What Wine Should I Bring to Dinner? A Claret Guide

Decanting wine can look suspiciously like one of those rituals designed to make everyone at the table feel they have missed an important class.

There is the beautiful glass vessel. The careful pouring. The serious expression. Occasionally, a candle.

But the useful version is much simpler. You decant wine for one of two reasons: to give it air or to leave sediment behind. Sometimes both. That is really it. A decanter can help a young wine relax, allow a quiet wine to become more expressive and separate an older wine from the sediment that has gathered in the bottle. It can also make the table look very good, which is not the primary purpose but is certainly not a drawback. Here is how to decant wine without turning dinner into a formal examination.

Yes.

Not just for the aesthetic, although we are certainly not pretending the vibes are irrelevant. Wine simply feels better in a good glass. And, let’s be honest, the wine does cry a little when it is served in something with a chunky rim and a stem built like a table leg.

The right glass does not need to be painfully expensive, reserved for special occasions or designed for one very specific grape grown on one particular hillside. It just needs to help the wine be its best self.

That means giving the wine enough room to move, enough space for its aromas to collect and a fine enough rim that you notice the wine rather than the vessel carrying it.

Choosing wine can be intimidating.

Perhaps you are standing in a wine shop looking at several hundred labels, none of which are giving much away. Perhaps you are in a restaurant, everyone has handed you the wine list, and a server is waiting while you pretend to understand the difference between two villages in Burgundy.

We have all been there.

Wine has its own language, and that language is not always particularly helpful. People start talking about red apples, green apples, ruby plums, black plums, graphite, forest floors and pencil shavings. Before long, the wine sounds less like a drink and more like a fruit salad served inside a stationery cupboard.

The good news is that you do not need to know the right wine words to choose something delicious.

You just need to know how you want the wine to feel.

A day spent driving between Geelong cellar doors is a very good day.

There are vineyards, long lunches, rolling hills, coastal views and the deeply satisfying feeling that comes from buying wine approximately twelve metres from where it was made.

But sometimes you want to explore Geelong wine without organising an itinerary, appointing a designated driver or committing an entire Saturday to the cause.

Good news. You can start much closer to home.

Whether you order a local wine by the glass, build a few-bottle tasting from the shop or simply choose one producer you haven't tried before, there are plenty of ways to get to know the region without embarking on a full cellar door tour.

Orange wine tastes as good as it looks. Sometimes peachy and tropical, sometimes floral and savoury, often textural, always capable of making a table look approximately 40 per cent more fun.

It can also attract explanations with the length and emotional weight of a minor thesis. We will not be doing that. Here is orange wine without the lecture: what it is, why it has colour, what it tastes like and where to begin.

Red wine belongs at room temperature. Sure—if your room is a chilly European cellar and not an Australian kitchen in January.

The better rule is simpler: some reds are absolutely delicious with a bit of fridge time. A good chillable red wine is bright, light on its feet and wonderfully easy to drink. It brings the juicy pleasure of red fruit with the refreshment usually assigned to white or rosé. Less ceremony. More “shall we open another?” energy.

Geelong wine is close enough to feel local, varied enough to keep surprising you, and—if we are being honest—occasionally discussed as though everyone arrived with a geology degree. You did not. Excellent. This Geelong wine guide is the useful version: three parts of the region, three grapes to know, and a very easy way to choose your first bottle.

We'd love to say we stock everything Geelong has to offer. We absolutely do not. There are simply too many good wines, too many small producers and not enough shelf space. Rather than attempt to create a definitive list of the best Geelong wineries, we've put together a Claret edit of some of the local producers currently on our shelves, in our fridges or on our bar list. These are wines we like, drink, pour and come back to. Some are established names that have helped put Geelong on the map; others are newer producers we're excited to watch. The common thread is that they tell us something interesting about where they're from.

Champagne is sparkling wine. But sparkling wine isn’t Champagne...

It sounds simple, but there’s a surprisingly big world hiding behind those two words. At Claret, we’re big fans of Champagne. We’re also big fans of Australian sparkling, Loire Valley bubbles, Crémant, pét-nat and pretty much anything else that makes an excellent bottle of fizz. So, what actually makes Champagne different? And if Champagne is off the menu — whether because of price, occasion or simply because you fancy trying something new — what should you drink instead?

Let’s get into it.