Best Food And Beverage Tips: 08/30/10

Monday, August 30, 2010

How To Order Wine In A Restaurant For Beginners

Eating out is an excellent opportunity to try food and drink you would never have at home. Even if you are an accomplished cook and a knowledgeable wine collector, being able to sit down at a good restaurant affords you the ability to test flavor combinations and ingredients tha

t you've never tasted before. While this can be fun and exciting, if you are going out to a dinner where you must impress, it can be a little daunting.

Here are some simple tips for selecting a good wine at a good restaurant. Whether you want to impress your friends or a new love interest, or you have an important business dinner, this information will help pick the right wine to complement your food.

Reds and Whites and Food
The most basic thing to know about choosing the right wine for dinner is that red wines are for meats, and white wines are for fish and poultry. Here's why: The idea is for the wine to enhance the flavors of the food. Red wine has a stronger flavor than white and pairs well with the stronger flavors of meats. Red wine also has more tannins, or organic compounds that can have a stronger or weaker flavor depending on a number of things, including how well the wine has been allowed to breathe and how well it was stored. The tannins in red wine complement the meat flavors very well, especially if there are rich sauces.

Pinot Noirs are a good choice for meat dishes. They have the reputation of being "food-friendly", which is a nice term to toss in while you are talking to your companions about how you are considering your choices.

White wines, on the other hand, have a lighter, crisper taste that may have a hint of acidity. This goes well with a fish dish that has a lemony sauce, for example. Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blancs are safe choices for fish and poultry dishes. The word to use is "sour", as a general rule of wine and food pairing is to serve white wines with foods that lean towards sour flavors.

Wine Presentation
The next most basic thing to know is that after you have chosen a bottle, you will be presented with a glass of the wine. This is known as "wine presentation", and depending on the restaurant, it could be more formal than your high school graduation. You may be asked to look at the cork -- this is to make sure the cork has no mold and is not cracked, which would affect the quality of the wine.

Next you should check the color of the wine (if it is older -- more than 5 years -- expect it to be a bit browner than a "younger" wine). People typically swish the wine around in the glass to see the color better. Next you want to smell the wine briefly. You are checking for any vinegar or rust smells. These would happen, again, from the wine being stored improperly. Finally, have a light taste. Taste the wine from the front and back of your tongue. Imagine how it would taste with the food you and others at the table want to order. If you like the match, it is a go. If not, tell your waiter your concerns and work with them to find something better.

What To Do If You Forget Everything Else
This has little to do with wine and food pairing, but it is an important idea for impressing people. You do not need to know everything to be impressive. Confidence and good manners are far more valuable than trying to show off your wine expertise. Besides, dining out is supposed to be a bit of an adventure.

It is perfectly acceptable at a high-quality restaurant to look to your waiter (and especially to a sommelier, or professional wine expert) and say "I bet you can make a more interesting choice than I can. What do you suggest?" Even at a business dinner, having the good sense to seek an expert's advice is hardly a bad habit to demonstrate.

Retrieved from "http://www.articlesbase.com/wines-and-spirits-articles/how-to-order-wine-in-a-restaurant-for-beginners-1992344.html"

(ArticlesBase SC #1992344)

How To Read A Wine Label For Beginners

Wine, like opera, has a terrible reputation for being a snobby subject that requires specialized knowledge in order to talk about it and not look like an idiot. Do not be intimidated. Wine is pretty

simple once you understand a few basic things about it. Wine bottle labels, too, are easy to understand once you get a few basics down. Here are the essential things to know in order to read a wine label.

Do not be impressed by phrases like "special reserve". There are no regulations on reserves or on using the term on bottles, so a winery could put "reserve stock" on every bottle it produces. Reserve actually means whether or not a bottle was set aside to age longer than usual. While "reserve" does not mean much, do keep an eye out for the term "grand vin" on a French label. This means it is considered the winery's best wine.

