Everyone seems to love wine. Maybe you are among the many who like drinking wine. Prior to having the next glass, you should learn some things. The following tips will teach you everything you need to know about wine.
If you are really passionate about wine, you should consider visiting a vineyard. You will learn a lot about how wine is made, what makes a flavor unique and even get a chance to witness the production of your favorite wine if you visit a vineyard during the right season.
Wine can help you make a wonderful sauce for beef dishes. To keep things simple, melt some butter in a saucepan and add some red wine. Let your sauce simmer so that it thickens and cooks off some of the alcohol. Drizzle it over the beef.
Take a trip out to a vineyard. If there is one located close to you, make it a day trip. If not, consider taking a short vacation to go out and explore. An adventure such as this may help you appreciate and love wine even more than you did before.
If you notice that you are drinking wine each and every night, take a few nights off. The last thing that you will want to do is become jaded with the taste of wine. After this time period elapses, incorporate wine into your regime again and watch how great it will taste.
When you are in a restaurant, do not feel too shy about ordering a wine that is not the most expensive. Sommeliers choose great wines for the restaurants they work for, which means that the more inexpensive choices should taste just as good as the ones that cost quite a bit.
Keep a journal just for wine. The easiest way to keep track of the wines that you enjoy and the ones that you do not like is to keep a list of them. You can also include the foods that you drank them with so that you can repeat the experience if you like by consuming Champagne.
Only buy wines you enjoy. Certain venues will promote their favorite bottles, but don’t feel pressured if you already have a selection in mind. These are generally priced much higher then they should be. Remember that the price doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of wine. Know the kind of wine you like and order that.
Many wines go quite well with desserts. Usually, wine you would have with a dessert is sweeter than those used with a meal. Ports provide sweet flavors that work well with chocolate and other dessert items. Keep them at 55 degrees to get the optimal flavor.
Vintage refers to the year that the grapes were taken out of the ground. For instance, a wine from 2010 is made from grapes harvested in the fall of 2010. The grapes are then fermented in barrels, aging until it’s time to bottle the wine for sale. The actual wine might not have hit the shelf until perhaps 2011 or maybe even 2012.
Remember that rules were made to be broken, even when it comes to selecting wine. Just because the “norm” indicates you should pair red wine with red meat and white with fish, chicken or salad, doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. Enjoy your meal with your favorite wine, no matter who says they go together!
If you are finished with your sparkling wine, make sure that you do not store it in the refrigerator for any longer than 3 weeks. After this time period, it will lose its taste and quality, rendering it useless as a quality wine. This can help you to avoid serving poor wine to guests.
When you first get a glass of wine, look at its color. This will tell you all about what the wine will taste like. Aged white wine gets darker and stronger. Aged red wine actually fades in color. How the wine has been aged and which grapes were used will also affect the color.
If you’re about to drink a very young red wine, a recent vintage, hold the stem of the glass and swirl it around. This lets all the flavors, and aromas come out of the wine while oxygen is introduced to the wine itself. This softens the tannins and makes for a great drink.
Use Evernote as your wine note taking application. There’s many ways you can keep track of your wine adventures, but Evernote lets you pair images and text together. This way you can have an image of the wine’s label along with your opinions on it all in one place! Plus, Evernote is available on nearly every digital platform, so your notes stay with you.
Do not buy wine only because it is a good deal. Many people will buy wines that are on special or have a bulk discount. Have you tried this wine? Have you done any research? Most have not and will make a purchase that will end up not being drunk, or passed over by guests.
This may not always be true, but in some cases wines that contained mixed grapes, often suffer in taste as well as quality. Sometimes grapes for a particular vintage may become mixed with other grapes to ensure the supply. However, the quality of these grapes may not always be equal to the proper counterparts.
Make sure you fulfill your wine collection a little at a time. If you get excited and start buying wines by the case thinking you’ve found the best ones, you won’t have room for the ones you buy later. Make sure you give yourself the room for improvement that you’re going to need.
When you are traveling in wine regions such as France or California, don’t forget to visit the smaller wineries there. Often times, the smaller wineries offer the best tastings and tours. Such wineries often don’t sell to the largest retailers, so your visit to one might prove your one and only chance to buy their wine.
People throughout the world love wine. You might be one of those people! But if you want to enjoy wine more, you need a bit more information about this topic. This article is just the tip of the iceberg, so keep learning and sharing the information gained with family and friends.