Here's an interesting book to help you overcome your wine phobia(s). "Secrets from the Wine Diva" offers tips and advice on buying, ordering and enjoying wine. Have a look - and give a few copies away this holiday season.

Secrets from the Wine Diva

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There are a number of things that we need to look at in serving wine. Things like: proper serving temperature, opening the bottle properly, decanting, pouring and appropriate wine glasses to be used. From preparation to serving, knowing all these aspects, and enjoying the art of it, can surely enhance our indulgence to this very enjoyable drink!

Proper Serving Temperature

At what temperature is wine best served? In a cozy room, wine is served topped on ice. But do all wines need ice? No, a young inexpensive wine may taste best when it is cooled, but older expensive wines are usually better served warm.

Serving temperature affects the aroma and taste of wine. Red wines for instance are very enticing especially when kept at cellar temperature of about 16oC. Such condition enhances the aroma and embellishes the natural flavor. However, it is chilled you can try pouring it into a warm glass to replenish the taste and aroma. White wines, on the other hand, are the reverse of the other. This wine prefers a chilled condition of just about 8 to 10 degrees Celsius. Chilling it to a lower temperature, would probably mask off its taste and aroma.

Bottle Opening

Wine bottles are topped with either a cork or screw cap. The advantage of cork over screw caps is that its slight porous texture allows a favorable environment for wine to age in a cellar.

For sparkling wine and champagne, extra care should be applied as cork may eject with a tremendous force which could cause injury. It is best to take note that opening bottles at an angle away from you and other people helps to ensure safety, since drinking wine is more enjoyable when you’re not hurt!

Removal of Bottle Stink

Some wine enthusiasts like to open their drinks several hours before prior to serving for better aeration. This lets the wine breathe and release mercaptans or bottle stink in the wine. Glass agitation is also a way of removing bottle stink. This is done of course after the wine has been opened and poured into the glass.

Wine Decanting

Decanting is process of pouring wine which also allows wine breathing and thus improve flavor especially for older wines. In the process, wine is slowly and steadily poured down into a decanter. Pouring the wine carefully separates the sediments which add a bitter taste to the wine. While doing so, the bottle should be kept at an angle to prevent unwanted sediments flowing down the decanter.

Wine Pouring

Wine is a social drink; it’s not water and shouldn’t be filled up to the brim of the glass. Wine should be filled only to about halfway mark and should never exceed two thirds. Half-filled glasses allow your guests to swirl the wine to as much as they choose.

Typical wines are simply poured to the center of the glass. However, sparkling wines should be poured against the sides of the glass to preserve bubbles. Lastly, drips are a mess, that’s why twisting the bottle slightly as it is being tilted upright would prevent such mess.

Wine Tasting

Wine is one of the oldest drinks known to man, it’s probably second only to water in terms of the amount consumed throughout history. However, as man’s technological progress has evolved, so has their wine evolved and became even better. Today there are so many types of wine you can choose from that you’re probably lost when it comes to picking a wine. Add to that the fact that many wines have fancy names that are tough to pronounce. But don’t worry intrepid Long Islander’s wines belong to major categories that define them. Some wines are also known by the regions they came from because that wine may be the specialty of a particular area. So those fancy names you hear is often nothing more then the name of a particular region where the wines came from.

Basically, wines are just grapes that are left in a barrel to ferment on their own for a particular period of time. The wine making process has become easier in recent years, however, it is still time consuming because nothing beats the actual natural fermentation process and that takes time, sometimes even decades to complete. The wines that take a long time to ferment are also more expensive then wines that ferment quicker.

As was mentioned earlier, the type of wine is usually known by the region where it came from. The reason for this is because the processes of making wine in different regions do vary and the climates and the kind of grapes in different regions are also dissimilar. So it is only to be expected that there will be many variations of wine even though they all share the same basic principles in the wine making process. Grapes, the primary ingredient in wine plays a key role in determining what type of wine you will get and the type of grape is identified by the term, varietals.

The foremost grapes for white wine are the Chardonnay grapes and the Sauvignon Blanc grapes. The United States, particularly in the state of California is a good source of the Chardonnay grapes. This type of grape is suited for making wine that is best paired with your food. Meanwhile, Sauvignon Blanc grapes are a great choice when you intend to produce wines that can be enjoyed outdoors.

While the foremost varietals in white wine is the Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, the foremost varietals in producing red wine, on the other hand, are many. Some of these varietals include Merlot grapes, these grapes result in a smooth wine. Another popular choice in making red wine is the Zinfandel grapes; the Zinfandel grapes are very flexible and can produce either red or white wine.

Meanwhile, still another choice for red wine is the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes; this type of grape will produce the rich and full-flavored wine that the red wine is widely associated with. This type of wine is especially good when paired with a strong and heavy meal. Pinot Noir, on the other hand, is more mediocre compared to the Cabernet but this is just because the kind of wine that Pinot Noir is really made for is Champagne and not the red wine. A lesser known varietals meanwhile, is the Syrah, this also creates a full-flavored wine like the Chardonnay and is a best seller in Australia.

