Wine advice for the uncultured boob (1 Viewer)

[nolesrule]

The muscadine wines are fruity and sweeter. I don't know what's available in grocery stores, but many of the wineries here in Florida make a table wine in either red or white from them.

Having been to a number of wine tastings at Florida wineries, people who prefer a sweeter wine tend to like these better than the drier alternatives, while people who prefer cab find them too sweet.

For example, this list of wines from San Sebastian Winery in St. Augustine is listed from driest to sweetest. Take a look at the ones toward the bottom of the list (but not the port and sherry, which are a separate subject).

Other options I would suggest for a fruitier/less dry are a reisling (I like the Blue Moon) or a gewurtztraminer (Fetzer Vineyards makes a good one), which tastes like a non-sparkling asti spumante...which I prefer to champaigne.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Craig, here is a link to the Avanti brand wine cooler we purchased.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Nothing to do with castles - all rooms were colder before the advent of central heating and most red wine will beneift from half an hour in the fridge.

Just to shoot another couple of canards:

(1) uncorking red wine and letting it breathe is a complete waste of time unless it's a vintage wine

(2) screw tops will have no effect on wine quality if the wine is non-vintage.

(3) there is no such thing as a 'best' wine in the same way that there is no best beer, candy or car. There are some wines that are best in some situations.

(4) there is a massive amount of snobbery in wine tasting (gosh, really?). I'll give you one example. A friend of mine went to a wine tasting where there was a set of wines to compare. My friend chose type X. which happened to be the cheapest. The guy running the tasting asked him why he chose it to which he truthfully replied that it tasted the best. The reply from the 'expert' was a gem - 'well, of course it has the most obvious appeal, but the others have greater subtleties, even if they don't taste as nice'. Yeah, right.

The best general guide:

red with red meat, game, cheese and rich vegetarian dishes
dry to medium white with fish and white meat and light vegetarian dishes
dessert or medium to sweet white with pudding (or avoid altogether)

Avoid serving wine with chocolate or very spicy or intensely flavoured food - the food will mask the flavour. Also, a lot of people find that eating asparagus makes red wine drunk at the same time taste unpleasant.

Wine being drunk by itself can be of any variety (and don't forget the virtues of sherry, port, rainwater and madeira).

Practically all wine-producing countries produce worthwhile product, and different grape varieties have their particular strengths and weaknesses. But there's no right or wrong answer to all of this - if you like it, then drink it.

 

[Magnus T]

Demetri Martin to the rescue!!!

 

[Craig S]

Joe, Scott, thanks for the wine cooler links. Those are not as expensive as I guessed. And I never would have thought to look for a wine cooler at Best Buy!

Hmm, now, where to put it...

 

[JeremyErwin]

You can do that with music, too. Who needs dynamic range?

 

[MarkHastings]

What? The best thing to do is to get 85% or 99% cocoa chocolate and have it with a nice/sweet wine. I once did 99% cocoa with Ice Wine and it was awesome!

 

[nolesrule]

Yeah, where to put it is a problem. Right now it is sitting in my dining room. When we expand the kitchen, I'll probably have it placed in a nook under the counter.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

There's a wine cooler that fits into the space freed up from the removal of one of the most useless kitchen applicances of the last 20 years: the trash compactor. And the space even should be wired for 120VAC.

 

[MarkHastings]

Hmmmm, I usually put my wine coolers in the fridge.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

We have a wet bar in our finished basement, and there was a perfect spot in that area for ours. We didn't have any room in our kitchen.

 

[nolesrule]

Must be nice to have a basement.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I appreciate the analogy, and I guess I didn't express myself well enough in the first post. What I should have added is that the supposedly 'better' wines tasted worse or even fairly unpleasant (even with the supposed subtleties of flavour).

 

[Yee-Ming]

Many, if not most, top winemakers in Australia and New Zealand have moved to screwtops, even for their reds. One example is Cloudy Bay, which is the wine that put Marlborough, New Zealand's Sauvignon Blanc on the world map.