Five Common Wine Myths Debunked

Much like beer and brewing, there are many myths about wine and wine making running rampant throughout bars, households, and social gatherings of all kinds. We’ve decided to look into five of the biggest wine rumors and set the record straight. Whether you are dedicated to your wine making kit or simply enjoy a glass of high quality wine, you’ve most likely seen the majority of these wine myths in action. Read through them and see for yourself:

1. Letting an uncorked wine “breathe” for a few hours increases the wine’s softness and palatability. The opening in the top of a wine bottle is too small of an air passage to have any significant effect on increasing the wine’s flavor. Allowing a batch from your wine making kit to breathe is a great idea in theory, but impossible if only the top of the bottle is exposed to the air. Here’s one of the best analogies for this myth: Expecting a wine to breathe by popping the cork is like expecting a weary traveler to feel refreshed after a long plane ride by simply opening the cockpit door.

 

1. A cork’s smell tells you a lot about the wine you are about to drink. The only two things you can learn from inspecting a wine cork is whether it is harboring any mold or dried up enough to slough off into the wine. There’s no proof that smelling the cork gives you insight into the quality of wine beneath it in the bottle. Whether the bottle has been aged 10 years or is fresh out of your wine making kit, the only way to determine the wine’s quality is by smelling the wine itself.

 

1. Different wine glasses are necessary for red and white wines. The only requirement for wine glasses is that they should be taller than they are wide. Every other claim about different wine glasses is nothing but advertising fluff. As long as you have a collection of decent quality wine tulip-shaped wine glasses, you can serve any red or white wine from your wine making kit. If a wine is good, the glass you drink it from is irrelevant.

 

1. “Reserve” wines are a higher quality. Any wine made in your wine making kit would have been called a “reserve” wine 100 years ago, as the term used to apply to wine made exclusively for the vintner and held back from commercial sale. However, nowadays the “reserve” label on wine is an ambiguous term that speaks more to the marketing of the wine than its taste. Sometimes reserve wines will be a little heavier and better tasting, but that’s far from a guarantee.

 

1. Fruit describing a wine’s taste are used in the wine making process. Everyone has read a wine label describing the wine’s flavor as containing hints of “vanilla, blackberries, and cherries” or something similar. However, none of those fruits are actual wine making supplies, and are actually just describing the particular grape varietal used to make the wine. The flavors are simply artificial, and can be concocted in your wine making kit, but no real fruits other than grapes are used in the wine making process.

  If you’re an avid user of your wine making kit and also a wine connoisseur, you’ve probably already experienced most of these five myths first hand. The first step to correcting these misunderstandings is simply discussing them over a fresh glass of wine from your wine making kit. Who could refuse that opportunity?