1 – Trying to imitate the wine experts
If you don’t know what you are doing, and start stirring your glass or looking at its color in big ceremony in front of the sommelier, you won’t fool anyone.... It’s an artform to know how to taste wine, so keep it simple. Even if you are no expert, you can enjoy a good bottle, and be simple about it.
2 - Putting ice into your wine
Although many French people do it at home, it’s considered “sacrilège” and should never be done at a fancy restaurant with a good bottle of wine. Now if in a small bistro of Provence, in the middle of the August heat wave, you feel like adding a couple of ice cubes to your “pichet de rosé”, a lot of people will forgive you. I will :-)
3 - Pouring too much wine in the glass
Technically, you need to leave room in the glass so you can swirl it. But now, in France it is more a question of “bonnes manières (French etiquette)”. You never fill a glass to the top, that’s all. And you don't gulp your wine down. It's meant to be tasted and enjoyed slowly.
4 – For a woman – pouring her own glass of wine
Here again, it’s a question of etiquette. A French woman usually doesn’t pour her own wine. The man next to them keeps an eye on her glass and pours it when needed (a full time job if you are seating next to me :-)
5 – Drinking/pouring your Bordeaux till the very last drop
It’s like Turkish coffee... Wines often have what is called “un dépôt”, it is ” la lie de vin”. It’s thick and muddy, it doesn’t taste too good... So if you are opening a good bottle, be careful when you are coming towards the end: you might want to leave about 1/2 inch in the bottle so that “la lie” stays in there. If by mistake your host pours it into your glass, just don’t drink it. Your host should see it and change your glass...
