Dining Out. Sparkling gold How to treat it?

Do you know all the rules of drinking champagne? Our article is about these rules. When buying a bottle of brand champagne make sure that the bottle was lying in a horizontal position before that (this concerns the bottles with a non polyethylene cork) and the wine was moistening the cork. Otherwise, the cork will dry up due to long storage and carbonic acid will escape from the bottle. The wine, despite its respectable label, will turn into a plain dry wine and will not sparkle. This phenomenon, which is called "cullez" among scientists, can happen also with polyethylene corks but extremely rarely.

Second peculiarity. Wine should be cooled before drinking. This is why champagne should not be served in buckets with ice (as one may often see) but with water, in which ice cubes are floating. A bottle of champagne must in a few minutes cool from 10-15°C down to 8-10°C (dry) and up to 14-16°C (sweet). One more detail. The bucket should not be put in the middle of the table but near to the table on a special stand.

How to open the bottle?
The quality of champagne is not in any way related to the force of the "shot". Champagne should be opened quietly in order not to scare sensitive ladies with the shots. The shot contributes to fast evaporation of carbonic acid from the champagne. Decompression at a fast raise from the bottom banefully influences all the living. The discharge of bubbles in champagne, as some winemakers say, is not only related to isolation of diluted carbonic acid from the wine but also to the decomposition of amino acids which are in wine and have formed in the process of champagnization. Quick fading of the wine sparkles in the glass is evidence of its poor quality.

The sparkling of good champagne in the glass lasts for a few hours and in best champagnes up to 10 hours. This can hardly be said about the Italian sparkling wines, which are often bought instead of champagne. In Tashkent, French champagne is served in the InterContinental Hotel and Basha Club. The shops have a large assortment of wines produced in Uzbekistan. I can say from my own experience that "Sun Wine" wine is preferred in a female society. The beautiful bottle and its pleasant contents conquer the non spoilt in attention female hearts. I do not recommend to buy the Sparkling Wine "Elitarnoe" produced by Far Vab - not tasty and hard to open. However the Neobiknovennya Vodka of the same producer is good.

Professionals, when picking a bottle, never shake it. When opening, the bottle is held at an angle of 45° and, holding the cork firmly, they turn the bottle, not the cork. If this is taking place at home and you are not able to open the cork at the first attempt, I may give you the following advice from my personal female experience. Press the bottle against the door and turn it.

How to pour and into what?
Champagne should be pored into a glass very slowly, tilting the glass so that the stream runs on the walls. This way you will reduce the formation of froth. One should pour in two draughts and fill ³/₄ of the glass. This is fine and convenient. Do not use goblets as glasses. In goblets champagne does not sparkle and quickly loses its aroma. Champagne glasses should have the shape of a cone, gradually widening to the top and then slightly narrowing. Glasses should be washed only with natural soap and rinsed with pure water. The excessive sparkling of wine often means that the glasses are not clean enough.

What can you see in the glass?
A sign showing how the forthcoming year will pass. Let me explain. An overwhelming majority of former Soviet Union women throw a piece of chocolate into the glass. This piece in the glass behaves in different ways: goes up, falls down, slowly floats on the surface or rests at the bottom. Women predict the state of their affairs for next year according to the behavior of the chocolate. It is customary to think that ladies like champagne and chocolate and so this is one of the most widespread presents. However, just so you know, this combination is inadmissible.

When champagne is poured into the glass, it must sparkle. Bubbles should rise from it. They must be small and firm and come out of the center of the glass's bottom fountainlike, forming a bubble fascia. This fascia consisting of small bubbles must remain in the glass for a few hours. Large bubbles are usually the evidence of poor quality of wine.

How to drink and with what?
The bitterest enemy of any champagne is high temperature, light and cosmetics. It is not recommended to drink champagne with rouged lips. The lip-stick composition includes substances which neutralize all the finest and particularly precious qualities of champagne wines. One should not clasp the top part of the glass containing champagne with one's hand. This way you warm the wine and it loses its qualities. You will insult the winemaker if you stir the champagne with a straw (God forbid you to stir muzzle with a wire bridle) for reducing the number of bubbles. The winemaker has put much work for the sake of these bubbles.

The hors d'oeuvre could be varied: fruits, caviar sandwich, good cheese, dishes from white meat, sponge-cakes with fruits and berries. Dry classic champagne (Brut, residual sugar in grams per liter - 15) is identified as a male wine. If women like Brut, than they are possessors of persistent character.

I wish you to celebrate the New Year eve in a manly manner: with champagne, money and a real woman! Garcon, champagne for all!