Shanghai Networking News - Networking with Wine: Walking the Wine

Networking with Wine: Walking the Wine

Written by Michael Lee

In everyday life, we are constantly challenged to walk the walk and talk the talk, have substance, be disciplined in protecting our values, while still being balanced enough to carry a conversation amongst peers, ooze charisma and charm the pants off your boss to be. After all, that's a vital part of networking.

Now, if this all sounds like an icy mountain too hard to climb, let me offer you a quicker, seductively effective and may I say, infinitely more enjoyable way of being âthe MAN', or person to be politically correct, but you know what I mean.

The universally literated culture of wine is a language that can inspire, bamboozle, and create an air of James Bond imagery that will throw you into the spotlight of demand. Wine is a paradox filled with irony, love affairs, and descriptors you can't spell but can for fill all our dreams of grandeur.

Understanding wine and how to use it, embrace its language and associate with its culture offers up numerous opportunities to make you look like you have just spent 4 weeks in the south of France tending to some Petit Syrah. However, and yes there is a big, however. There is nothing more obviously ridiculous than someone pretending to know something about wine, when they actually think RosÃ¨ is made from a prickly flower.

With wine, it is 80% attitude and 20% substance. Now since I can't influence the substance part, although if you want private wine tuition I could certainly have a crack at it, I will concentrate on the tangible.

In this and future articles, I will endure countless hours of research and selfless commitment to bring you words of wisdom on how to act, talk, speak, handle, associate with, and ultimately embrace wine. Enjoy!

Wine Lore No. 1 - Holding Wine Correctly

Now this seems like a straightforward proposition, but holding a glass of wine correctly has a number of functions. Firstly, on the type of glassware used. Riedel are the masters of wine glass making, paving the way with their Vinum and Sommeliers selection of glassware. Each glass has been made with individual grape varieties in mind, accentuating each wine's natural characteristics effortlessly. Compare this to drinking the same wine out of a plastic cup, and you may as well just slosh down Chateau de Cardboard.

The glass is made up of the base, the stem and the bowl. Make sure the stem is on the long side, and the bowl large enough to create an aroma vacuum.

Always hold the wine glass by the stem, not the bowl. Cupping your hands around the bowl like you are about to throw a gridiron ball looks crass, clumsy and serves little purpose for the wine. The main reason we don't do this is because of the wine's temperature. Our hands are very warm, and so cupping your hands on the glass will warm up the wine quicker than a 3 minute egg.

Hold the wine about midway up the stem or down to the base where it is comfortable, keeping your hand well away from the wine. Holding it this way allows you to swirl the wine around the glass (something we will cover off later), toast and cheer other glasses, and best of all, it looks elegant, sophisticated and professional.

With that in mind, don your best outfit, put on your game face and clamping eyes firmly on the wine waiter, ask for a glass of the very best. For me, that would be a glass of Krug Vintage 1990 Brut, or a 2002 CÃ´te d'Or Burgundy.

Salut!

Michael Lee

Michael Lee is an independent voice on wine in China, working as Senior Wine Educator and Consultant to Dion Wine Consulting, Shanghai. For further details on Michael's work and services provided by Dion Wine, please visit their website: www.dionwine.com

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