The "varietal" is the kind of grapes used to make the wine. Common white wine varietals include Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Gewürztraminer. Common red wine varietals are Zinfandel, Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Sangiovese. If you are reading a French label, also look for the term "grand cru" which means the region's finest winery. "Premier cru" means a top winery, but not the best.

Look for the vintage, or the year the wine was

made. This will be four digits, like 1974 or 2001. If the label is French, look for the word "Millésime". If it is Italian look for "Annata" or "Vendemmia". For Spanish wines the word for vintage is "Cosecha".

Look for the geographic origin of the wine, or, put more simply, where it was made. For American wines, this is known as the American Viticultural Area, or the AVA. This can be a bit tricky because some origin names are regulated and some are not. Most wines are regulated, which means they actually have to come from Sonoma Valley to have that county name on their label. Unregulated wines like California Chablis do not necessarily come from the Chablis region of California. For French wine labels, look for the term "Vin de Pays", which shows the region the grapes where grown in. On Italian labels, the term to watch for is "Classico", which means the wine comes from the center of a DOC or Denominazione della Origine Contrallata region.

"Estate bottled" is another term to value. It means the wine was bottled where it was grown, and this typically makes for a higher quality wine. In Italian, the term is "Imbottigliato all'origine". In French, its "Mise en bouteille(s) au Chateau". In German, it is "Gutsabfüllung".

Other good information on wine labels includes the alcohol content (which may be the most important piece of information for high schoolers). The other is the acid content and/or pH value, which could be helpful if you are trying to pick a wine to have with a specific dinner.
The higher the number of the pH, the less acidic the wine is. White wines have higher acid levels than reds. Most table wines have a pH between 3.3 and 3.7 and a total acidity between 0.6 to 0.7%. You may have to get out your calculator to get the total acidity of a bottle, as acidity is frequently measured in milliliters, and what you want is milliliters divided by the total liquid volume of wine in the bottle.

Retrieved from "http://www.articlesbase.com/wines-and-spirits-articles/how-to-read-a-wine-label-for-beginners-1992663.html"

(ArticlesBase SC #1992663)

Wine Chillers - What Are They?

People have been enjoying their favorite wines for thousands of years. In the past all wines were served warm. There was just no way to get your favorite Merlot to a nice frosty chilled

temperature. Fast forward to today and it is a completely different story.

With modern technologies and engineering comes advancements in everything that we do in life, including the ways that we drink and store our favorite red, white and blush wines.

While some fine wines are supposed to be served at room temperatures others should be served chilled to the perfect temp. But how are you going to chill your whole collection of fine wines? You could put them all in your fridge right next to last nights left over chicken dinner or you could get a wine chiller.

What is a wine chiller? Wine chillers are small refrigerators made just for chilling your fine wine and nothing else. They come in many different varieties, styles and prices. You are bound to find one that is perfect for your wine collection, be it large or small.

You can find them as small as a single bottle chiller or as large enough to chill a collection of thirty bottles or more and everywhere in between. There are even some that will sit perfectly on your kitchen table. Some models feature advanced digital controls that allow you to set the temperature precisely and effortlessly while others might keep your wine cool with new technologies that are extremely quiet and efficient.

There are rapid chillers that will cool whole bottles of wine in a matter of minutes. These make a fantastic and practical gift for anyone because you can chill just about any type of beverage. Now that you know what a wine chiller is, why don't you keep your wine collection chilled.

Retrieved from "http://www.articlesbase.com/wines-and-spirits-articles/wine-chillers-what-are-they-2003093.html"

(ArticlesBase SC #2003093)

Is Consumption Of Wine Safe During Pregnancy

There have been many articles written about the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. And there have many debates and researches that referred to this issue.

Some experts say moderate drinking during

pregnancy is okay, but there are others who believe taking even one drink is like very dangerous for the baby's health.

The thing that is not debatable is that whatever women eat or drink while pregnant goes directly through your bloodstream into the placenta so literally if a pregnant woman takes a drink — a glass of wine, a beer or a cocktail — the unborn child takes the same.

