Serving Order

When we serve (or drink) more than one kind of wine, the order in which we serve them is important. The first wine consumed will influence the taste of the second; the second will influence the taste of the third, etc. The object of the serving order is to minimize these effects. After drinking or eating something sweet (or sour, salty, etc.) the sensation of sweetness persists on our palate. If we drink a dry wine shortly after drinking a sweet wine, the contrast between the sweet taste lingering on our palate and the dry wine will result in the dry wine tasting sour. If we were to drink a white wine after a red wine the white wine will taste thin or flat because white wines do not present the same range of complex flavors or aromas as reds.

Here are three expressions of serving order. The one on the left is very simple and easy to remember. As long as your wine list is equally simple, this way of thinking about ordering the wine will suffice. The other two are progressively more complicated, but will enable you to deal with a more complicated selection of wines.

Serving Order
Simple	More Complete	Most Complete
Dry Before Sweet	Sparkling	Young before Old
White Before Red	Light White Wine	Light Before Full Bodied
	Heavy White Wine	Coolest before warmest
	Rose	Low to High Alcohol
	Light Red Wine	White to Red
	Heavy Red Wine	Dry to Sweet
	Sweet Wine

These rules may not handle every situation and in those cases the tastes of the server have to be applied.