Written on 10/12/2020
A few useful tips for livening up conversations
We're getting ready for the festive season, and the menus and table plans aren't quite ready yet, but that's no reason not to prepare those wonderful meals right here, together!
Whether you're in charge of Champagne or foie gras, we're going to review some pretty useful wine-related knowledge together, to make sure we've got plenty of anecdotes up our sleeves during that little float between courses!
1. Red wines lighten with age. The color loses its intensity over time. Very old wines are pale and almost transparent!
2. Red grapes are older than white grapes. The green and yellow clusters from which white wines are made are in fact a genetic mutation of red clusters. Proof and bonus: Pinot Noir and Pinot Banc have the same DNA!
3. Red grapes can be used to make white wine. Simple reason: it's the grape skin that gives red wine its color, not the juice! If you remove it, you get white wine. And it happens more often than you might think! One of the best-known examples is Blanc de Rouge, from Champagne.
4. People who hate or are afraid of wine (sic) are called oenophobes.
5. The custom of toasting goes back to the Middle Ages. In those days of great trust between humans and poisoning by drink, two people drinking together would pour a little of their wine into each other's. Just to be on the safe side. Just to be sure. As they did so, they simply tapped their mugs to splash the other's. Today, we no longer empty our drinks into each other's glasses (Covid or no Covid), but the gesture of clinking glasses has remained. In fact, the tradition of looking into each other's eyes at this moment is also a sign of trust.
6. In ancient Egypt, storing wine until it reached maturity was considered alchemy. As a result, only the pharaohs were allowed to do so! Not a sharer, Ramses...
7. The average age of an oak barrel is 170 years.
So now you're armed with seven little cartridges to set the mood for Christmas and New Year's!