For the unborn child, the alcohol interferes with his ability to get enough oxygen and nourishment for normal cell development in the brain and other body organs. Research has shown that a developing foetus has very little tolerance for alcohol and infants born to mothers who drink during pregnancy can have serious problems. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a pattern of mental and physical defects which develops in some unborn babies when the mother drinks "too much" alcohol during pregnancy. A baby born with FAS, or even with the lesser Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE), can have serious handicaps and therefore could require a lifetime of special care. There is even some research that indicates that women who plan to get pregnant should stop drinking before they even conceive.

The debate raised by the Department of Health is about how much is "too much" because until now it was said that the only safe limit is no alcohol at all. The Department of Health said that pregnant women and those hoping to conceive can safely drink up to two glasses of wine a week without harming the foetus.

Dr Raja Mukherjee, an expert on the disorder who works at St George's hospital medical school in Tooting, London, called for pregnant women to cut out alcohol completely, and said the UK's binge drinking habits were of particular concern: "There is an increasing literature of evidence, however, to suggest that binge drinking as well as low doses of alcohol can cause damage."
The Department of Health said the research cited at the conference had been reviewed in March as part of the government's alcohol harm reduction strategy, and that the two units a week limit was considered to be safe.

Retrieved from "http://www.articlesbase.com/wines-and-spirits-articles/is-consumption-of-wine-safe-during-pregnancy-2009777.html"

(ArticlesBase SC #2009777)

Health Benefits Of Drinking Red Wine

If you drink alcohol then you should definitely think about drinking red wine. There are several health benefits of drinking wine. The experience is extremely enjoyable and the drink would be a logical option for you. Let us have a detailed look at its health benefits.

Scientists firmly believe that the key is to health a benefit of wine is the antioxidants present in it. These are also known as Flavonoids. Flavonoids work towards reducing the low density lipoprotein or LDL production. LDL is also known as 'bad' cholesterol. Drinking moderately also plays a great role in increasing the production of HDL or high density lipoprotein or 'good' cholesterol in the body. The combined effects of reduction of LDL and increase in HDL help a lot in preventing blood clots and enhancement in the overall lipid profile.

Red wine is also a rich source of phytochemicals. These are biologically active compounds found in plants. Polyphenols are the phytochemicals found in red wine.

Catechins and resveratrol are two major polyphenols found in wine. Both these polyphenols are antioxidants. Antioxidants are help in reducing oxidative damage in the body. This is a type of damage caused by oxygen free radicals inside the body. Free radicals attack molecules via capturing electrons and thereafter transforming chemical structures.

Some of the researchers also claim that drinking wine promotes good cardiovascular health and facilitates normal call growth and healthy aging due to the presence of resveratrol in it. The other polyphenol, catechin play a significant role in minimizing the risk of heart disease. Saponin is another antioxidant found in red wine. This antioxidant also provides optimum protection to the heart. It is easily absorbed by the body.

However, the health benefits of drinking wine does not limit to only cardiovascular benefits. Many studies and researches proved that resveratrol present in the wine can facilitate the reduction of the growth of cancerous tumors. This antioxidant also contains properties that may be helpful in nerve cell formation and can help in treating some neurological diseases such as
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

With so many health benefits of drinking red wine, people may love to indulge in too much drinking. However, it is important to know that drinking in moderation will only provide the above mentioned benefits to health. Too much of red wine may have adverse effects on the body. You may suffer from health conditions like obesity, high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, cholesterol and stroke by drinking too much red wine. Hence, you should resist over consumption of red wine.

Moderate consumption of wine will let you enjoy all the health benefits it tends to provide the drinker. Moderate consumption means one to two glasses per day for men and a glass a day for women. Now, if you think that you can abstain from drinking red wine for a week and then consume a good amount of it over the weekend. You are absolutely wrong. This is unhealthy.
Drink red wine. It's healthy. Don't over do it. Just moderate consumption will work wonders for your health.

Retrieved from "http://www.articlesbase.com/wines-and-spirits-articles/health-benefits-of-drinking-red-wine-2009768.html"

(ArticlesBase SC #2009768)