Cocktails are not only savoury to sip but also look exciting and fun to drink; they are perfect for celebrations as they tend to elicit a pleasurable response among drinkers. Fortunately, cocktails can be made at home like a professional.

TIP 1: Be ready with glasses. Cocktails will not look like one if you do not use the appropriate glass. Besides, cocktails are meant to be consumed when they are cold, so using large glasses will take time to finish and you will end up not really enjoying the taste. It is recommended to invest in cocktail glasses such as martini, margarita, and highball glasses.

TIP 2: Keep a collection of cocktail tools and supplies. Jazz up your bar with the basic barware; it is essential that you have the right measuring equipments to create a well-balanced drink. Opting for a jigger or a shot glass is good for measuring the necessary ounces. Also get a durable blender that is safe to use in the dishwasher and do not forget those famous cocktail shakers.

TIP 3: Get equipped with some cocktail recipes. Check out those cocktail books that feature the classic Sidecar and Manhattan. You can also step into the modern world by adding pureed vegetables into the drink instead of pureed fruit, but do not put in too much experimentation though as you might end up with a nasty tasting mix.

TIP 4: Use only the finest ingredients. Don’t worry too much about looking for what you need to put in. Use fruits and vegetables that are in season and liquor that will complement its flavour. Having tomatoes or peaches in summer make fantastic cocktail ingredients.

TIP 5: The chilling process. As soon as you are equipped and ready, start by chilling those cocktail glasses. It can be as simple as putting the glass in the freezer for some hours or pouring in water with ice. Take them out only when you are ready to pour the mixed drink, this way the drink is kept smooth and cool for a longer time after it has been served.

TIP 6: Measuring your spirits. Always hold spirit bottles by the neck when pouring. There is nothing really special to this; it is just that by doing so, you are making it easier on yourself to put in exactly the accurate measure.

TIP 7: Adding the ice. Now that you have poured in all the ingredients, add some ice before you start shaking them. This should be fresh ice though so if you need to buy them then do so. Firm ice will prevent it from melting too quickly and will make a crisp cocktail drink.

TIP 8: Shake it well and shake it some more This is probably the grooviest part in cocktail mixing. While you can practice all those impressive stunts, just make sure that you mix the drink well inside the shaker until the cold spreads throughout the shaker.

TIP 9: Dress up that cocktail. Cocktail drinks will kind of look empty without some little garnishing. Ripe limes make the cocktail presentation come alive as well as complementing your mix. They can be cut into wedges, slices, and half-moons for that attractive garnish.

TIP 10: Taste it before you serve it. Take a small sip and see if you have done well, this way you can make sure that your guests will enjoy it as much as you.

This is going to be among a series of articles I am going to be writing about European wines.

Italian wines have been consistently among the highest quality and highly impressive wines of the world for centuries, and if we want to drink good and memorable wines, we need to become more familiar with them.

For starters, I suggest an amazingly tasty wine from the Veneto province, called Amarone della Valpolicella. Valpolicella is a grape growing region that produces light and fragrant quality wines using 3 types of grapes, Covina, Rondinella, and Molinara. Amarone, which is a type of Valpolicella is ranked among the highest quality and impressively tasty wines of the region. This wine tickles the senses. It could be considered a sexy wine because it revives the taste buds and re-stimulates the senses.

It is a fruity wine, that carries the taste of black cherry with hints of prune. It is settling in the mouth, and delightfully pleasing. It is dry, warm, and full bodied.

I would take it to friends and family gatherings, and suggest it for any important event, because you can receive nothing but compliments when you serve it. It is by no means an ordinary wine, and should be in any cellar to make it complete.

This wine is ideal with most lamb dishes, especially, stew or braised. Drink it with the Moroccan Couscous and similar dishes that are tomato based like beef and chicken ragout.

This is a wine that brings joy and happiness to the soul, and revives the spirit.

