Wine Tricks

Over the years working in the wine industry like any industry really, you learn tricks. Tricks for everything from opening wine bottles to preserving wine to even resealing it when you put it back in the wine rack or refrigerator. Some seems so simple once you know them but unless you work in the business of wine day in and day out you might not ever discover these short cuts. Here are some of our favorites and most useful.

Over the years working in the wine industry like any industry really, you learn tricks. Tricks for everything from opening wine bottles to preserving wine to even resealing it when you put it back in the wine rack or refrigerator. Some seems so simple once you know them but unless you work in the business of wine day in and day out you might not ever discover these short cuts. Here are some of our favorites and most useful.

Opening a wax sealed wine bottle is frustrating as anything until you know this simple trick. If you have ever attempted to chip off the wax you know it doesn’t work very well. It will take much time and leave your floor splattered with small chunks of wax. To open the bottle the easiest way possible you will need a standard waiter’s style corkscrew. Twist the worm of the corkscrew straight through the wax top and into the cork. Once the worm is inserted all the way in pull up, the wax will crack and come out with the cork.

Synthetic, especially plastic corks can be as frustrating as wax closures. The plastic stick to the glass and at times is nearly impossible to get the cork moving. Plastic corks are so sticky that manufacturers of automated openers, like the rabbit, CorkPops, and electric openers recommend against using their devices on plastic corks. The best way to get a plastic cork out is to use an Oso style of opener. This is the opener with two metal prongs that wiggle down the sides of the cork in between the cork and the bottle neck. This is enough to break that sticky seal and the cork will come out. This also works well on older vintage bottles when the cork has gotten crumbly and dry.

For white wine drinkers it is always tough to reseal the bottle with the original cork and get it back in the refrigerator. If you try to lay the bottle on its side it will often leak. If you try to put it on a shelf or in the door many times it won’t fit since the cork sticks up too high. The recent invention of the Capabunga wine sealer (we sell them in the shop for $5.95) solves the problem. This synthetic bottle cap fits snuggly, so it doesn’t leak, and it has zero clearance when on so the bottle will fit most refrigerator shelves. Sometimes new inventions make for the best tricks.

There have been all sorts of contraptions made to preserve the wine in a partially consumed bottle. The truth from an industry insider is most don’t work! The best trick for preserving the wine in a partially consumed bottle is something called Private Preserve. This is a consumer-friendly aerosol dispenser of Argon gas. Argon is an inert gas that is heavier than oxygen. When sprayed into the bottle it lifts the oxygen off the wine, and since oxygen is what wrecks wine the Argon preserves it. This is what is used in wineries on everything from tasting bottles to barrels ageing wine.

Especially in the summer months many of us enjoy white wine on the deck, dock or boat. Some of us will use an ice bucket or wine cooler to keep our white wine cold. Trying to cram the bottle just into ice though is not only challenging but it does not keep the wine very cold. Add to the ice bucket some water and a ¼ cup of salt to really keep your wine chilled. The water allows all the ice to stay more consistently in contact with the bottle and the salt will actually drop the ambient temperature of the water further making for a cold and refreshing bottle of wine.

When drying your stemmed wine glasses many have broken the glass by grasping the stem and twisting the glass with the towel inside the bowl of the glass. The stem is actually the weakest part of the glass so it is important to hold the glass by the bowl while you are drying it. This will not only allow you to get a firmer grip but to ultimately spend less on glassware.

There are countless tricks to not only increasing your enjoyment of wine, but to make everything from when the bottle opens to the clean up is done easier and less stressful. Stop by the shop with your wine challenges and we will help you find the quick and easy solutions.