Sula Wines

Open
Before you can enjoy wine, you need to be able to get it out of the bottle. A good corkscrew will remove the cork cleanly; a badly designed one can cause the cork to crumble, break, or fall into the wine. A foil cutter isn’t essential, but helps to remove the top of the foil capsule covering the cork (cut around the topmost lip of the bottle to pop the foil cap off easily). Our favourite designs use a lever mechanism, like the Waiter’s corkscrew or the Butterfly corkscrew (be sure to pick one with a worm – the helical bit of metal that inserts into the cork – that’s 1.5″-2″ in length, with smooth edges). If you’re in a hurry, the bulky but effective Rabbit corkscrew does a spot-on job. Wormless designs like the two-pronged corkscrew are a bit unreliable but can remove the cork intact, with no holes.

After removing the foil capsule, position the tip of the worm in the centre of the cork. Twist in a clockwise motion until only one spiral of the worm is visible. Push/pull the lever handle in a firm, smooth motion to extract the cork in (hopefully) one piece. Wiggle the end of the cork gently out of the neck. The more bottles you open, the easier it’ll get.

Prepare
Too often, we ruin a perfectly good bottle simply by neglecting to serve it correctly. Here are some easy things you can do to better enjoy your wine:
Serve wine at the right temperature. A common mistake is serving white wine too cold (causing its aromas to be masked) and red wine too warm (making it taste dull and harshly alcoholic).
Don’t serve red wine “at room temperature” if the room in question is sweltering (often the case in many parts of India). Try refrigerating it for a while to bring the temperature down to 12-15ºC. In a pinch, a 15-minute plunge into a bucket of ice water will do just fine.
Give your reds a little time to breathe. Uncork your bottle of Sula Cabernet Shiraz or Dindori Reserve Shiraz a half-hour before drinking; pour the wine into a decanter (a clean water pitcher will do) and swirl it around to allow it to open up a bit.
Decanting also works well for imported wines suffering from bottle shock from the long trip over. Do a before-and-after taste test and see if you can spot the improvement.

Pour
The ideal wine glass is clear, allowing you to easily discern a wine’s colour and clarity. Look for “chimney”-shaped glasses – broader at the bottom tapering up to a narrower rim. The broad bottom allows you to hold enough wine and gives you plenty of room to swirl, while the smaller opening at the top traps and focuses the aromas. The tulip-shaped ISO (International Standards Organisation) tasting glass is the perfect all-purpose glass.

Traditionally, white wine glasses tend to be smaller than those for red wine. Champagne and sparkling wine are best served in tall, narrow flutes which keep the bubbles from escaping, ensuring the wine doesn’t go flat quickly.

Avoid washing wine glasses with soap, as it tends to leave a filmy residue that can interfere with future wine-drinking experiences. Instead, just use hot water and rinse thoroughly.

There’s a lot of fancy glassware available to enhance your wine habit; however, an evening of drinking wine out of old pint glasses with good company has a charm all unto itself.

Pair
Wine and food pairing is a highly inexact and subjective process. The saying “white wine with fish and poultry, red wine with meat” is more customary than culinary, and doesn’t take into account the multi-ethnic cuisines of today.

Don’t let yourself get bogged down by stodgy rules. When pairing wine and food, remember that the main goal is to achieve synergy and balance; neither one should overpower the other.

Wine drunk alone tastes quite different than when combined with food. Wine can enhance the flavour of food – a good match will bring out the finer nuances of both.

Pair lighter-bodied wines with lighter foods, and full-bodied wines with richer, heartier dishes. Delicate foods – poached, steamed, or boiled – pair best with delicate wines. Grilled, roasted, or heavily spiced foods call for more robust wines.

Beware of pairing a wine with food that is sweeter than it, or else the wine will end up tasting overly acidic and thin. Try pairing opposites – a sweet dessert wine will nicely set off spicy Thai food or a hot Indian curry.

At Sula, we take pride into crafting wines that pair well with Indian food as well as international cuisines. Be adventurous; there’s plenty of room for experimentation and expression of your personality in pairing food and wine. Above all, remember that it’s your wine – you’re allowed to drink it your way!