilled to see you break up some often-repeated myths!
Feel free to check out our list of the best small business info.
Very cool! I like wine but don’t know much about it. Thanks for the enlightening list
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cool
Hello,
Thats a really nice list of wine myths.
Pankaj
wine guide
Hi guy’s, enjoy your site, but I have to disagree strongly with your assertion that the glass shape is unimportant. I suggest that when you start doing tastings of your wine for customers that you use the glasses that show your wine off best.
I once thought glasses didn’t matter but after conducting tests I found that ISO works for some wines but not others. Even the temperature will effect which glass works best.
Test it out yourself
i was hoping someone could help me with an discussion some friends and i were having. Someone was telling me that by drinking water with wine you get more intoxicated, or the next morning after a night of drinking wine that if you drink water you will get intoxicated all over again. Thanks for any help you can give me.
Hey Dustin,
Drinking water with wine won’t do anything to increase or decrease your level of drunkiness either way. Once the alcohol is in your bloodstream the only thing that will lower it is time. Likewise water in the morning won’t get you drunk again, but it will rehydrate your body, which is a good thing after a night of drinking.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for clearing that up. Thats exactly what I said alcohol is alcohol.
I take issue with #4. I open wine all day long. The best way for me to catch TCA is from the cork. It is the source and would have the greatest concentration of TCA. This is response to TCA only, the cork gives no other indication of any other defects in the wine.