Recently, a friend shared an article with me which gave the “shoulds and should nots” for wine lovers.   I have been spending a lot of time developing new business in the wine industry and each day I learn something new.  I am fascinated with the process of marketing a great bottle of wine/or a winery and have experienced ways that the right demographics, brand perspective, and communications mix can be really effective for wine entities from distributors to state boards, from sommeliers to wine makers to wine brokers, and from experts to novices.

It is such a cool little microcosm, and with great fringe benefits!  Wine, wine and more wine!

I did my own little poll and got some interesting responses from my crew about the do’s and don’ts when drinking wine.  Their feedback is here, combined with some of my thoughts.

1. Don’t wear white when drinking red wine. Pre-plan for disaster so that you won’t ruin your social experience if you spill or are spilled on.  If you do spill on white cotton, soak it in club soda for a couple of hours.  I have heard that pouring boiling water over stretched material works, or I have had success putting LOTS of kosher salt on the blotted stain and leaving overnight.  I recently had luck with diluted white vinegar and Dreft stain remover.  Wine Away! stain remover does genuinely work as well.

2. Refrain from bashing the box.  Good wine might come in surprising packages (it also might not). Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, open it up and have a sip.  Bottle, box, beautiful label or plain one, good stuff can be hiding behind a plain package, and awful wine sometimes has a beautiful label.

3.  Hydrate as you dehydrate. One glass of water to one glass of wine keeps everything on an even keel.  I also like drinking a glass of Emergen-C and taking my multi-vitamin before I go to bed for additional hangover prevention.

4.  Don’t be afraid to try something new. Try a varietal you are unfamiliar with or test a bottle from a country you know nothing about.  Wine holds the secrets to a country’s land and history and even if you don’t love the wine, the experience is fascinating.

5.  Don’t feel like you’re alone.  Befriend a sommelier, a wine commissioner, a server, a broker, or a wine shop owner. Their information and perspective can be a gold mine to set you on the right path.  Professionals are professional because they love it.  Utilize their expertise, they often like to teach someone something new.

6.  If you don’t like a wine, try it again with some small piece of food. Typically fat will even out tannins and acidity.  If you try the wine again with a piece of aged cheese and it is ready to drink, the taste will be transformed.  If you try it again and all of the things you didn’t like about the wine don’t change, move on!

7.  If you are a red wine fan, drink white next time and vice versa. It’s like a singer practicing outside their range, it enhances your palate for the wines you really love and ensures you have something to talk about with everyone who drinks wine.  Inevitably you will stumble upon something new that you like.

8.  Connect your wine drinking experience to location. Learn something about the specific place where your favorite wine du jour hails from.  Research the ‘carbon footprint’ of the wine you love and try to support wine culture close to you (we West Coast Americans are lucky!).

9.  Collect your wine corks. They are infinitely helpful – dulling sharp objects for camping and picnics, serving as playthings for kids, a natural creative activity for kids and adults like (make a corkboard for the kitchen!) and they are always helpful if you lose the cork to an open bottle and need a new seal.  It is also cool to look back at your corks and remember the experience.  For special ones, I write the date and occasion on it in fine tipped permanent pen.

10.  If you don’t like it, DUMP IT. It doesn’t matter who says it is good or how much it costs, if you hate it, dump it like a bad habit or a bad relationship.  Move on.  Wine is like a date and time is precious.  Drink what tastes good to you, share it with friends and combine it with great, fresh food.