Mine this year is to take more care to serve wines properly. Too often I end up taking a red out of the cellar, warming it through for ten minutes (standing it in a sink full of luke-warm water works quite well), popping the cork and drinking it. It works well enough quite a lot of the time.

This issue was brought to mind when I posted my last wine group tasting notes. I was remembering a large flight of Barolos served at about room temperature but decanted and poured with no chance to breath. Several of the wines were really unpleasant at first, seeming hopelessly oxidised, but they were just in that odd reductive state that Barolo gets into and after half an hour in the glass they were fresh, beautiful and delicious.

Similarly last night with a Lafarge Volnay from 1988: not unpleasant but very dumb on the nose at first - an hour in a decanter would have done wonders for it I think. There is a type of wine, quite tightly wound, often ageworthy, that really needs careful treatment to show well. I am determined to make more of an effort in future.

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