Drinking Wines

Hosting a wine tasting party is an elegant and delightful way to spend an evening with a few of your closest friends. It’s up to you as far as choosing what wines to serve. There are white wines, red wines and sparkling wines.

Entice your guest’s taste buds by going from lighter wines to fuller-bodied wines so as to not overwhelm the palate. Sparkling wines awaken the taste buds and are a great way to start the party off. Stock up on wine glasses with a large bowl shape. Serving red wine in bowl-shaped glasses helps to enhance the aroma and flavor of the wine. White wine is traditionally served in smaller, slightly curved glasses. This helps to hold the chill and emphasize the wine’s flavor and aroma. Bread or unsalted crackers served in between each wine helps to cleanse the palate. Fruit and cheese help to bring out the flavor, giving the guests the full experience of each wine. As each wine choice is poured, ask the guests to swirl the wine around on the inside edge of the glass.

As the wine comes into contact with the air it helps release the delicate and full flavors of the wine. Allow the guests to smell the bouquet and aroma of each wine; the smell of the wine adds to the taste. Guests can then sip the wine and swirl it around in their mouths to appreciate the full flavor. Guests have an option to discretely spit the wine out in a receptacle or to swallow.

Provide receptacles around the party so guests have the option. Then, each guest should eat a bit of food and sample the wine again. They may change the opinions that they formed from the initial taste. As a nice twist, ask guests to each bring a bottle of their favorite wine for everyone to sample.

Mrs. Party… Gail Leino is the internet’s leading authority on selecting the best possible party supplies, using proper etiquette and manners while also teaching organizational skills and fun facts. Free Party Games to help complete your event.

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.

There are countless varieties of apples in general cultivation in this country and all have their likes and dislikes - yet all the all-round varieties seem to do well almost anywhere.

Like all fruits they like to be treated well and will reward those who remember this. I am concerned with growing apples and other fruits such as plums for wine-making; therefore there seems little point in covering the growing of these fruits in the espalier fashion or as cordons. Apart from the fact that the average home-grower will not want this type of tree, he will want as much fruit as he can get from as little space as he can allow. No one will dispute the quality of fruits grown as cordons, but they are expensive to start with and cannot hope to compete with the bush tree when a lot of fruit is the aim of the grower.

The bush tree is the most suitable for the small garden where the owner wants as much fruit as he can get from a small space and for a minimum of labor.

Deep digging is essential, for it must be remembered that trees, once planted, will remain perhaps the lifetime of the owner.

The roots of apples go a great deal deeper than is generally imagined and provided the right variety for the type of soil is planted, the trees will settle down and fruit well. Unless your garden is in what we call a frost hole - a natural depression in the lie of the land that catches the spring frosts harder than elsewhere and then catches the first rays of the morning sun - you can grow apples without fear of the frosts depriving you of your crops.

Bush apples are usually planted ten to twelve feet apart and are put in before Christmas. Early February is the latest that I would leave this job.

Prepare the soil well in advance and allow it to settle before planting. Six months in advance is not too early to get the first digging done if the soil has never before been broken.

When planting, take out holes a good bit larger than are required to accommodate all the roots without cramping. The depth of the hole will depend on the depth the young tree had been planted before it was delivered to you and this will be clearly marked on the young trunk.

Any roots damaged in transit should be cut off cleanly with a sharp knife.

It is best to drive a stake firmly into the middle of the hole and to tie the tree to this while planting. Spread out the roots, shovel sifted soil over them and firm each layer by treading. Rattle the tree occasionally so that the soil is shaken down between the roots. Plant firmly; insecure planting is the most frequent cause of deaths among young trees. When firmly planted, untie the tree from the stake and bind the trunk with felt or some other material and bind this part to the stake. This will prevent chafing of the bark.

For general purposes it is best not to prune a young tree during the first season after planting, but pruning thereafter is of the greatest importance. Not only does it keep the tree in shape but it prevents overcrowding and ensures regular and heavy fruiting.

In the case of bush apples, each leading shoot - that is the growing tip of each main branch - is cut back by about six inches. The young growths growing off this main branch are laterals; these must not be allowed to become branches otherwise the tree will become overcrowded. These laterals are pruned back to leave four or five buds.

The following precautions should be taken against pests and diseases. Spray during winter with a tar-distillate wash. Spray with a nicotine wash in spring, when the buds begin to open and again a week after the petals have fallen. Fix grease bands to the trunks.

Brian Cook is a freelance writer whose articles on home wine making have appeared in print and on many websites. You can find more of these at: Homemade Wine