Wine Q & A

You can drink wine from any glass, even a paper cup if that's all you have.

It's like anything else, though--as your interest and experience levels increase, you tend to seek out some of the fun toys that improve on the experience.

But some glasses really do offer advantages. Glasses with bigger, tulip-shaped bowls improve red wines by capturing and showing off the aromas. Whites are served cooler, which can tamp down aromas, and are fine in the smaller, narrower glasses with less of a tapered rim.  I drink my reds and whites out of the same big tulip-shaped glasses.

Five ounces is considered a serving for both white and red wine. But people tend to fudge, particularly when they're pouring into enormous glasses. I probably pour 6 ounces into my big glasses--7 on a night when I have a heavy hand. I'm constantly swirling my wine before I drink. I like to leave enough room, about 2/3 of the glass, so when I swirl, I don't end up tossing wine all over my shirt.

Those work fine, particularly with pizza or something rustic and fun. But it is interesting to notice the way that a wine's aromas are captured in tulip-shaped glasses. You can try it yourself as an experiment: drink the same wine out of a bistro glass and then a tulip-shaped glass. I think you'll see how much more aroma, and therefore flavor, there is with wine served in the traditional tulip-shaped glasses.

Not unless you have someone doing the dishes for you. Admittedly, it can be a nice touch if you're entertaining. But if it's just a typical dinner with wine and I'm not impressing anyone, what I generally do is toss just a splash of the new wine into the glass, swirl it around to clean it out a bit and then drink it down. It's like creating a sip of my own personal house blend.

It really depends. If you have half a bottle but you know you'll drink it the next day, just put a cork in it and store it on the counter. But if you know it's going to sit there for several days, you can do a few things to preserve it--because once the bottle is exposed to oxygen the wine begins to deteriorate.

• Pour the remaining wine into a smaller container. A plastic water bottle works fine, and you can crinkle the edges to eliminate more air.
  
  
• Vacuum pump it to draw out the air.
  
  
• Cork it and refrigerate (which slows down the chemical reaction) but be sure to take red wines out in time to bring the temperature back up before drinking

Wine can last a while re-corked in the fridge or put into smaller containers that eliminate oxygen. I have kept white wine in the fridge for a couple weeks, and I have not found that they've gone off. In my house, red wine never sticks around that long.

But if you only drink a glass or two on the weekends, I'd invest in a vacuum pump--available at wine merchants and some supermarkets. Vacuum pump the air out of the bottle and store it in the fridge. Take red wine out of the refrigerator on Thursday to enjoy it the following night.

It's good to remember that you're never going to drink the same wine twice: too many flavor compounds are busy at work, changing, improving in many ways but then deteriorating once they're exposed to air.

You could. I've never done it because I drink it or add it straight to a sauce or stew without freezing. But you can use it like ice cubes made of stock to add depth to sauces and soups.

I like to finish a sauce with the same wine I'm drinking with dinner--it builds a tasty flavor bridge between the food and the wine.