How To Swirl Wine (Video)

How to Swirl Wine

Like a pro…

Finally a nervous twitch that’s socially acceptable! The act of swirling improves the flavor of wine in two ways. For one, it decants the wine and secondly, it coats the glass with aromas. There are two types of wine swirls that you should learn how to do. The two styles are:

Standing Social Swirl (aka The Handheld)
Table Top Swirl

Sparkling Wines
Don’t swirl sparkling wine unless you want to remove the bubbles.

Watch the video on how to swirl… it’s 1 minute long.

How to Swirl Wine

The science of a wine swirl.

Wine Swirl Science

We were surprised to find a study from the Cornell University library on the science of wine swirling. Turns out, wine and physics are friends in the realm of fluid dynamics. A group of 6 physicists submitted a science paper on the perfect speed to swirl wine. They were searching for the optimal oxygen surface area ratio.
Wine Science Paper Source
“Oenodynamic”: Hydrodynamic of wine swirling (video)

The table top wine swirl in action.

View/Hide Video Transcript

Hey I’m Madeline and there’s two types of swirling you should know how to do. One, is the standing social swirl. Ah! The other, is the bar tabletop swirl.
Why do we swirl? Besides is making you look cool, it actually makes the wine taste better. The trick to doing it, you can practice maybe with a rubberband and a pen. The better you are the slower you can go while still keeping the rubberband up high. If you have too much wine, you’ll find it’s really difficult.
The tabletop bar swirl is my favorite swirl to do after a long day. Take your two fingers put them at the base of the glass and draw circles on the bar top. It’s very satisfying.

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By Madeline Puckette
I'm a certified wine geek with a passion for meeting people, travel, and delicious food. You often find me crawling around dank cellars or frolicking through vineyards.