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Food and Wine – Red Wine

There is nothing worse than having a plate of food with a glass of wine that really don’t go together. This article will attempt to advise you of the different types of red wines available and the sorts of foods that they taste best with.

The rules to consuming wine and drink say that red wine is best served with red meats and cheeses. This is true the majority of the time, but during your adventures with wine you will find that there are exceptions to the rule. This article is just here to give you tips and suggestions which will get you started. You will soon get to know what you like the taste of and what you think works well together.

Let’s start with an easy one. Tapas. Tapas is Spanish for lid. This is because over the years Spanish people used a piece of bread to cover the top of their wine to keep the flies out of it. This piece of bread gradually became more than just a piece of bread, and developed into the amazing array of cheeses, sausages and other delicacies that we know tapas to be today. The best thing to drink with tapas is therefore wine. Wherever possible it should be a Spanish wine. (And if possible, a Rioja.) This is always a good tip: if eating a dish that is of a certain country, it is a good idea, where that country is a wine producer, to drink a wine from that country with the dish. Rioja is traditionally a red wine (although there are white versions available), and this does go really well with the sausages and cheeses that are typical of tapas fayre.

So what about other types of food? Well, if you have a thing for French cooking, French wine works well with it. But what type of French wine, I hear you ask. A French Pinot Noir, which is a great tasting red wine, is a must with game. Pigeon, grouse and pheasant are all complemented with this fine, rich tasting wine. Pinot noir is equally at home with fungi too. Something simple like a mushroom omelette with a good chunk of French bread is excellent with this red wine. And for a classic French dish, go for beef bourgignon, which wouldn’t be the same without a red wine such as a Pinot Noir to complement its richness.

For something a little more accessible in French red wine, there is a merlot. This is slightly more rich than a Pinot Noir, but is great with food too. It works well with slightly more peasant-like fayre: roast lamb, pasta with pesto, or just simply roasted vegetables taste great with this.

And if we are to head further south to Italy, you can’t go wrong with a bottle of Chianti. This red wine works wonders with a plate of Spaghetti Bolognese. Often seen as a jug wine, Chianti is a much underrated red wine, which is brilliant with rich Italian sauces.

So as you can see, there are many different red wines from many different countries. They all work well with a variety of different foodstuffs and I hope this article has given you some inspiration.

Fiona Muller has been writing for over 20 years. She is a qualified journalist and has worked in food and drink writing for the last few years. For more information and a great range of wines to try, go to www.laithwaites.co.uk

Food and Wine – Red Wine / Author: kristianphllps

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Drinking Wine with Friends

There is nothing better than finishing work, and going for a drink with friends. Wine is a great drink to enjoy with friends, as you can get a bottle and share the experience. This article talks about different types of wine, and when it is best for you to sit down and enjoy the experience. It also recommends wines for certain occasions.

Wine is best enjoyed socially. There is nothing sadder than having a bottle of wine home alone. Firstly you don’t finish it, and wine that has been kept in the fridge is never as good the next day. Secondly, after it has been opened and kept, it is only good for cooking with (eg risotto), which is also better enjoyed with the company of friends.

In summer, at parties and BBQs, a rosé wine or Chardonnay is recommended. The BBQ is a place where you need something with a bit of flavour to compete with all the rich tastes of the meat and highly flavoured salads and accompanying sauces. A rosé wine is fruity, and will stand up to the flavours of the foods on offer. It also goes well with desserts. Chardonnay is a heavier white wine, often with an oaky taste, which will work well with the food. In fact, it complements a nice juicy spiced steak very well. Your friends will appreciate your thought with the wine that you have supplied, as well as making for a great event.

For an after-work drink, be it with the girls or a wider group, a Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio are white wines that you can’t go wrong with. White wine works best in summer (as long as the drinking establishment has chilled it properly – there is nothing worse than a glass of warm white wine).

In winter, why not have a winter party? You can serve mulled wine, which is great treat to have with friends, and really makes the party swing. To make a fantastic mulled wine, push cloves into an orange and cut up some apple. Put these into a pan and add a bottle of red wine, a cinnamon stick, some orange juice and heat gently. Add some sugar to taste, and you will have the perfect warming party drink.

But of course the best drink to enjoy with friends is a bottle of sparkling wine, cava or Champagne. Why is that? Sparkling wine usually means that you are celebrating and so guarantees a fantastic party atmosphere. So why wait?

Just remember that wine is a fantastic social drink, so why not ring up your friends now and plan a night out?

Fiona Muller has been writing for over 20 years. She is a qualified journalist and has worked in food and drink writing for the last few years. For a great selection of wines, including information on what they go best with, go to www.laithwaites.co.uk

Drinking Wine with Friends / Author: kristianphllps

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Early Wine Research

When the Agricultural Society recognized the need of serious research and supervision for the entire wine industry in 1861, Col. Haraszthy had already solved the problem that faced them. New varieties were needed with experimental, supervised planting in various sections of the State.

