Answers to common wine questions:
• What is the difference between my home refrigerator and a wine refrigerator?
Your home frig’s internal temperature is around 35 degrees, while a wine frig is between 50 and 60. Your home frig is designed to extract humidity, a potential danger to wine corks. A wine frig strives to have a cork-friendly 45-60 percent humidity. Your home frig likely uses a compressor that causes vibration. A wine frig likely uses a thermoelectric cooling system without moving parts, thus no vibration. A constant temperature between 50-60 degrees, a humidity of 45-60 percent, and no vibration is the ideal way to store wine. Your home refrigerator or a cool, dark closet will work to store wine, but a dedicated wine frig is the ideal way to go.
• What affects the sensation of “body” in a wine?
Wine is described as light, medium, and full. Milk provides an easy comparison. Skim milk is light body, whole milk is medium body, and cream is full body. Higher alcohol typically results in fuller-bodied wine. Higher tannins, residual sugar, glycerol, and polysaccharides (from yeast and grape cells) contribute to fuller bodies wines with richer texture. The grape variety also influences the sensation of weight and body.
• Can I ask for a taste before I order wine by the glass in a restaurant?
Depends on the restaurant. Some restaurants will offer a very small taste, but offering a taste usually is to determine if the wine is off or flawed, not to give you a chance to see if you like it. BTW, if you plan on drinking two or more glasses of the wine, it usually is cheaper to buy the whole bottle. If you do not finish the bottle, you typically can take the corked bottle home, often covered in a bag. Put the partially consumed bottle in the trunk when driving.
• Is there a difference between table grapes and wine grapes?
Absolutely. If you taste a wine grape, it is much sweeter, juicier, and softer than a table grape. Wine grapes also have thicker, chewier skins, and prominent seeds. Table grapes usually are bigger, more crispy and more crunchy. Table grapes have thinner skins and smaller seeds or no seeds at all. Table grapes are picked sooner to capture the acidity and freshness—and to allow for travel and handling before sale and eating. Wine grapes are picked later to achieve ripeness and juiciness. They begin processing the grapes in the winery within hours of their harvest.
Last round: What do you call a lazy kangaroo? A pouch potato. Wine time.