Wine Basics - Introduction to Wine, Wine Drinking

Wine is both simple and complex. Wine is simple because very little is needed to make wine — it's created by a natural process that occurs all around us. Wine is also complex because we can influence this process in many different ways, allowing us to produce many different kinds of wines. So wine is simple, but we choose to make wine complex because simple isn't interesting enough.

Just because bringing your own bottle of wine to a restaurant is getting more popular doesn't automatically make it a good idea — not every popular trend is wise. In this case, though, the crowd is on to something: BYOB wine can be a very good idea. There are several reasons why you should consider a BYOB wine evening the next time you eat out at a good restaurant. By bringing your own wine, you'll save money, get a particular wine you like, and may have a better overall wine experience.

Decanting wine can be a nice part of the wine serving ritual and is something many think about when they think about serving fine wine. Not all wines need to be decanted, though. Wine only needs to be decanted if it is a red wine that has formed a sediment in the bottle while aging for several years. The sediment in red wine helps give it character and complexity, but you don't want to that sediment in your wine glass when you drink. Decant your wine in advance to eliminate the sediment

Boxed wines are becoming more popular in America. They've already established themselves in Australia and France but the low quality of early boxed wines continues to hurt their public perception in America. This is changing and while there are some definite advantages to using boxed wines, there are also some disadvantages. If you are going to drink boxed wine, you should weigh the pros and cons of boxed wines for whatever your situation.

One common myth about wine is that you need special wine glasses for each different kind of wine. It is not, however, a wine myth that a lot of people adhere to — probably because so few people can afford to have different wine glasses for each kind of wine. Unfortunately, this seems to create a backlash in which people decide that if they aren't going to have different glasses for each wine, then any old glass is good enough for drinking wine. A little wine glass moderation is needed here.