About The Decanter
At The Decanter, we're simply obsessed with wine. Fine wine, rare wine, legendary wine, everyday wine, we love it all. And we love sharing that knowledge.
It's our belief that there's way too much snobbery in the wine world. You probably know what we're talking about. Even if you're a real connoisseur, you can probably remember times, when you were just learning about wine, when you felt intimidated at the local wine store.
I've worked in the wine business for years, and believe me I've seen some real jerks... and they're still out there. They are people who think that loving wine is some sort of club to which you have to apply (with numerous sponsors) in order to be admitted. They are people who think that unless you're spending $100 on a bottle you're not worth talking to. They are people who think that if you mispronounce the name of a winery or a grape varietal, you're some kind of leper (never mind that they couldn't correctly pronounce Aloxe-Corton, Vosne-Romanée, or Aix-en-Provence with a gun to their head).
At The Decanter, we're jerk-free. We're snob-free. There's simply too much awesome wine in the world that's just begging to be drunk to waste any time being stuffy and pretentious about it.
The Decanter is here to help you find your way through the enormous world of great wine. We'll tell you about great wine that costs $10 a bottle and great wine that costs $1000 a bottle. We'll take you through some of the regions where these heavenly elixirs are produced. We'll show you the wineries that make them. And we'll even give you ammunition against the snobs by showing you how to correctly pronounce places, names, grapes and wines. In short, we'll open up the world of fine wine to you.
Welcome to the University of Wine! Welcome to TheDecanter.com
Quick Fact
Most restaurants in America don't have a clue about how to serve wine. Reds are served too warm, whites too cold. The old saying that reds are served at room temperature and whites are served chilled was never meant to be applied to a room at 75°F or a refrigerator at 36°F.
What are the ideal temperatures? Well, it's really up to you and what you prefer, but as a general rule most reds should be served between about 64°F - 68°F and most whites between about 55°F - 60°F.
Why? Wine served at the right temperature will taste better. Too cold and the flavors are muted, too warm and the flavors become diffuse and flat so that all you taste is the alcohol. You can test this for yourself by chilling a bottle of red and drinking it slowly, watching how the flavors change as the temperature increases.
A Dominus Vertical
We tasted our way through a number of Dominus vintages (don't you feel sorry for us?) and have the results here. If you want an executive summary of the article, one word will do: Wow!! Read more...