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Storing wine properly can make or break a bottle. Serving wine at the proper temperature can also greatly impact your experience enjoying it. In this week’s Wine Wednesday, we’ll explore the best way to store wine, serve wine, and how long to save wine after its been opened.

Storing – Temperature, Light, Humidity, Positioning

The ideal temperature for storing wine is between 45-65°F, with 55°F being almost perfect. It’s best to avoid long-term storage where temperatures exceed 70 degrees, as the aromas can start to change. Don’t store bottles in the refrigerator for long periods of time either, since most refrigerators are set well below 45°F. Additionally, the lack of moisture in refrigerators can dry out corks, allowing air into the bottle. Sunlight is an enemy of wine, so store your wine away from direct sunlight. Think about a cave – cool, damp, and dark. Lastly, if your bottle has a cork, store it on its side to keep the cork from drying out. If you have tannic red wines, storing on the side will also help settle the sediment (which is harmless but most people don’t like it in their glass).

Ideal Serving Temperatures

Serving white wine straight out of the fridge and red wine at room temperature is fine, but not ideal. Here are some general guidelines for different types of wines:

• Fruity sparkling wine: 41-45° (up to two hours in the fridge)
• Champagne: 45-50°F
• Light, dry whites (ex. Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling): 45-49°F (refrigerate about 90 minutes before serving)
• Full bodied whites (ex. Chardonnay, Albariño, Viognier): 50-55°F (refrigerate one hour before serving) The less oaky the wine, the colder it should be.
• Rosé: 48-55°F (refrigerate about one hour before serving)
• Lighter rosés: 45-49°F (refrigerate about 90 minutes before serving)
• Light to medium bodied reds (ex. Pinot Noir, Grenache, Cabernet Franc): 54-60°F (refrigerate about 45 to 60 minutes before serving)

Lastly, full-bodied reds and port should be served between 60-65°F. This range is just cooler than room temperature, and warmer than cellar temperature. The slightly cooler temperature helps de-emphasize bitter components and highlight tannins. A quick 25 minutes in the fridge will help chill this right down. Pull any wines from the cellar out for about 30 minutes to warm up and hit the ideal.

Can you Save Wine After Opening It?

Wine is a fleeting experience – once you open a bottle, that bottle and experience can never be enjoyed the same way again. We’ve heard there are people out there that open a bottle of wine and don’t finish it. Shocking, I know! But it’s okay, wine can still be enjoyed a day or so after opened. Sparkling wine will start to lose those bubbles once it’s opened, but can last about a day in the refrigerator when properly re-sealed to keep the carbonation in. Light white wine, sweet wine, and rosé can last 5-7 days in the fridge with a cork; full bodied whites should be ok for about 2-5 days in the fridge with a cork. Red wine can last 3-5 days in a cool, dark place with a cork. Ultimately it’s best to enjoy the bottles the same day they’re opened (responsibly of course), but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t.

Stock Up with Hawk Haven Wines

Our tasting room staff is always more than happy to answer any questions you have about storing and serving wine. Come in soon to try your new favorites to stock up!

Wine tasting has become a popular activity, but it can sometimes seem intimidating. How do people pick up those different flavors and aromas? Why doesn’t anyone say it tastes like grapes? Can any person learn how to taste wine like a pro? In this week’s Wine Wednesday, we’ll explore how to strengthen your palate for tasting wine.

Origin of Wine Tasting – Sommeliers

Back in the 14th century, sommeliers would check the King’s wine and food for poison. Nowadays, a sommelier’s main task is to help diners choose wines they’ll enjoy. They study different grape varietals and wine styles, and train their palates by tasting wine all the time (sounds like a great job, no?). While sommeliers are professionally trained, you are the master of your own palate. You know what your favorite foods are because you’ve been tasting food all your life. The next step, especially for wine tasting, is to hone your ability to put a name to the flavors you like and dislike.

Isolate & Associate – Identifying Aromas

As mentioned in our Aromas in Wine article, flavor is the combination of aroma and taste. People often believe that sommeliers have a gifted palate or super nose, but this is not always the case. Instead, sommeliers train their memory to isolate and associate aromas. Smell is our least-used sense, so start smelling everything! Freshly cut grass, forest floor, and a hot rainy sidewalk are three wine smells that you may have never tasted, but know from memory. Smell your food before you take a bite, and start to keep an aroma journal. Associating smells with different emotions or memories can help build your food memory. Think of your food memory as your aroma bank – the more you put in, the stronger it gets.

Start out by trying to break wine aromas into 4 main categories: fruit, non-fruit, earth, and mineral. For whites, fruit aromas include citrus, apple/pear, stone fruit, tropical fruit, and melon. For reds, there’s red fruit, black fruit, and blue fruit. Start with these broader descriptions, then try to describe further: if citrus, is it lemon or grapefruit? For red fruit, is it pomegranate or raspberry? The other three categories (non-fruit, earth, and mineral) can be a bit harder to identify, but can be mastered with practice.. Non-fruit can include floral, herbal, spice, and oak notes. Earth can include forest floor, and mushrooms. Mineral can describe wet stone, chalk, slate, and flint.

