If you enjoy pouring yourself a glass of wine at the end of a long day, listen up.
At WineFriend, we’re all about drinking better — so we’re sharing three easy ways to get the most out of your wine, every time.
Side note: While these tips can’t save you from picking a dud off the shelf, we’d love to match you with two wines tailored to your unique taste buds — just take our fun & free Taste Test.
Tip 1: Temperature Matters
Make sure your wines are stored and served at the right temperature.
In New Zealand we tend to drink our red wines WAY too warm and our white wines WAY too cold. A red wine that’s too warm can smell ‘cooked’ and taste bland and soapy, while a white wine that’s too cold can smell, um, like nothing and taste thin and metallic. Yuck!
So, to preserve and accentuate all those bright, fresh, sexy florals, fruits and spicy notes in your wines, our team at WineFriend are asking you to chill out with your chilling out.
Believe it or not, a slight chill on your whites and rosés is all that’s needed! Pop the bottle in the fridge for 45 minutes max, and for heavier whites such as chardonnay and viognier — 20 minutes will do the trick.
But if you want to get technical, white wines drink best between 8-12 degrees and reds between 15-19 degrees.
If the bottle’s already been in the fridge for hours or days, take it out about an hour before you want to open it.
However, it’s best to store your wines somewhere dark because light can damage bottles as badly as heat. Basically, you don’t want to store your wine anywhere you can see it, and there’s no need a fancy wine fridge — under a bed or at the bottom of a wardrobe can work just as well! (Better living, everyone).
WineFriend Fact: When our wine tasting team are picking the best of the bunch to include in subscription cases, we ALWAYS taste them at a cool room temperature—or ‘chambrés’ as the French say—to truly appreciate each wine’s characteristics.
Extra for Experimenters: To really see the difference temperature makes to a wine, pour yourself a glass, cover it, then put the rest of the bottle in the fridge for about 20 minutes. Take it out and try the cool glass and the warmer glass side by side. Amazing, right? That’s our kind of science!
Tip 2. Size matters (wine glasses that is…)
When it comes to wine, size and shape do matter!
But glasses come in so many shapes and sizes — so how do you know which one is the glass for you? Well, it depends on what you’re drinking.
For still whites and rosés: go for your classic smaller, slender glass. It's like the little black dress of wine glasses—versatile and always in style!
For sparkling: when it comes to popping open a bottle of bubbly, like champagne or prosecco, reach for a flute glass! Its tall, narrow, Gigi Hadid-like shape keeps those bubbles bubbling and the fizz fizzing.
For reds: grab your grandest goblet with a wide bowl to let those rich flavours roam freely. It's the ultimate vessel for your vino voyage!
But who really has different types of glassware at home anyway?! Don’t fret if you haven’t got a range to choose from — Gabriel Glasses are super versatile and cover all bases and is what we use when tasting. We also find that, the thinner the glass, the nicer it is to drink out of.
