Rinsing Glasses

posted by philip in Wine

I was at a wine tasting the other day and, feeling thirsty, poured some water into my glass. I drained what was left, and held out the glass for the next wine. The server then proceeded to lecture me on how I shouldn’t put water in the same glass as wine as it “changed the pH and acidity”.

It certainly sounded as if they knew what they were talking about.

I let it slide as I hear this sort of fallacy every day. Firstly, pH and acidity are the same thing. Moreover, wine is predominantly made out of water. The few drops of water in the glass made no difference to the half glass of wine that was poured in.

Technically, the water would have diluted the taste, but we’re talking literally 2 drops versus 2 mouth-fulls of wine. I figure that to be a 0.1% difference. Certainly nothing worth mentioning.