Cheers,

It is generally now accepted that wine was discovered by accident somewhere in the Fertile Crescent, the agriculturally generous expanse of river valleys extending from the Nile to the Persian Gulf. Despite the fact that archaeologists have traced the origins of wine grapes back tens of thousands of years, the first evidence of wine having actually been made from grapes comes from a clay pot found in ancient Persia dating from around 10,000 years BC.

The early civilisations in this region owed their existence to the rich soils, and it is here that the wine grape first thrived. Separate waves of the great, ancient, seafaring cultures of the ancient world (firstly the Phoenicians, then the Greeks, then the Romans) took the vine and the secrets of winemaking with them on their travels along the shores of the Mediterranean and Europe.

Despite popular myth, the grapevine was introduced to southern Gaul (which is now France) long before the Romans arrived. The Romans did, however, teach their sophisticated cultivation methods to the native Gauls and also introduced hardier varietals to the northern regions of France.

During the time of the Crusades, the European Christian soldiers brought back new strains of Vitis vinifera to Europe. During this period the two most important regions of France, Burgundy and Bordeaux, further developed their reputations for producing quality wines.

When Henry II of England married Eleanor of Aquitaine, in the early 12th century, part of her dowry included the vineyard areas of Bordeaux and neighbouring Gascony. The pale-red wine of these regions gained favor in England, where it became known as Claret, and by the mid 14th century the port of Bordeaux was shipping the equivalent of a million cases of wine per year to Britain.

By the end of the 17th century, France had become recognized as being the greatest of the wine-producing nations. The French Revolution in 1789 had a negative impact on wine production in Burgundy. The vineyards there were seized from the Church and the noblemen, and were given instead to the people. Unfortunately few of them were given enough acreage to produce their own wine.

Thomas Jefferson wrote enthusiastically of the quality of French wine in correspondence to friends and encouraged the planting of European wine grapes in the New World at the end of the 18th century. These early attempts at wine cultivation in the American colonies were largely unsuccessful, and the transplanting back and forth of European and native American vines brought a destructive vine louse to Europe. The result of this was the famous phylloxera blight of the late 1800s, which destroyed most of the vineyards across both France and Europe as a whole.

Missionaries were responsible for the first vines planted in New Zealand, back in 1819. The Australians, however, were ahead of their neighbours (the first bunches of grapes were picked in the Governor’s garden in the late 18th century, and were grown from vines transplanted from South Africa’s Cape).

By this time, the South Africans had been making wine for almost 150 years. Indeed the Cape Province’s first vineyard was planted in 1655 by its first governor, Jan van Riebeeck. Initially, the wines produced were of pretty low quality and were intended for domestic consumption. During the 20th century this quality increased, improvements in transport techniques resulted and a growing demand for the wines of the New World, particularly from the UK increased production further.

In 1905 an effort was made to establish consistent standards for all of the important aspects of wine production, including grape varieties, alcohol content, region of production and vineyard yields. France passed a series of laws, collectively known as the “appellation d’origine controlee” laws, which guarded the famous place-names of France and guaranteed that wines bearing their names have, and still meet, rigorous controls. Italy followed this lead soon after with their own set of laws, the “denominazione di origine controllata” and “denominazione di origine controllata egarantita”.

The New World producers took a different approach and while Old World producers made their blended wines and wines named after the areas were they were made (for instance, Chablis or Champagne), their New World counterparts were making what are known as varietal wines, where the grape variety that goes into the wine takes pride of place on the label. It became much easier for the average person to choose and buy wine, afterall all you needed to know was whether you liked the taste of a Merlot or a Pino Noir for example.

You want a glass of wine with dinner so your waiter sends the Sommelier to your table who starts talking about the bouquet, the body and the “nose” of the wine, the fruit and varietal characteristics and how long it was aged in the barrel. You feel intimidated; you panic and instead of wine, you ask for water. For more than 8,000 years, wine has had an integral role in human culture. Although wine brings people together and continues to hold a special place in celebrations and rituals, wine is also very personal. Even though experts might say this is a good year to be drinking Merlot, you are perfectly happy sticking with your favorite White Zinfandel.

