Entries tagged with 'wine'
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. Photograph from rolands.lakis on Flickr An international study of more than 4,300 wine-drinking women has revealed the following: Women buy wine because they like how it tastes and it goes well with food. Shocking, isn't it? Apparently the wine pundits thought we bought wine because it was fashionable and good for our health. Instead, they discovered that in the United Kingdom women buy eight out of ten bottles of wine purchased—and what they care about is taste and price. Robert Beynat, a spokesman for the world's largest wine exhibition and one of the partners involved in the research, VinExpo, commented as following on the study's results:...
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. Photograph from 松林Ｌon Flickr Now that it's spring I can't go by the fish counter at the local market without wanting some salmon. I don't know if it's the color, the freshness of its flesh, or the fact that it goes so well with spring vegetables like peas and asparagus. No matter the reason, salmon is finding its way onto my dinner table regularly. If this is happening to you too, you might be wondering what wine makes a perfect partner for this rich fish. Once upon a time, the rule was "white wine with fish." That rule doesn't hold anymore. To prove it, I made...
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Sometimes a date goes so well—up until the very last moments of the evening. Factor in wine fanaticism, and there you go....
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. Joshua Klapper, the founder and winemaker of Timeless Palates Wine, and part of the Family Winemakers of California. This Tuesday, I spent some time with the Family Winemakers of California. What's a Family Winemaker, you might ask? Good question. In California, a Family Winemaker is a member of a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting small, independent winemakers and preserving the diversity of California's wine production. At a time when many small businesses are going under and corporate giants dominate much of the wine culture in this county, it's nice to be reminded that there are still small producers out there. The Family Winemakers of California have...
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I've always had a fascination with the way some people obsess with the notion of matching wine with food. During one memorable discussion long ago, I was told that lobster and wine don't really go together because the claws and tail call for different wines. Not everybody thinks this way and several recent meals in Italy's Piedmont region seemed to prove the point. Cooking bollito misto. As so often happens in places where there's a long and historic wine tradition, the Piemontese don't really bother with wine matching at all. Instead, they choose a bottle—often one that brings up fond memories—and drink it with everything. This attitude was on proud display at a food festival in the small Alpine...
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. Photograph from neeta_lind on Flickr I love going out to eat, but do not love the high cost of mediocre wine service that often accompanies it. Warm red wine, insipid wine list selections, and astronomical markups have finally convinced me that the time has come, wine lovers, to bring wine to restaurants. That means it's time to stop complaining and start embracing corkage fees. Corkage fees are charges that restaurants assess on diners who bring their own wine to dinner. There is usually a flat fee (on average $5 to $20 per bottle), and it's meant to soften the blow to the restaurant's bottom line that...
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. This week, the best of affordable Cabernets. Photograph from hahnfamilywines on Flickr California produces many different wines, but the state's iconic grape is arguably Cabernet Sauvignon. California Cabernet is a tricky thing to purchase, however—or at least I've found it tricky. Top-level wines from Napa can be very expensive, highly limited, or both. Widely-available wines can be bland and lack the distinctive varietal characteristics that make Cabernet so popular. The result can often be a wine with mushy flavors that makes you say "Hey, this wine tastes red!" If you want more from your Cabernet than "red," here are my recommendations for wines that stand out...
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. Tomorrow night (Saturday, February 28) is the 10th annual Open That Bottle Night. If you've never heard of it before, Open That Bottle Night was started by two distinguished Wall Street Journal wine writers/critics, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher. Once a year, they encourage all of us to dig out that bottle of wine we've been holding onto for a special occasion and open it up. February 28, they argue, is the special occasion you've been waiting for....
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In January, I received an unexpected gift in the mail from my beloved aunt and godmother: a wine book, full of labels and notes, that she had kept during the1970s when she and my uncle were living in Germany. To make your own, you don't need anything more glamorous or expensive than an unused diary.
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. Photograph from Rob Qld on Flickr In 1925, a South African professor named A. I. Perold created a new grape variety by crossing Pinot Noir, everybody's favorite silky red, with Cinsault, a hearty grape variety that was known locally as Hermitage. The result is a grape called Pinotage. Pinotage is an acquired taste. Some people are turned off by its strong flavors. But what I've found is that if you absolutely adore coffee—thick, black, dark roasted—you will probably love Pinotage, too. It's the red wine for coffee addicts who can't go for more than a few hours without a taste of their favorite bitter brew. The...
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