Tasting the Wine

While aroma is incredibly important for understanding wine, other components fill out what’s in your glass. Sweetness, acidity, tannin, and alcohol make up the wine’s structure (check out our article about all that!) and impact the body of the wine. Wines are either light, medium, or full-bodied. The best comparison is with milk: light-bodied wines feel like skim milk, medium-bodied like whole milk, and full-bodied like cream. Learning varietal characteristics can help you become an even better taster!

It’s important to remember that strengthening your palate is a process, and different people are at different tasting levels. Be patient with yourself and kind to others when group tasting wines. Other palates can help you learn, and you’ll soon be surprised at how much you can identify in your glass!

Hawk Haven Wine Tastings

One of the best ways to strengthen your palate is to taste different wines. Here at Hawk Haven, our tasting is pre-set to help guests expand their wine knowledge. Our staff loves to talk about wine and help people find their new favorites. Come in and do a tasting to build up your wine memory today!

Most people have more questions than answers about Syrah. Are Syrah and Shiraz the same thing? And what is Petite Sirah? In this week’s Wine Wednesday, we’ll explore these three different, yet not so different, wines.

Que Syrah, Syrah
Originally from the Rhône Valley in France, Syrah is a thick-skinned grape that produces rich, flavorful wines. It is the only red grape allowed in the Northern Rhône, and is one of the core three grapes in the Southern Rhône “GSM” blend – Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre. It is now grown around the world, including Australia, Spain, Argentina, South Africa, and the United States.

Old World Syrah is typically full-bodied, with notes of blackberries, smoky meat, olives, and even graphite, with a higher acidity. New World Syrah will be more fruit-forward and spicy, with notes of blackberry, black pepper, cassis, and violet.
Syrah is often the best wine for roasting, grilling, or smoking. Bold foods can stand up to the intensity of Syrah, but it is key to remember: either the wine or the dish can have the spotlight, but not both. Syrah ideally should be served around 60-65°F – just put the bottle in the fridge for 15 minutes before serving.

Ol’ Shiraz-le Dazzle
Shiraz is the most planted grape in Australia, especially in Grange. The truth is– are you ready for this?– Syrah and Shiraz are the same grape! James Busby, father of the Australian wine industry, brought Syrah vines from Rhône to Australia in the 19th Century, but there are different stories about the name discrepancy. Some believe the name is the result of a misspelling, but others believe another story. According to local legends, the knight Gaspard de Stérimberg brought grape vines with him from the city of Shiraz in Iran, a place once known for thousands of years for fantastic wines. Furthermore, Busby supposedly noted on his trip to Australia that “the [Syrah] plant was originally brought from Shiraz in Persia.” Some people believe that this could be the origin story of the name Shiraz, hoping to add some romance and mystery to the new Australian Syrah!

What About Petite Sirah?
Petite Sirah is not a “baby Syrah,” “young Syrah,” or “small Syrah”, but its own type of grape! Also known as Durif, this grape is a cross between Syrah and Peloursin, a nearly extinct grape from the French Alps. French botanist Francois Durif created it in Montpellier around 1880, and Charles McIver brought it to the US in the mid-1880’s, where it gained the new name “Petite Sirah.” Petite Sirah is mostly grown in the United States and Australia, and was one of the most popular grape varieties in Napa until the early 1960’s. Deep in color and full bodied, Petite Sirah has notes of blueberry, plum, and black pepper. It is still very rare to find in wine, with less than 10,000 acres planted worldwide. Petite Sirah, unlike its parent Syrah, is not great for aging, as it loses most of its acidity relatively early. The high tannin in Petite Sirah makes it pair excellently with richer, more fatty foods, especially with smoky, fruity flavors. It’s best to serve Petite Sirah around 65°F to bring out its floral notes and minerality.

Hawk Haven Syrah & Petite Sirah
At Hawk Haven, we focus on producing a Rhône-style Syrah. We even add crushed Viognier skins to our fermenting Syrah, a traditional technique done in Rhône! Our 2016 Syrah has beautiful fruit character, like dried currants, cassis, and plum, as well as notes of violet, rose petal, and pink peppercorn. Medium- bodied with smooth tannins, it’s sure to be perfect for your next backyard grill-out. We also grow Petite Sirah; it is blended into our Flying Press Red and Proprietor’s Red Blend. Stop in to get your favorite today!

See Also: Our previous Wine Wednesday about Syrah by former staff member Ryan Matthews

Hello, my name is Ryan and I am excited to be taking over our first installment of the Wine Wednesday series where today I’ll be talking about one of my favorite varietals: Syrah! I love Syrah in general, but specifically Hawk Haven’s Signature Series Syrah. It is one of my favorites because although I can (and do!) drink it year-round, it’s just a little extra satisfying in the cooler months. It’s such a delicious wine and it really pairs well with the hearty, savory dishes I crave this time of year.

What Makes Syrah, Syrah