Champagne for Turkey

Hello Wine Lovers!

After my rant about restaurant wine service last week I thought I better get something in here for you to enjoy with the upcoming holidays! Champagne or Sparkling or Cava in this case.

Lets talk a little about Sparkling wines. Out of respect for the French, you only call Sparkling wines made in the Methode Champenoise from the Champagne Region of France... Champagne. What is this Methode Champenoise you ask? Glad you asked! I'll make it as short as possible. In a nut shell it is the traditional way to make sparkling wines where there is yeast added to the bottle for a second fermentation. The yeast works with the sugars and makes the "Fizz" or bubbles in the bottle. When the wine is ready to go to market, the yeast is collected in the neck of the bottle and taken out. Champagnes are aged in the bottle for anywhere from 1 to 5 years. This will allow the wine to mature and have many layers of flavor and depth. Just so you know, Brut is the dry champagne and Extra Dry is actually sweet. I have included a picture to help you understand how it is made.

Now the wines! Segura Viudas Aria Brut, Spain, for about $8 a bottle will knock your socks off! This wine is clean and crisp with just a note of apple on the nose and a long smooth finish. This will impress any sparkling wine drinker.

The next entry is also from Spain and it is even less expensive! Cristalino Brut, about $7 a bottle! This wine is also more impressive than it's price tag. It has dried flowers on the nose with orange peel and apple in the mouth. It finishes with just a touch of sweetness. Now of course if you would like, you could bring a 2002 Dom Perignon, which was given 96 points, to your next party. It will set you back about $150 a bottle... you decide!

Cheers!

J

Restaurant Wine

Hello Wine Lovers!

Today I am going to vent about one of my pet-peeves... shabby restaurant wine service.

I'm sure I can't be the only person that feels this way, so to all of us out there... strap yourself in and here we go!

I choose a restaurant to visit as much for their wine list as their menu. I refuse to have dinner without good wine, they go hand in hand, in my book you just can't do it. So... the wine list looks good, the menu appears to be good, the decor is inviting, the staff sharp, the music is perfect, the lighting is romantic, we're all set. I choose a bottle of wine and then it happens, it begins to fall apart! The waiter comes back to the table embarrassed to say the restaurant is out of the wine I ordered and please select another. So now that I had my mind set on that particular wine I have to change my thoughts to something different. OK, the next bottle is selected and the waiter brings it to the table with what someone considers to be wine glasses (certainly not me) and shows me the bottle, I approve and it is opened and a taste is poured for me to check. I don't understand how someone goes to all the trouble to put a respectable wine list together and then screws it all up by choosing sub par wine glasses. The glass is as important as the wine! I swirl the wine and put my nose in the glass... and it's corked! Can't drink it, it's bad. The next big mistake is about to happen... I tell the waiter the wine is "corked" and to please bring another one. He looks at me like I have 2 heads with this total dumb founded blank look on his face and says"I don't see any cork in the glass" which at that point I want to leave and go somewhere else to spend my money! Educate your staff! Inform and teach, it is an on going process if you want to have a successful wine program. So at that point usually a manager type will come by the table and also with a blank look on his or her face say something stupid that has nothing to do with a corked wine and then another bottle shows up. (A corked wine is from a fungus that grows in the cork and then destroys the wine... a later blog) We go through the same steps and I approve the wine... next mistake and my least favorite of all, wine is served at the wrong temperature! I really dislike red wine too hot or white wine too cold! Again, you go through all the trouble to put a wine list together and the don't bother to serve it correctly! Red wine should be served at "cellar" temperature, around 54 degrees and white wine should be served at around 44 degrees, unless of course it is champagne and that should be cold! Too cold on whites kills the flavors and too warm on reds disguises the flavors. If you don't have proper wine storage at home use the 20 minute rule. Take a white out of the refrigerator for 20 minutes and put a red in the fridge for 20 minutes before drinking them. This will just about put them at the correct temp! The next big mistake... the waiter pours way too much in the glass! Just a bit, leave room for the bouquet to work it's magic, breath and grow and swirl. Again, educate the staff. All in all most restaurants get most of it correct with one exception, the temp.

That is why I dine at home and if there is anything wrong with the wine service there, I am the one to blame!

I feel better now that I have that of my chest... thanks for listening.

Cheers

J

Zesty New Zealander

Hello Wine Lovers! So what a beautiful fall day in Chicago, we set our clocks back so we all got an extra hour of sleep, the sun is out and the temp is perfect! A perfect day to go for a walk in the park, take the dog(s) work up a good appetite for dinner and go to your local wine shop and buy a bottle of this wine... Cairnbrae Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It will cost you about $10 but you won't believe what comes out of this bottle!

This wine is produced in the Marlborough Region of New Zealand. Long hot summer days followed by cool nights created another near perfect growing season for this grape varietal. This is typical for a Sauv Blanc from New Zealand, bright tropical fruits in the mouth and fresh cut grass on the nose. This wine has plenty of acidity to handle food and enough structure and complexity to surprise even the wine snob you may have as a friend or neighbor. Your best girl will enjoy this wine as well. Go get it and share!

Cheers!

J