In 1861 Governor Downey appointed Col. Haraszthy to head a commission to go to Europe for the purchase of selected varieties to be planted in different parts of the State. He went abroad carrying letters from the Secretary of State, visiting principal vineyards and wineries in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. With practical knowledge of soil and climate conditions at home in California, he selected the leading species of vines, had them tagged, bundled, and shipped to America. He spent $12,000 of his own money for 100,000 vines of 1,400 different varieties.

On his return he prepared an elaborate report of his trip, accounting in detail for all the monies expended, and described the methods of all the famous wineries he had visited. His book, “Grape Culture, Wines and Wine-Making,” is a collector’s item today. It reads as lightly and amusingly as a best-selling travelogue. However, when the report was presented to the California legislature for approval and personal reimbursement, it was wholly rejected!

Civil War was by then raging between the North and South. A five-man Senate Committee on Agriculture voted three to two not to accept the report, or the vines, or to pay the bill. The three nays were Northern Republicans who suspected the Colonel of Confederate leanings!

Col. Haraszthy held the vines for a year, hoping the legislature would reconsider his report. They refused again. Disgusted and disappointed, he returned from the State Capitol and looked at his priceless stock of vine cuttings. His desire to be of further service to the California wine industry came to an end. To realize something from his investment he offered the vines for sale. In lots of twenty, fifty, or one hundred they were distributed, indiscriminately, all over the State. Identifying tags, so carefully attached in each country, were lost, smudged, or ignored by the new owners.

This partisan stupidity of the legislature dealt the industry a crushing blow from which it has never fully recovered. The task of identifying grape species still goes on today; vintners sometimes quarrel with experts over certain types, such as Trebbiano. The finest species, which would have been accorded special care under the Colonel’s supervision, were discarded by most vineyardists of that time because they gave a small yield. The precious blood of these grapes is only now becoming fully appreciated.

In the late sixties, after conveying his Sonoma vineyard to a cooperative association, Col. Haraszthy left California to begin a new life in Central America. Wines and vines had given him a thoroughly disappointing life, and with some degree of vindictive determination he turned to raising sugar cane on a large scale. After only a few months of this new life he missed his footing while crossing a tropical stream, fell into the swirling waters and was devoured by alligators.

Col Haraszthy’s career was a personal tragedy of heroic proportions. Like the central figure in a noble drama of Aristotelian conception he perished because of his virtue. However, his spectacular career as an ardent wine enthusiast established the basis of the modern wine industry, particularly when it comes to Chardonnay. The vines he selected, even at random planting, raised the standard quality of California wine to such an extent that the industry enjoyed considerable expansion in the years immediately following.

Early Wine Research / Author: Sarah Martin

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The Origins of Whiskey

Whiskey is a powerful drink and whiskey is a powerful word-possibly because both are of Irish origin. The English articulation of the word in use today is based upon a word the earliest Gaels applied to the result of their stills, for it appears they were the primary whiskey-makers.

The name they gave the distilled spirit was singularly fitting-they called it “uisgebeatha.” If we scrutinize the word we find that “uisge” (pronounced oosh’gee) means “water,” “beatha” means “life,” and the two combined mean “water of life.” All of which goes to establish that nobody can beat the Irish for suitable naming. In time this intoxicating creation of Ould Ireland’s stills became “whiskbae,” later “whiskie,” and finally just plain “whiskey.”

Similarly, the Scots were distillers of this ancient and respectable liquor. They adopted the original name the Irish gave to the white spirit which flowed from their stills, the word going through a comparable succession of pronunciation until it became “whisky” without the “e”-one can note the spelling on any bottle of Scotch.

We have a lot to thank the Irish for, but whiskey rates a top place on the list. A toast to the Irish-what drink may better serve such a purpose than one of the many whiskey cocktails mixed to precision as in New Orleans? Make it an Old Fashioned, a Sazerac, a Manhattan, a julep, a highball, or just plain whiskey. Whichever it may be, fill ‘em up and drink ‘em down to the original whiskey-makers -the Irish!

The dictionary breakdown on a highball: “a long drink of diluted spirits, usually whiskey, served in a tall glass with cracked ice.”

Like all fashionable drinks, the highball is prominent for its variety. Any spirituous liquor will answer- it depends upon individual inclination. Some like rye with seltzer water, some Bourbon; others hold that the spirit of the drink should be Scots whisky, and still others demand Irish whiskey. Brandy, rum, applejack, all have their advocates, and there are even benighted individuals who desire gin in their highballs.

For the fizz complement use whatever is appealing-seltzer, club soda, white rock, ginger ale, Coca-Cola, Seven-Up. Aficionados, as a rule, insist that only cold water be poured upon their whiskey. Whichever one prefers to place upon their cocktail coaster, make it strong and vibrant!

Oldtimers will tell you the three exceptional drinks of New Orleans in the memory of living men were the dripped absinthe frappe of the Old Absinthe House, the Ramos gin fizz, and the Sazerac cocktail. The American cocktail was not only born in Old New Orleans but was given its inquisitive name in the city’s famous Vieux Carre. The best known of all New Orleans cocktails is indisputably the Sazerac. The fact that it originated in New Orleans gave rise to the fable that it was first concocted by and named for an old Louisiana family, fable without fact as no such Louisiana family existed.

