CARMIM

The Choice:

The wine shall be chosen well in advance and always in line with the dish that will accompany it. This question essentially depends on the sensitivity of each, though some ideas can be stressed:

The same wine should be drunk during a meal (or from the same provenance area). If you opt for various wines, these shall be drunk starting off with the youngest and moving on to the oldest.

At  a meal where different wines are served, accompany each change by drinking water – to “take away the taste”.

The Temperature:

White and Sparkling Wines shall be served chilled, though not too much, so as not to smother its qualities. Hence, it is recommended to serve white wines between 8ºC and 12ºC and the sparkling wines never below 4ºC.

The Red Wines shall be drunk at room temperature provided that stands at between 14ºC and 18ºC.

For the Liquorous Wines, temperatures are recommended at between 16ºC and 18ºC.

Opening:

This question is somewhat controversial, there being those who argue that red wines shall be opened an hour before drinking so that they breath and release all its qualities. Others believe that it doesn’t matter when it is opened.

The need for early opening shall be evaluated on a case-by-case basis although it is prudent to do so in wines subject to prolonged periods of aging in the bottle.

In addition, if any reduction aromas are detected or the presence of a deposit, it may be desirable to carry out suitable decanting.

Storing the Wine:

The existence of a bottle-cellar allows wine to be stored and conserved in perfect conditions and then appreciate it later without it losing its qualities.

The storage place shall have certain requirements:

• It should be aerated
• Relatively humid
• No great annual and daily thermal amplitudes
• No kind of shaking, or you may lose the wines
• Silent and dark (too much light causes alterations to the colour and aroma of wines)
• The temperature in the bottle-cellar shall vary 10ºC between and 12ºC, never exceeding 15ºC. Low temperatures delay maturing and high ones spoil the wines.

The existence of information cards for each wine allows an easier identification thereof, it being necessary to update the aforementioned cards whenever you taste a wine, thereby keeping the data up-to-date.