China has been a country of etiquette since ancient times, and the Chinese can be regarded as experts in etiquette. It basically covers all aspects of people's life such as basic necessities of life, food, housing and transportation, and drinking wine is naturally indispensable for various ways. 

The Choice of Wine

Starting from choosing a bottle of wine, whether it is entertaining relatives, friends or customers, a good bottle of wine is very important. Good here does not mean that the more expensive the better, of course you can choose according to the preferences of the guests. But more importantly, it should be paired with the food of the day. 

Open the Bottle

Cut the seal, take out the cork and pour the first sip of wine into your own glass. This is not only to taste the wine to ensure that the quality of the wine has not changed, but also to avoid pouring a layer of cork debris that may be floating on the surface of the wine into the guests' glasses. 

Serve Wine

White wine should be chilled in an ice bucket for a period of time before drinking and served at 8 - 10 degrees Celsius. Red wine is ideal between 15-18 degrees Celsius, but it must not exceed this range. Because the temperature is slightly lower than slightly higher, so that the aroma of the wine can be brought out through the higher temperature in the mouth. 

Pour Wine

It should be at an appropriate height from the mouth of the wine glass, generally about 5 cm, and slowly pour the wine into the wine glass along the wall of the glass.

When asking someone to pour wine, the guest can put the wine glass on the table. If you don't want to refill the wine, just shake the rim of the glass with your hand or cover the glass. When pouring wine for yourself or others, you must never fill the glass full. It is almost enough with no more than half a glass. 

Toasting

Banquet toasts in Western countries generally choose between the main course and the dessert. Raise the cup up to eye level and stare at each other when toasting, and at least take a sip of wine to show respect. In addition, there is often the habit of persuading people to drink at banquets in our country, but many countries in the world regard this as a taboo and we should deal with it as appropriate. Regarding this, we should deal with the crisis. 

Catering

Wine is a common accompaniment drink for Westerners. They usually order food first, and then order wine according to the needs of the food. Since there are appetizer soups, salads, main dishes, desserts in western food and the tastes that change from light to strong, and finally to sweet. So does wine. Generally, drink white wine first, then red wine. Drink young wine first, then old wine. First drink the light, then the strong one. Drink the unsweetened one first, then the sweet one. 

The last thing I want to tell you is that although there are various etiquettes of wine, but in fact, everyone can be more flexible. After all, it is not absolute to follow, and the pursuit of dogmatism must not affect the enjoyment of wine.

Lydia Zhao POINT PLUME