Category: Zinfandel Wine

A Basic Guide on Wine

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Are you confused about choosing the right wine to serve with certain foods? You’ll be glad to learn that most of the strict “wine rules” are out the window these days. Here are more relaxed guidelines to help you enjoy wine to its fullest.

Wines can be divided into four general classes: appetizer, dinner, dessert, and sparkling wines. The name of the class generally indicates the use of each wine.

Appetizer wines, also called aperitifs, are those served before a meal or as a cocktail.

Dinner wines, also called table wines, include red, white, and rose wines. They usually are served with the main course. Red dinner wines are predominantly dry and rich, and sometimes have a tart or astringent character, so they are best with hearty or highly seasoned foods. White dinner wines are lighter in flavor can can be very dry and tart or slightly sweet and fragrant. Serve white wines with delicately flavored foods so that the flavor of the wine does not overpower the entree.

Rose wine is an all-purpose dinner wine, compatible with any food. Rose wines, which are simply pale red wines, may be sweet or dry, or even lightly carbonated.

In cooking, the flavor of wine should subtly enhance the natural food flavors. Dry red wines are generally used in main dishes such as stews and sauces for red meats. Dry white wines work well with white sauces or poultry dishes.

Dessert wines are heavier heavier-bodied and sweet, and are served as the dessert or as a dessert accompaniment. You also can add them to your favorite dessert sauce.

Sparkling wines, served either by themselves or as an accompaniment, make any occasion special. They taste equally good before, during, or at the end of the meal. The driest ones are labeled “brut”.

Store unopened wines at a cool, constant temperature (about 60oF). Store corked bottle on their sides so the wine will stay in contact with the cork and keep it moist.

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Choosing the Ideal Summer Wine

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If you plan to go on a picnic during the summer, packing a dependable wine bottle is a must in order to enjoy what the season has to offer. This is especially true if you plan to around some exotic locales and try to enjoy the best of what Mother Nature has to offer.

Your choice of wine, however, will dictate how well it will taste in the summer heat. Make the right choice, and you will be able to savour the flavour as best you can. Make the wrong one, though, and you may end up feeling terribly heavy and lousy for the rest of the trip. It is for this purpose that you need to select either a lighter wine or a heavier wine, and your choice will dictate how much you will enjoy them:

The lighter, fresher wines

White wines or red wines with a more fruity and tangy bite to them are the most common wines that can be found during summer. Their refreshing taste helps to uplift the spirits, while the low acid and alcohol content make them ideal for light snacking and picnicking.

These lighter, fresher wines are thus recommended for outdoor excursions that will either require a lot of activity before or afterwards, or for those who want to enjoy their summers sitting lazily on the beach or on the park. These come highly recommended for anyone and everyone who plans to enjoy the great outdoors during summer, and should definitely be selected over their heavier, headier cousins if any activities are scheduled for the day. The wine, of course, must match the food you plan to bring during your summer activities. White wine and the lighter red wines really do not go well with intense foods, so pack food that is easy on the tongue and light on the stomach.

The heavier, headier wines

Deep, dark red wine with high alcohol content is generally not recommended for summer activities. The heat will get to you even faster when you have a lot of alcohol in your system, and you may just end up feeling sluggish even when you still have a lot of things left to do in the day.

The exception to this, though, is the classic barbecue with huge chunks of beef steak on the grill. A few glasses of well chilled red wine will go well with the barbecue, provided you have little else to do during the day except wind down and relax. If you wish to do so, just make sure that you stay nice and cool if you do not want to feel like a huge sack of potatoes in the middle of the summer heat.

All in all, the lighter wines like white wine or fruity red wine are best enjoyed during the summer. Their light flavour helps to add some zing without putting you down, but may prove to be bland when mixed with heavier, more intense foods. If you plan a major barbecue with some dripping T-bone steaks at the side, then you may want to set aside a bottle or two of deeper, darker wine for that meal alone.

What Is Great Wine Actually?

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If you ask someone what actually Great Wine is, then you should know that this question has both no answer and about a zillion answers at the same time. Why is that? The answer, in fact, depends on the person you ask, particularly the time of asking.

 

There is no one type of wine drinker first of all. With that fact as our basis for moving ahead, you can see where you might come up with a gazillion different answers. I know there is no number relating to a Gazillion, but let it be enough that there are plenty of different types.

 

The range extends from the down and out street wino to the extremely upscale wine clubs found in the eastern seaboard of America. And then of course there are our European cousins that consume much more wine than we Americans do routinely. So who you ask about great wine will definitely influence the answer you get back.

 

So is the question even worth asking? From my perspective it is in fact. But who you ask may come as a surprise. You should ask yourself. That’s right. What you think is a great wine is all that is really important when it comes to drinking the grape nectar. After all, it’s your taste buds you are concerned with and not someone else’s. You want to please yourself. You want to experience pleasure when consuming a glass of wine.

 

What will play into and affect that experience is the surroundings with which you find yourself when drinking some wine. Why is that important, well there are some wines that just do not fit some occasions. And if you don’t know at least some basics, your wine selection could end with a very discomforting result.