In essence, there are only two categories of wine, red wine and white wine. Generally speaking, white wine is lighter than red wine and it also matures more quickly compared to red wine. So this is basically the gist of the types of wine available for your consumption.

Wine Tasting

Many restaurants offer menus that can be paired with specific wines but most people are clueless and don't even try to pair out the wines for their food because they don't know how. Often people are afraid that they’ll look unsophisticated, if they try to pair wine with the wrong food. There are really no concrete rules in pairing wines with food, it’s really a matter of your taste. However, there are a few guidelines you should follow when making your dinner wine selection..

Generally speaking, the rules are simple. You should really just pair wine with food that is of the same taste. But you should also take into consideration the texture of both your dish and the wine. To illustrate, think of a salty food that is rich in texture and then think of a wine that is just right for that dish, the wine you think of may not necessarily be of the same taste but it should complement the dish. Yes, the white wine that you think doesn't taste good when taken alone may actually be the best choice for this dish because both their characteristics negate the other so you will come up with a combination that is just perfect in flavor.

In selecting the right wine for your food, you should also consider the strength of both wine and the food in terms of texture and flavor. A light wine will not go well with a strong flavored food such as prime rib, similarly a strong wine will not taste well with a light meal like sandwiches because the flavor of the wine will simply weight down the taste of your sandwich and you will end up not enjoying your meal.

Here are some tips in choosing the right wine for your meal. Salty foods go well with acidic wines as the example of the white wine above showed. Sour flavored food would likewise go well with this kind of wine. This is because the acid in both the wine and the food would complement each other well unlike in the case of taking wine with little or no acid as the acid in wine is actually the one responsible in contradicting the undesirable flavor that is related to tasting too much salt in your food.

Meanwhile, pairing your dessert with wine can get complicated, because wines are not really designed to do this. Remember, one of the rules in wine pairing is you should match both food and wine with similar characteristics. But all is not lost as there are now wines specifically made for desserts out on the market now.

On the other hand, foods with pepper are definitely easier to match. You need only to find a wine that has a spicy quality to it and there are a lot out there on the market. And the most commonly known wine, the red wine, is perfect for the stronger food that includes the meatier parts of a meal as they both enhance the other in terms of flavors.

Choosing wine for your food need not be a daunting task, just make sure that you have the basic knowledge in pairing and you will certainly do fine on your own.

Wine Tasting

How do you taste wine? Some people simply drink their wine as if it were a glass of diet coke, while others truly savor and enjoy the taste of it. Tasting wine is an art that requires a great deal of practice and experience to master. The experienced taster can classify one specific wine from another.

Can a wine expert really tell whether a particular wine was made in a certain year? Or what season the wine was produced in? The answer is yes! There are people who can really determine such information just by tasting.

Aromas of Wine

You know how bland food tastes when you have a cold right? That’s because your sense of smell helps you distinguish flavors, wine tasters realize this. True wine tasters always smell their wine before the taste it. Researchers say that about seventy five percent of what we taste is due to the fact that our sense of smell helps our taste buds work. For this reason, we can say that a good aroma determines a good taste. Some of the common aromas of wine already identified are: earthy, floral, fruity, woody, herbs and spices.

Methods of Wine Tasting

Wine is a very relaxing drink, but there’s a lot more pleasure derived from wine when you enjoy it with all of our senses. This is called sensory evaluation or in simple terms — evaluating wine with the use of all your senses. Wine tasting requires three different senses, these are: the look, the smell and the taste. Each of these aspects helps evaluate the wine.

The Look

The first step in tasting wine is simply examining it. Does the wine look appetizing? Is the wine clear or is it cloudy? While the wines clarity does not really matter to the taste, wine tasting is very subjective in nature. The fact is that different individuals will rate the same wine differently simply based on it’s appearance.

The Aroma

Smelling the wine helps us truly determine the quality of a wine. Aging wine in oak barrels adds more flavor and aroma to the wine. Vanilla or Cinnamon flavors in particular could be added during aging. As aging progresses, an earthy scent could be recognized as say roses or wildflowers. The scent of grapefruit is a common aroma as well as citrus, pine, apple and cantaloupe. Other wines elicit an elusive smell of herbs and spice as say freshly ground black pepper.

The Taste

The taste of wine varies from sweet to sour and finally bitter. Since wine is made of fermented fruit, it often does have a sour taste to it, but usually with a touch of sweetness. Wine tasters have individual preferences as well as cultural bias. Americans, for instance, prefer sweet wines. Mexicans however, are fond of sour drinks, as they love the taste of citrus flavor. Germans prefer wine with a little spice, while Italians like wine to be a little bit bitter. Hence, taste depends quite a bit on one’s cultural upbringing

In conclusion, tasting wine is not merely drinking and swallowing. It involves aroma, sight and taste to conjure up an overall feeling about the wine. It sounds complicated but once you’ve tried the techniques, you’ll understand…

Wine Tasting

Interesting video all about buying and storing wines. Short video, under two minutes.
Good information, have a look!

Tags: wine, wine tasting, buying wine

wine buying Wine News Wine Tasting

Here's a 2 minute video talking about wine tasting. It's pretty informative. Have a look

Wine News Wine Tasting