Champagne This year we toasted the new year with a bottle of one of our favorites – Perrier Jouet Brut. Every now and then you serve a wine that you’ve had many times but for some unknown reason the bottle you’ve just opened is far better than any of the others. That was our experience [...]
The Perfect Pairing for Smoked Turkey It’s time to prepare the feast for my favorite holiday. This year we are having a hickory smoked turkey so I’ve decided to serve a Gewurztraminer. A bit of sweetness is needed to stand up to the smokey flavor of the meat. Fetzer Gewurztraminer 2010 Tasting notes: Lovely golden [...]
What’s Hot Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay have become yesterday’s news and Malbec and Riesling have replaced them as the most popular wines. There are several reasons. For one thing, wine drinkers are becoming more knowledgeable about wine. Newspapers have food and wine sections, and websites – like Twisting Vines, offer wine reviews and suggestions for [...]
Soup and Wine As winter approaches and the weather begins to get cooler – or colder, depending on where you live, soups are easy and delicious to have for lunch or dinner. When I was at Costco last week they had small bags (6 large onions) of sweet Mayan onions that I thought would be [...]
World’s Oldest Champagne In July, divers began salvaging the wreckage of the two-masted schooner Jönköpin that was sunk by the Germans off the Finnish coast in 1916. (Read about it here) What was the treasure they were seeking? 4400 bottles of 1907 Heidesieck Champagne “Goût Americain”, 67 large barrels of Cognac and 17 regular barrels [...]
Traditional Pairings Lately, it seems like whenever you ask an expert for wine pairing recommendations for turkey or chicken they encourage you to try Pinot Noir or syrah. Yes, they both can go wonderfully with turkey, but because there are syrahs that are more powerful than some Cabernets and some Pinots that are too sweet [...]
Cocktail Time You may have noticed the shelves of your favorite wine emporium (or big box store) have been stocking their shelves with more champagne to get ready for the holiday season. While the weather is still on the balmy side we don’t have to think about the holidays in order to enjoy some bubbly. [...]
2008 Kendall-Jackson Monterey County Riesling Vintner’s Reserve California State Fair Double Gold winner – Best of California Riesling! 98 Points. One of the few winners that is still available to buy. Tasting Notes: Aromas of honeydew and peach with hints of citrus and apple. Flavors of apricot, pear and orange blossoms with hints of pineapple. [...]
German Riesling Now that the weather has finally warmed up, we’ve put the cabernets and zins on the back shelf and moved the lighter whites to the front. We tend to drink more of the lighter wines because their alcohol content is quite a bit lower than the reds. Rieslings average 10.5% alcohol while some [...]
White Wines That Are Better with Age Usually when we think of wines that age well we most often think of cabernet sauvignon, Barolo, Brunello di Montelcino and fortified wines like Port and Madeira. But, there are white wines that are better with age. Red or white, there are certain conditions that allow some wines [...]