According to Chris Kissack at The Winedoctor (thewinedoctor.com), “Wine is most certainly a matter of personal taste. I find it saddening that obviously experienced critics, authors or just vocal amateurs write off certain wines because they differ from their preferred style. These people clearly have very good palettes and yet lack the maturity to appreciate that others may have equally good palettes which differ in preference from their own. This is why assigning scores (something I do, I must confess) is a little silly. What is the relevance of someone telling me ‘this is a 90-point wine’ when I know that I won’t like it because I don’t like the style, or the wines of the region from where it originates, or I know my own palette doesn’t agree with the critic?”

Selecting and drinking wine should be fun, relaxing and enhance the experience of your meal; not cause anxiety and a state of confusion. Just because the “norm” is that white wine pairs best with “white” foods such as chicken, shellfish and light pastas, and red wine is more appropriate with heavier foods like beef does not mean you can’t have red wine with your shrimp…it’s a matter of taste. Jeff Schauer, Wine and Spirits Consultant and owner of The Keg and Cork in Las Vegas recommends the Willamette Valley Vineyards Pinot Noir. “It’s light yet a full bodied wine that caresses the palette; leaves a lasting impression and also is outstanding with food”. But like Jeff said, that is his opinion. He believes what is popular in wine today is just that, an “opinion.”

Wine is a subject of great debate; there will always be conflict and disagreements. Take food and wine paring, for example. The two should compliment each other but it’s not an exact science; there is no right or wrong way to the pairing technique. “When people feel silly about ordering a wine they have heard is not appropriate for a certain food or too sweet or for amateurs, I tell them that anyone can know it all about wine, as long as they are the one drinking the wine they know all about”, said Shayn Bjornholm, Master Sommelier and Wine Director of Canlis Restaurant in Seattle (wine@canlis.com).

The serving temperature of a wine is also part of the wine controversy and also a matter of taste. White wines and blush wines are served chilled in order to bring out the true character and aroma and prevent the flavor from tasting flat. Red wines are normally served at room temperature to keep the flavors balanced. But some prefer their red wines chilled, and that is their preference.
Tim Hanni, founder and President of WineQuest, LLC is one of the first two Americans to achieve the title of “Master of Wine”. He believes that “wine should be presented and sold in a way that respects every wine consumer’s taste preferences above all else while encouraging them to explore new wines without imposing on them or belittling their preferences”.

Because wine is ever-changing, it is nearly impossible to keep up with the volumes of information available. Unless you plan to make wine a hobby or a career, learn the basics and go with what tastes good. Wine connects the five senses but most importantly, wine appeals to your sense of sight, smell and taste. It should look beautiful in the glass, smell delicious, and most importantly, stimulate your palette. The only thing you should consider after tasting a glass of wine is if it tastes good. In the words of Dorothy J. Gaiter of The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine, “The bottom line: There are many wine experts out there. But there is no one – no one – who is more of an expert on your tastes than you. A good wine is a wine that tastes good to you”.

There are a lot of people out there that like their wine, but do not always have a place to store it. The refrigerator is too cold for most wines that are unopened. Unless you have a basement that stays cool, you are going to need a wine cooler refrigerator to keep your wine at the perfect temperature. Now, there are tons of different wine cooler refrigerator units out there worth getting. However, there are some that you should stay away from. Today we are going to talk about a few of the ones that are worth getting. We are also going to talk about a few of the features that make these units the best of the best.

The first one we are gong to talk about is the Summit SWC1775 Wine Cooler. Now, the Summit is made for only the serious wine enthusiast. The quality of this unit is unmatched by other wine coolers, and not only that, but its size is unmatched as well. Of course, this does not mean that the Summit is really huge, because it’s not overly big. However, the way that the inside is set up allows you to store up to 120 different bottles of wine on two different settings. In fact, this double unit has two different areas that have two different humidity controls, meaning that you can really enjoy wines of all varieties. To top it all off, the Summit also has an automatic defrost, a carbon filter, and a vibration dampening system, everything that you could ever want in a wine cooler.

