As our ministers for finance keep heaping duties and excise onto wines, the net effect is that in Ireland there is no such thing as a cheap wine. There may be bad wines, but thanks to our high levels of excise and VAT, no wine is cheap. Which means that even a moderately priced bottle of wine can represent a significant proportion of our weekly spend. Granted this, it makes sense to get the best out of any wine that you buy.

There are several things that have an effect on the taste of wine, but the two most important are its temperature and its age. Wines are made by the wine-maker to be drunk at a preferred temperature and frequently you'll find that temperature printed as a serving suggestion on the label. Red wines are usually drunk at a higher temperature than whites, but that doesn't mean icy whites and muddy, blood-heat reds.

With white wine, the colder it is the less the flavours will be apparent. That's useful when you have an unpleasant white wine - serving it icy cold will kill off most of its flavours. Good white wines are spoiled by being served too cold, you'll lose a lot of the flavours that you've paid good money to get.

All red wines - unless they are very old - are improved by opening the bottle a good hour before you intend to drink it. Two things happen: the wine gradually adjusts to the room temperature and any volatile elements get a chance to evaporate. Any harsh young tannins will also get a chance to soften. You can hurry this process up by decanting the wine and if it's an elderly wine that's thrown some sediment, you get the added advantage of leaving the sediment in the bottle while the clear wine goes into the decanter.

It's worth bearing in mind that on hot days the ambient temperature can get much higher than the optimum temperature for tasting a red wine. When a red wine gets too warm its flavours become muddy and indistinct, not so different from a white wine that's too cold. On summer days outdoors, keep your reds in the shade. In my part of Italy where temperatures can reach the lower 40s during the summer, we put red wine in the fridge for an hour before serving it, somewhere between 18 and 20 degrees.

Wine of the Week

Pinto Noir, Vision, Cono Sur, 2001

I've written about Cono Sur's Pinot Noir before - it has, I believe, a really clear, clean style that expresses the character of the Pinot Noir grape perfectly. This year the choice of Cono Sur wines (is this a phonetic rendering of connoisseur?) has increased. The Pinot Noir 'Vision' at €13.49 is a step up from the basic €7.99 varietal. The price is becoming noticeable, but this really is a wine that needs the respect of being opened well in advance. Let it breathe for an hour or so before you drink it and it will repay you well. It has all the clarity of the cheaper varietal, but as it opens up you'll find many more levels of taste unfolding on the palate. If you were feeling flush, there's a '20 Barrels' Pinot Noir from Cono Sur which retails at €21.49 and represents their top of the range.

The Vision Pinot Noir is available from McCluskey's Donnybrook and Sweeney's of Dorset Street. RRP €13.49