- When smelling and tasting wine, it is easier to experience and identify the aromas and flavors when the wine is warmer (warmer than the temperature at which it would ordinarily be consumed). So, for instance, one approach is to pop the cork on that bottle of Spanish Albarino you've purchased when it's still room temperature, study the color, smell it, and taste it a few times, and only then properly chill it, before savoring a few glasses at the temperature that is most pleasing and refreshing
- When it comes to pairing wine with food, don't get too caught up in color. While quality, big and robust reds--Cabs, Merlots, a decent Bordeaux (a blend of the two preceding varietals), a Rhone (Syrah & Grenache), and even a Red Zin--stand up nicely to a steak and enhance the flavor of the beef, the color of the wine does not have to always match the color of the food. A Pinot Noir could, for instance, compliment a burger or steak, and I've had both Italian Prosecco and Spanish Verdejo (white wines, one sparkling, one still) with sausage pizza, to great effect. In general, you're looking for a wine that either a) compliments the food by offering a balance, a counter flavor--the way the sweetness of a Riesling compliments the spiciness of many Asian dishes--or a wine that brings out further or enriches the predominant taste of the meat, fish or appetizer. Experimentation and balance are the key concepts: you don't want to pair two flavors that are so similar that the primary taste becomes overpowering and thus distasteful, and you also don't want to pair two flavors that react negatively to one another in your mouth, i.e. intense and bright red fruit in your glass, with buttery grilled perch on your plate. Yikes!
- If you don't care for wines with a flavor profile dominated by oak, with up-front cedar, toast, pine, tar, ash and smoke, a general rule-of-thumb is to avoid wines aged in American oak, only. Not all wines aged in American oak are so over-the-top, masking the taste of the fruit and earth, but a higher percentage seem to be, in my experience, than wines aged in French oak (which is more expensive for wineries to use for their barrels) and which offers more subtle flavors, greater nuance. Instead of American oak, then, seek out your favorite varietals that have been aged in French oak, or a combination of time in French and American oak, or stainless steel vats...knowing, however, that some wineries using stainless steel add oak flavoring during the process, and can certainly over-do it, at times. While I find many Chardonnays distastefully oaked, one can seek out un-oaked Chards as an alternative. My point is this: just because so much wine is now selling that features wood as much as fruit in the flavor profile (perhaps to hide bad fruit?), it does not mean you have to accept that reality if you don't enjoy that type of wine. You have options!
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