If you do not drink that much wine, then the Summit could be a little bit to big for you. This is where the GE Profile comes into play. This is a wine system that can hold up to 29 bottles of wine. It, of course, has adjustable temperature controls and even a digital temperature readout so you always know what the temperature is. One reason why people like this model is not only its small size, but because of its multiple shelfs with pull-out ability, meaning that you will have no problem looking for what bottle of wine you want to pull out. On top of all this, it also comes with a door lock to make sure you keep all of your wine protected from anyone who might try and take some.

The last one that we are going to talk about happens to be one of the coolest. This is the Jenn Air Mini Wine Cellar Refrigerator. Now, just because it’s mini, does not mean that it can not hold a lot of wine. In fact, this one can hold up to 50 bottles. However, this wine cellar takes up a lot less space than any other wine refrigerator you may buy. That is because this one gets built right into your cabinets (just like a dishwasher would be). It features glass doors, so you can showcase your wine, and with its electronic thermostat, you can rest assured that your wine will always be the right temperature.

One of the most used drinks in this world is obviously wine. Be it gala lunch affair, dinner parties, weddings or special occasions, wine goes hand in hand with every kind of celebrations or parties. In fact, wine itself means celebrating life and enjoying it in every way possible.

But many a times, we open a good quality wine and wonder how to preserve the half consumed bottle. It is best to keep an unopened wine bottle under normal temperature. But, once you open the beverage, you should take proper care to preserve it. Many people store used and unused wine bottles in a specially made wine cellar or cooling unit. There are many good ways to slow the oxidation process and preserve the taste and quality of the wine. Some of the most popular preservation methods include vacuum pump, gas spray, cooling unit and refrigeration.

Some of the common ways to preserve your wine:

When you open a wine bottle, to preserve remaining wine, you can put a stopper on the top of the bottle. You can also thrust out the air using a pump. Remaining wines should be kept in a cool place, such as refrigerators. As excess heat may oxidize the wine. Re-corked wine can be preserved for 3 to 4 days in a refrigerated condition.

You can also purchase gas preservative and spray it on the wine bottle. It helps to suck out the air in the bottle, and you can close and seal the wine bottle immediately. Some also like to freeze their wine bottles, and again de-freeze it, when they want it again. Some believe to add marbles or glass beads into the wine bottle, so that the level of remaining wine raises and there is no room for air. Re-corking it in such a state helps to maintain its flavor.

You can enjoy different kinds of wines that are easily available in the market. But, the real task is to preserve the wines without losing its flavor and taste. When you are an enthusiast to collect wine cases, you should also provide proper protection to them. Wine is one of the most delicious drinks created by man, which is liked by almost everyone.

Discarding half filled wine bottles is a great crime, if you are sure that you will not be able to finish the bottle. It is better to expose only as much wine that you actually need. Choosing an appropriate wine preserving system is mainly reliant on how much period, you want to preserve the wine and how much you are ready to pay for the preservation method.

If you are on a lookout for fancy cellars, then you may need a dry, dark and cool space that you can use, as a wine closet or cellar. You could utilize the tiny compartment under your stairs or even a small area of the car garage. The chosen place should be well-protected from direct sunlight and should have a cool even temperature.

Wine is more than an alcoholic beverage. It’s almost a way of life! There are more wine accessories available than you could even imagine. From the necessities like corkscrews and glasses, to the not so necessary yet entertaining accessories like decanters, ice buckets, and pourers- there is more to wine than just drinking it.

Corkscrews & Openers

While there are hundreds of varieties of corkscrews, they all work in basically the same fashion. You screw one end directly into the center of the wine’s cork, and use a handle to life the cork out of the bottle in order to enjoy your bottle of wine.

