Some like it room temp

As with good food, there is more to enjoying good wine than just buying the right raw materials. I have been disappointed countless times by being given really good wine at the wrong temperature or in the wrong type of glass.

Red wine should be at room temperature – that's easy. Some lighter red wines should be at a few degrees less, Chinon, for instance, or Samur Champigny from the Loire or Beaujolais. White wine should be served at around 10 degrees centigrade – slightly chilled, not cold. Too cold, and you kill both the bouquet and flavour. Very cheap white wine is often served very cold – for good reason.

I am often horrified to see wine served in completely inappropriate glasses, even in good restaurants which should know better. The wrong glass will totally alter the taste and reduce your enjoyment substantially. The best wine glasses are plain, thin, clear glass. Cut glass, while attractive to look at, does wine no favours.

Some years ago I hosted a tasting with Max Riedel of Riedel Glass. Max gave me two glasses of wine to taste. The first was in an old-fashioned thick glass sherry schooner – the wine had no nose, was bitter, and was generally unexciting, as I told the assembled throng. The second wine was in the perfect Riedel claret glass (tall, with a tulip bowl, thin, clear glass), showed great flavours and was a far better wine than the former. Max then explained to the general amusement of everyone (and to a slightly red-faced me) that they were both the same wine - a wine that I had made. Oh dear!

Riedel glasses are available through riedel.co.uk and are the best on the market.

A final word: all wine benefits from five minutes in the glass before being drunk (in a glass filled no more than a third full). ·