 

Wine basics 101: there are White, Red and Rose’ in the color realm. There are desert wines, wines that typically go well with certain types of foods and then there are wines that can be enjoyed just by themselves. Actually all wine fits this last category. It just depends on your mood and taste.

 

The days of wine snobbery are for the most part over. As the 21st century progresses, it has become more important for the individual to enjoy their selection than fitting a predetermined set of circumstances dictated by wine snobs. Those supposedly in the know.

 

While everything up till now is true, it’s pretty much an open game, there are a couple of things that you want to keep in mind. One is, you don’t want to select a desert wine such as Muscat to drink with dinner. That may seem like common sense and it is, but if you don’t know what Muscat is, then you could be at the front end of a very big surprise. Muscat is my favorite desert wine. As a child, I use to eat Muscat grapes fresh off the vine from wild grape vines that grew in our neighborhood. It was like free candy.

 

Up until recently, it was sort of taboo to drink white wine with red meat such as Beef, Veal, Venison or other game meats. Red was strictly the wine of choice. And to drink anything other was frowned upon by almost everyone. That is no longer true. It is completely acceptable to drink a white with a dinner steak. If that wine is to your liking, then do it.

 

So the old guidelines of food and wine pairings are not so much in vogue anymore. You will find that attitude at some upscale eateries that provide a wine Somalier. When faced with that situation, you just have to do what you feel comfortable doing. But other than that, great wine is the wine that makes you smile. Maybe even giggle a bit. Champagne bubbles popping about your nose is likely to cause that reaction more so than any other.

 

So….Great wine, what is it? It’s the wine that you love to drink, regardless of other’s opinions and ideas. So go ahead and have that Merlot with sauteed Prawns over Linguine or a nice Pinot Gregio with your Rib eye. You have no one to please but yourself.

 

White Wine Grapes Guide

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Grapes used to make white wine produce an array of flavors and colors, with colors ranging from clear to a golden yellow as the wine ages. Since different climates affect the flavors of the grapes, different regions produce drastically different wines.

In extremely warm regions, the grapes become less acidic and the color of the wine tends to be more golden yellow. In temperate climates, there is more of a balance of acidity and also sweetness in the wine. Cool climates produce more acidic wines where the crop is prone to frost damage if not picked within the season. Chardonnay is perhaps the most well-known grape.

It is grown throughout wine producing regions of the world, but originated in Burgundy. The wine is typically light golden in color with melon and tropical flavors emerging in the wine. Riesling grapes produce a lighter bodied wine than Chardonnay and wine made from this grape usually is sweeter and has a flowery aroma. Sauvignon Blanc is a grape predominately found in France’s Loire Valley. It is a lighter wine that is often paired with a variety of food, including fish and poultry.

Pinot Blanc is a crisp wine that is sometimes made into sparkling wine in France. Champagne is the famous sparkling wine from the French region of Champagne. Only wines produced in this region can legally be called Champagne under a Protected Designation of Origin status.

Chardonnay grapes are most often used in making champagne, but blends with Pinot Noir are not uncommon. White wine grapes produce wine that is lower in tannins then red wine, since the wine is produced with minimal contact of the juice with the grape skins and seeds. The absence of the dry and intense flavor from high amounts of tannins make white wine easier for wine novices to begin tasting and enjoying wine.

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How to Conduct a Wine Tasting

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Wine tasting is a fine art that has been perfected over time. While professional wine tastings are conducted by wine merchants and buyers, it is easy to have your own informal wine tasting at home with friends. Here are some tips to properly taste wine.

First, pick 3 to 6 wines. If you aren’t very familiar with wine yet and are just looking to explore some wines, pick some that you have been eying at the store, anything from red to white. If you want to conduct a more sophisticated wine tasting, limit your wine selection to one type of wine, such as Merlot or Chardonnay, or even to one vineyard. If you want each taste to be a surprise, put the bottles in brown bags so that you and your friends can’t see what wines have been chosen.

For each wine, pour a small amount of wine (2 ounces or less) into stemmed glasses. Smell the wine first to get an impression of the aroma. Taste the wine, then spit it out discreetly, or if you prefer to make your wine tasting more lively, feel free to consume the wine!

Between each sampling, have some small snack foods available to cleanse your palate. Bread with cheese and mild fresh fruit usually work well. Don’t get anything too strong that will interfere with the taste of the wine. Have water available and rinse the wine glasses by swirling some water inside and dumping it out. Continue with each wine until you and your friends have had a chance to taste them all. To make it more interesting, you could set up a contest to see who can correctly guess the type of wine for each bottle.

Wine tasting is a great way to try several wines and learn about the large diversity of wines available. While wine tasting can be as sophisticated and formal as you desire, it can also be as fun and unique an experience as you and your friends want. Think of your own fun personal touches to add to your wine tasting, such as a theme, blindfolded tasting, making special snacks, and more.

For more information on foods to pair with your wine and recipes to try, please visit the informative, interactive food website CD Kitchen here.

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