Wine Rules You Should Break

Wine can be kind of snooty and mysterious, so if you're told or read that you should never do something, you may be likely to believe these so-called experts. Some wine rules you can break.

image from thebacklabel.com

  White wine with white meat, red wine with red meat
White with lighter food, red with red meat is fine, but it's definitely not a hard rule. Pinot Noir is often a good choice for a red wine with white meat. Higher acid whites like a drier Riesling or sparkling wine can work with red meats. It depends on what you like in the way of wines; it depends on the preparation of the food.

image from justwineapp.com

  Serve red wine at room temperature
The room temp thing is what really messes this up because if your room is 75 degrees you really don't want your Cabernet that warm. Warm wines can take on an astringent character. Lower 60s is a good temperature for most reds. Sometimes on a hot day you just want to drink something a bit cooler. Put that red wine in the fridge for 20 minutes or so. This works especially well with lighter reds like Grenache or Pinot Noir. If you get the red wine too cold, it will lose most of the flavor you've paid for so take it easy on the chilling.

This is too cold for almost any wine
image from seriouseats.com

  Serve all white wines at refrigerator temperature
Not all whites are the same. Sparkling wine and Sauvignon Blanc do best at a cold fridge temp, most Chardonnay will do better at a cellar temperature, about 55 degrees. That's two hours or so in the fridge.

Leonardo went through a lot of champagne in the making of this movie

  Wine is for special occasions only
Hah! Try telling someone from Sonoma County that! Pizza night, burger night = Zinfandel. Spaghetti night = Barbera or Zin. Taco night, yeah, that's still beer.
The worse special occasion rule is sparkling wine is only for weddings and New Years. Sparkling wine is for pretty much everything. Had a lousy Monday at work? Pop a bubbly for dinner! Your mood will change. Sparkling wines go with many foods.

Top quality Pinot Noir in a screw cap

  Quality wine comes only from a traditional glass bottle with a cork
Screw caps are having a tough time catching on in the U.S. Imagine the uphill battle for cartons or cans. You can find pretty good wines in alternate containers. No, wines in boxes or cans won't age. That's a wine falsehood that the longer a wine will age, the better a wine it is. Aging longevity is not the same as the best wines. BTW, experiments have shown that screw capped wines age just fine.