If you want something other than a corkscrew, you can find another style of opener that uses cartridges to “pop” the cork out of the bottle. The pop style openers tend to be a little more expensive than the traditional corkscrew, but image is everything when it comes to wine, and a specialty opener may be just the extra accessory you need for your dinner parties or restaurant atmosphere.

Decanters

Decanters are glass bottles with special shapes designed to encourage the heightening of wine flavors when you store your open wine in them. They also make for a nice presentation when you place the decanter on the table.

There are literally countless different shapes and styles that decanters come in. Many resemble a glass flower vase. Certain wines should be placed in specific shapes of wine decanters in order to enhance the flavor of the wine to the fullest extent. Others can be stored in any of the fancy decanters.

For an incredible display, you could find a decanter with it’s own base unit. These are highly stylish, and often hold the decanter at an angle, and suspended over the table.

Some decanters come with glass ball stoppers to be placed on the opening of the bottle in order to keep the freshness in when the wine is stored. Air can have damaging effects to the properties of wine, and so it’s usually best to keep open wine in an airtight container.

Additionally, some decanters are able to remove sediments from older wine and aerate younger wines to further enhance their flavors.

Decanters are certainly not necessary to drinking wine (you can place the cork back in the bottle of a wine to keep the air out when you’re not pouring the wine) but they certainly make for a nicer presentation and can actually help the overall flavor of the wine.

Wine Racks

Where do you store your wine bottles? If you’re like most people, you keep them in one of your kitchen cabinets until you’re ready to use them, or maybe in the basement. If you drink wine often, however, you would probably enjoy having an elegant and functional wine rack in the kitchen or dining room that is designed to display and hold your wine bottles, glasses, and accessories.

Some wine racks are mounted to overhead cabinet space, so that the bottles are placed lying down inside them, while the glasses hang from their stems. These are perfect for kitchens with decent space under their overhead cabinets. If you don’t have the room for this style of wine rack, there are wine racks that sit directly on the counter, and hold the bottles at arms reach.

If your kitchen simply doesn’t have the space on the counter top or under the overhead cabinets for these styles, you can enjoy a wine rack that stands alone. These often have small base units, sometimes refrigerated, as well as space for glasses and accessories. They take up more floor space, but can really dress up a dining area.

History and geography

Malbec’s been declining in popularity for the last 40 years.

One of the reasons is the name. It’s known under so many different names that Malbec in France means very little. The Oxford Companion to Wine lists some 400 synonyms for Malbec so it must have been pretty popular at one stage. But now it’s known as a minor blending variety.

Another nail in the coffin for French Malbec came with the disastrous frosts in 1956. This provided an ideal excuse to re-plant with more fashionable and robust varieties. But it’s not all bad. Malbec is the dominant red varietal in the Cahors area. The Appellation Controlée regulations for Cahors require a minimum content of 70% Malbec in wines produced from the region.

The only historical reference to the name Malbec shows it coming from the surname of a Hungarian peasant who first spread the variety throughout France and then further afield. In 1868 Professor Pouet introduced Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot cuttings from Bordeaux to Argentina. In the warm and dry South American climate it flourished and was soon thriving throughout Argentina and Chile. Ironically, Argentina’s ‘vine pull’ program in the 1980′s left only 10,000 acres of Malbec in the ground. That’s now back up to around 25,000 acres producing wonderful rich, complex, inky wines with smooth tannins and ripeness Europe can only dream about. Contrast these 25,000 acres with the approximately 150,000 acres of Malbec in the ground prior to the ‘vine pull’ and you can better appreciate this loss.

Chile seems to have escaped this madness and it’s now Chile’s third most widely planted variety. By contrast Australia had just 1,220 acres of Malbec in the ground in 2002 and that area has been shrinking over the years.

The first mention of Malbec in Australia comes from 1901 where Mr Himmelhoch establishes his ‘Grodno’ vineyard at Liverpool near Sydney planted to Shiraz and Malbec.

