Wednesday, May 25, 2016

National Wine Day

Today is National Wine Day. This should be a national holiday, don't you think? I love to write scenes in my novels where the characters are sharing a meal and I try to always include wine. I'm not a wine connoisseur, so I had to do a lot of research to write the scenes where they have to order wine. I had to figure out what wine would go with the type of food they were eating. I have to admit it was so much fun reading and learning about the different types of wines.
 

Surprisingly, the best place I found for wine research wasn't on the Internet. It was in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, which included a chart inside defining the different types of wines.

One of the more interesting things I learned about wine is that different wines should be served in different style glasses.  For instance, red and burgundy wines are served in a glass with a larger bowl. Rosé wines should be served in a glass with a flarred lip to allow the wine to flow out of the glass and onto the tip of the tongue where the sweet taste buds are located. However, if you don't have a glass with a flarred lip, don't feel you need to run out to buy one. Rosé wines are similar to red wines, so the larger bowl glass for red wines works very well. White wines are served in a similar style glass, but a bit smaller. Who knew? Sparkling wines and champagne should be served in a long stem flute glass. 


One thing that I was amazed to find out is that sherry is a type of wine made from white grapes. Remember watching the television show, Frazier? He was always drinking sherry with his brother. Dry sherry is considered an appetizer wine and served cold, or it can be sweet and served at room temperature after a meal, like on Frazier. On that show, they usually drank it from a very small sized glass, but according to my research, it should be served in a glass similar to the red wine glass, but shorter.

If you want to see how well I put my new knowledge of wine to work, check out my book, "A Kitchen Affair." Links are available on the book page of my web site, http://bit.ly/XkR1uJ

If you're interested in learning a little more about wines, please visit fellow author, Mysti Parker's blog.

Cheers,
Carol

2 comments:

  1. Ooo I love those facts about the glasses. It's amazing how much science is involved in winemaking. I haven't paid much attention to glasses before. Apparently it is also true for beer too. I'm not sure that I could tell much difference since I'm not an experienced taster. But it's fun to learn about. What I'd really like to do is learn how to better tell which wine is which when I'm tasting them. I can to some extent but a lot of them I get mixed up. :)

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    1. It is amazing. When I'm at a winery for a tasting, I always tell them I like sweet wines and let them recommend the wines for me to taste. I have no idea what kind of beer I like and just order a Bud Light when we eat out.

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