A barbershop that once stood in a building on the right hand side of the first block on Royal Street going down from Canal, in front of the doors, still had lettered in the sidewalk the word “SAZERAC.” This denotation indicated the entrance to a once well-patronized bar on the Exchange Alley side of the building. It was here the drink famed far and wide as a Sazerac cocktail was mixed and served. It was here it was christened with the name it now bears.

For years one of the beloved brands of cognac imported into New Orleans was a brand contrived by the firm of Sazerac-de-Forge et fils, of Limoges, France. The neighboring agent for this firm was John B. Schiller. In 1859 Schiller opened a liquid dispensary at 13 Exchange Alley, naming it “Sazerac Coffee¬house” after the variety of cognac served solely at his bar and that cheerfully was placed on the bar’s absorbent coasters.

Schiller’s brandy cocktails became the drink of the day and his business flourished, surviving even the War Between the States. In 1870 Thomas H. Handy, his bookkeeper, succeeded as proprietor and changed the name to “Sazerac House.” A modification in the concoction also occurred. Peychaud’s bitters were still used to add the right stimulus, but American rye whiskey was alternated with the cognac to satisfy the tastes of Americans who favored “red likker” to pale-faced brandy.

Thus brandy disappeared from the Sazerac cocktail and was switched to whiskey (Handy always used Maryland Club rye), and a dash of absinthe was added. Specifically when whiskey replaced brandy and the dash of absinthe added are unresolved questions. The absinthe novelty has been attributed to Leon Lamothe, who in 1858 was a bartender for Emile Seignouret, Charles Cavaroc & Co., a wine importing firm located in the old Seignouret mansion at 520 Royal street. Most likely it was about 1870, when Lamothe was employed at Pina’s restaurant on Burgundy Street that he experimented with absinthe and made the Sazerac what it is today.

The Origins of Whiskey / Author: Sarah Martin

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Wine Glasses - The Most Suitable Gift for Any Occasion:

Wine epitomizes the elegance that you wish to portray at your party or at a formal event. Known as the ‘drink of the sophisticated’, it has always defined the way celebrations are organized. Well, when wine is so important to an occasion, then so are the wine glasses, that serve this elegant beverage. At many parties, this stemware can be seen as serving a different purpose altogether and that is the purpose of decoration. Party planners’ creativity has led to the evolution of the uses of wine glasses. These exquisite pieces of glass are being widely used as wine gifts as well.

One of the special occasions, where wine flows throughout the event is a wedding. It is a joyous event that unites two souls into the bond of holy matrimony. Wine is one of the principal beverages that are offered at such an event and it accentuates the fun and frolic of the occasion for each and every one. Keeping the relevance of wine in mind, a set of gorgeous wine glasses would act as one of the best wedding gifts for the couple. Many of you who have attended such occasions, at times, might have been in a dilemma as to what to present the couple for the biggest and the happiest day of their lives. Almost everyone these days is a wine enthusiast and knows the importance of the wine and the stemware that go along with it. It would be wise on your part, if you find out before hand if your hosts are into the realm of ‘Wine’. If so, then crystal stemware would be the most ideal wedding gift that you can ever present to the couple.

Even when you are invited to a bridal shower party, wine glasses always turn out to be fabulous bridal party gifts. A bridal party is a very special occasion for a bride-to-be as it marks her stepping into a threshold of marital life. You would definitely want the bride to remember you when she departs her parental home and gets busy with her new life, with new challenges and an entirely new family. It would be a great idea to present to her a set of gorgeous glasses as bridal party gifts. Such a gift would be cherished by her throughout her life.

Whether you are celebrating the successful completion of a project with a client or simply throwing a party for your employees, wine glasses are the most ideal corporate gifts. Not only it shows your clients or your employees, how important they are for your business, but such wine gifts also portray your elegance and your affinity towards a taste for elegance. Such a gesture will certainly portray you as an entrepreneur with a class, as far as your clients are concerned and also as a caring & appreciating boss to your employees. Numerous companies have adopted this system and present their clients and employees with elegant stemware as corporate gifts. Presenting such gifts greatly helps in boosting the morale of your employees, that in turn motivates them to work harder and increases productivity.

Most wine enthusiasts will tell you that if you want to present them with a gift, then the most appropriate gift would be wine glasses. These glasses are considered to be one of the best wine lovers’ gifts that you can ever come up with. Just like golf accessories are the perfect gifts for a golfer, in the same manner, wine accessories, especially wine glasses are the most ideal wine lovers’ gifts for every wine enthusiast.

Once you get acquainted with wine tasting, then there is no turning back. Besides, it is one of the most revered and cherished hobbies of all, that puts you in the high-class of society and the wine glasses that you use or gift will further exemplify your taste and stature.

This article has been written by an expert at Greatest Wine Glass. Greatest Wine Glasses are known for their customized wine glasses. Check out their introductory offer on line at
http://www.greatestwineglass.com/

Wine Glasses - The Most Suitable Gift for Any Occasion: / Author: rohit

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