Preparation – White and rose wines

White wines and rosé wines are best chilled. Now, with something like a Chardonnay, I'd give it an hour in the refrigerator; a Sauvignon, a Riesling, a rosé wine - about two hours or more. And for older wines, don't overchill them - one hour in the refrigerator is quite enough.

Preparation – red wines

Young red wines can be treated in a fairly cavalier kind of way; a light fruity red wine can even be chilled for an hour. Full-bodied red wines are usually better at a cool room temperature.

The basic corkscrew

The basic corkscrew design has, and the one thing all corkscrews must have, is a generous helix - one that you can slide a matchstick up and down. That will stop the corkscrew tearing the heart out of the cork. So what you do with this is put the corkscrew into the center of the cork, give it a good twist around until it's gone right into the cork, and then simply pull it out.

Cutting the capsule

Capsules are usually made of lead, tin or plastic. Remove the top by cutting around the rim with a capsule or foil cutter, or with a knife, and flipping it off. Wipe the top with a wet cloth. This is particularly important if it's a lead capsule.

Pouring the wine – and how not to!

When pouring wine, pour it gently and pour less than half a glass so that you've got room to swirl it around if you want. What you don't want to do is pour it like mad and pour it more than half full because then it goes all over the place and you make an awful mess on the carpet.

The Waiter's Friend

One popular corkscrew is called the Waiter's Friend. With it you twist the corkscrew into the cork, put the clasp against the rim of the bottle, hold it tightly and ease the cork out.

The Screwpull

The screwpull is one of the most user-friendly of all corkscrews because there's just no effort involved. You just turn the corkscrew into the cork, and then you keep on turning and the cork just comes out of the bottle.

Cork stuck in the neck

Sometimes you'll find a cork you're unable to budge with an ordinary corkscrew. So what I do is use the 'Thief'. You put the longer side of the Thief down one side of the cork, the shorter side down the other side, and wiggle it down. Then you twist it and pull it out in one motion. What it also may be useful for is when you have old bottles of wine with very fragile corks.

Broken cork in the neck

Sometimes the cork breaks off halfway down the neck of the bottle. Well, what you have to do, I'm afraid, is very gently push the cork into the wine. Do it gently so that the wine doesn't splash out. It's not particularly pretty, but it doesn't affect the flavor of the wine. And it also means that when you pour the wine, be careful for the very first pour so that it doesn't shoot out of the bottle.

But there is a device, called a Butler's Friend, which you can use to save that cork. And what you do is put the three prongs into the bottle, push them down, and then waggle them around to get hold of the cork inside the prongs. Finally, you push the ring down and pull it out along with what's left of the cork.

Opening the bottle

Opening sparkling wine isn't actually very difficult, but the one thing you must remember is not to let the cork fly out because you could actually hurt someone. So, what I do is locate the ring and pull it out. Then I take the foil off. From there on I put my finger over the top to avoid the actual cork coming out. Next I undo the wire cage and remove the wire cage. Then I hold the bottle and gradually twist that cork and twist the bottle (at an angle, which will mean that it's less likely to fizz out), and gradually I can feel the pressure building up against my hand, the cork slowly eases out.

Pouring

The best way to do this is to tilt the glass and then pour the wine down the side of the glass. What happens then is that the bubbles actually stay in the wine rather than spilling all over the place. And you certainly don't want to simply pour it fast, because what happens if you pour the wine like that is it goes all over the table and you lose most of the fizz. And don't use those short, flat Champagne coupes because what you get then is a brief flaring of bubbles, and you're left then with still wine.

The failsafe method

One failsafe method of getting the Champagne cork out without it shooting out and hurting anybody is to put a cloth over the top of the bottle. First, remove the foil from the top. Then, twist the wire cage off underneath there, holding the wire cage and the cork, and ease both of them out at the same time.

Preparing the bottle

All wine should be stored on its side. That's to stop the cork drying out. Some wine develops sediment; any mature red wine of, say, ten years old will probably develop sediment. So what you do is take the wine gently out and stand it upright for 24 hours before you drink it, letting the sediment drop gently to the bottom of the bottle.

The method

First, light a candle, and the reason for that is to create some light which can shine through the neck or the shoulder of the bottle as you start pouring this wine into a jug or a decanter. Then, use one gentle movement all the way through - any sudden movements and the sediment will end up in the body of the wine all over again. Watch to see when a little arrowhead of sediment starts to creep up the bottle towards the shoulder or the neck, because that's the sediment coming up the bottle. Stop pouring before the sediment reaches the decanter. The sediment all stays in the bottle and all the clear wine is in the decanter.