Drinking Wines

Don’t just sip it, eat it!

Want to enhance and improve the taste of your favorite dish? Think that adding wine to your recipe will make it more scrumptious and mouth watering? Well then, you’re absolutely right!

Wines are widely used in the cooking world because they intensify taste and zest. They are also capable of releasing flavors from food that are not possible by regular means of cooking.

The main question you must have now is this: What type of wine goes with what type of food?

You have red wines, white wine, sparkly champagne, sherry etc. You have grape vine types like merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, zinfandel, syrah, and Riesling. With the wide variety of them available, picking a wine is pretty tricky. The secret here is to know what combinations are used by professionals.

1. Red Wine

There used to be a rule in cooking that ?red wine goes with red meat, white wine with white meat?. Although it’s not really true anymore, most chefs still go with that.

- For red meat, young and full bodied red wines are recommended. Try going for Zinfandel Red or Merlot.
- For red sauces, robust, full bodied wines are best. Make pasta, pizza or other tomato-sauce based dishes with it.
- Using root veggies with beef stock? You might want to look for an earth red, full bodied wine. The color it imparts to the meat makes it all the more wonderful.

2. White Wine

Cream based sauces, butter and herbs. Yum. White wine is usually used with white meat and best for light colored dishes.

- If you fancy a zesty dish, add some sparkling champagne.
- For chicken, pork or veal, try cooking with white wine. Spice up your grilled chicken by mixing dry, white wine with butter as the sauce.
- Crisp, dry white wines are ideal for seafood soup and shellfish dishes. Bouillabaisse, anyone?
- Leftover sweet white wine in your fridge? Why make delicious, delectable desserts? Whip up some Bavarian cream.

3. Fortified wine

Fortified wines are what they are: fortified. Additional neutral alcohol is added to them. Then they are aged for a long time. Examples are sherry, port and vermouth.

- Sherry is great for poultry meat and vegetables soups.
- For sweet, fruity dishes or desserts, splash some port or vermouth. Your dry vermouth can also be a good substitute for white wine.

4. Cooking wine

Cooking wines are relatively less pricey wines that use salt as a preservative. They can be found in supermarkets and groceries. Most professional chefs disdain the use of cooking wines because the salt content is hard to work with. You may need to adjust your recipe to work with the saltiness.

5. Exotic wines

Cooking is an experiment. If you’re feeling bold and daring, you could try cooking with exotic wines. Asian wines are popular choices for an all together different meal. There is the sake, bekseju and seol joong mae.

- Sake is a rice based wine from Japan. Although it’s mainly a beverage, it is popular as an additive to many Japanese dishes.

- Beksuju is a Korean wine made from raw rice and herbs. It can be used in vegetable dishes to increase the ‘herbal’ feel. Seol Joong Mae, a fruit wine made from plum, can be used for desserts and fruity dishes.

I hope that clears up some of your confusion. With that said, here are some few reminders for the novice cook:

- Cook only with wine that you would drink. There is no sense in cooking something that you wouldn’t want to taste.

- There are a lot of good, quality yet inexpensive wines out there. Don’t get too carried away and buy something that’s way off your budget.

- Don’t cook using aluminum or cast iron cookware. Alcohol is reactive with these materials and could cause harm to your dish.

- After adding your wine, try to wait for 5-10 minutes before tasting it. Wine needs to simmer for a while before it can impart flavor to your food.

- Got some left over wine? Put them in your ice cube tray and freeze them. This makes them good for future use.

Get your favorite recipe, pick a wine and start cooking!

Lee Dobbins, an avid wine drinker, writes for http://wine.leisure-webzone.com where you can learn more about wine and when to use it properly.

Sherry, a magical Spanish wine that has meandered through history with such force that it has played a central role in the works of literary geniuses such as Shakespeare and Poe. No other drink played such a central role in the colonization and exploration of the New World. When Magellan set out to circumnavigate the globe, his expenditures on Sherry were greater than those for weaponry for his entire voyage. As a fortified wine, it was better able to make the long journey across the oceans. As the first wine in the New World, Sherry remains important in the world of wine today.

Traditional Sherry begins its life on the vines of the C?diz region of Spain. It is made of three types of grapes native to the region, Palomino, Pedro Xim?nez, and Muscat. After being hand harvested they are gently crushed to draw the first must. Only this first pressing that is used to produce Sherry, this ensures the highest quality of wine. The pressing is immediately set aside for fermentation.

After the initial fermentation, the new wine is tasted for quality and is divided into one of three categories. The lightest and palest of the wines will be set aside to be turned into Fino and Amontillado, the highest grade of Sherry. The slightly darker but still clean wine will be set aside to become Oloroso, a darker Sherry. The third category destined to become Sherry will require more development before its final product can be determined.

Once its destiny has been decided, the wine begins its journey through the solera, a cascade of barrels through which the wines will move. This is a journey that takes a long time, as each year some wine is moved from one barrel to the next down the line. With a small portion of the wine from the preceding year left in the barrel, these solera are passed down through the generations. A small amount of wine is always left in the last barrel, so through the years, the last barrel in the solera will still have a very small amount of the first wine ever put in it, this wine can sometimes be several hundred years old and helps to ensure a balanced and uniform product. A true taste of history!

Today, Sherry does not have the same importance it once did. I can guarantee that more is invested in arming a ship of the line today, than on Sherry in their larder. However, it is one of the most historic of the wine family, and one of the most versatile wines available today. Sherry can be served as an aperitif, drank alone, and also makes a great addition to cooking, try this wine cake recipe from www.beyond-wine.com.

Ingredients:

• 1 box yellow cake mix

• 1 5oz box of instant vanilla pudding

• 3 Eggs

• Vegetable oil

• CREAM SHERRY (must be cream)

Set oven to 350

Grease and flour bundt pan

Mix all ingredients called for on the box and ? the amount of water using the cream sherry for the other half. Bake about approx. 40 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool slightly and rim the edge with a thin knife before removing. Drizzle a glaze over the cake, powder sugar with a touch of lemon juice or vanilla.

I hope that this has enlightened you to the delights of Sherry, an Old World wine making inroads into the new millennium. Please visit www.beyond-wine.com for wine accessories and everything you need to enjoy your glass of Sherry, from glasses and decanters, to stoppers and pourers. For a limited time, get a barrel stave candleholder free with any purchase of $150 or more.

Jason Brink is a wine enthusiast, amateur historian, and passionate web developer. His birth and rearing in one of the premier wine growing regions in California has led to a deep respect and reverence for the wine grape and all its myriad children. As the lead developer of http://www.Beyond-Wine.com he has expanded his knowledge of wine culture and his love of the wines.

Jason Brink also owns a graphic design and web development company, http://www.jasons-professional-graphics.com