Like most popular grapes, Malbec goes under many different names but there a few more commonly used than others. In the Bordeaux it’s known as Côt or Pressac, in the French Alsace and Cahors regions it’s called Auxerrois, Argentina gives it the name of Fer, Portugal refers to it as Tinta Amarela and here in Australia we sometimes call it Portugal Malbec.

Growing Characteristics
Malbec grows just about anywhere. You can find it in France, Chile, Brazil, Italy, Madeira, Portugal, Spain, USA, Australia and Argentina, where it’s the most widely planted grape variety. It’s a thin-skinned grape with large berries, needing lots of sunlight and heat to reach full maturity. It thrives in well-irrigated and well-drained soils but produces uneven crops in less than ideal years and is susceptible to rot in cool and wet conditions. Malbec is also very sensitive to frost. Three distinct ‘lobes’ characterise the Malbec leaves, the central lobe being the longest. Malbec berries are large, dark and round with bunches being large and loose.

Wine Characteristics
Malbec creates an intense, inky red wine often used in blends. Blended with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec makes the Bordeaux blend known as claret. A common blend from the Loire Valley comprises Malbec blended with Gamay and Cabernet Franc. Another common blend sees Tannat added. The Argentinean love of potent reds has made Malbec a national specialty. The new world Malbecs ripen to give rich and smooth tannins.

The main aromas from a rich Malbec include: cherry, plum, raisins, coffee, chocolate, leather and raspberry.

The key flavours a nice Malbec exhibits include: plum, cherry, chocolate, dried fruits, and balsamic.

Aging in oak releases the vanilla aromas and flavours.

Many of us love wine and enjoy the taste but many people really don’t know exactly how wine is created. While almost any fruit juice can be used to make wine, the vast majority of wine is made from grapes.

The ingredient that makes the difference between simple grape juice and wine is of course yeast. One interesting little tidbit that most people don’t know is that there is actually enough yeast in the air around us to turn juice into wine if an unopened bottle of grape juice is left out long enough, though it wouldn’t necessarily be something you would really want to drink!

The process of fermentation is a result of yeast consuming the sugar in grape juice. The wine industry chooses the yeast used in the fermentation process from numerous strains that are raised exclusively for winemaking. The particular strain of yeast used along with the temperature during the fermentation process also determines some of the taste of the wine.

The yeast spores reproduce continually until there in no longer any sugar left to consume during the fermentation process. It is during this event that the alcohol content and carbon dioxide is created. The yeast falls to the bottom of the container once all the consumable sugar is gone and the wine is then taken from the container and placed in a new container to mature.

Wine gets its color in much the same way it gets its taste, from the grapes that are used but it is by allowing the skins of the grapes soak in the juice that creates the color. In fact nearly all grape juice is nearly colorless. The longer the skins are allowed to soak in the juice, the darker the color of the wine. Believe it or not Champagne is which comes from black grapes is made white by not allowing the skins of the grapes to have any contact with the juice.

The taste of each individual variety of wine is determined predominately by the varying factors in each variety of grape. Every type of grape produces different aromas and flavors depending upon the soil, climate, and the type of grape.

Winemakers also influence the taste of the wine by altering the temperature and by the yeast that they choose during the fermentation process. The containers that the wine is stored in have a lot to do with the taste as well with oak barrels being the container of choice for many winemakers.

There are so many different varieties of wines available that one would be hard pressed to find and taste them all in a lifetime but it would be fun to try!

Silver wine coasters, or decanter stands as they are sometimes known, have been an integral part of the elegant dining table in England since the 18th century, when they were also known as bottle slides.

A coaster serves various functions, originally more functional than aesthetic; it prevents spillage form a bottle or decanter on a tablecloth or directly on to a polished table top; it stops one decanter touching another and thus prevents chipping of cut-glass decanters; and it allows the bottle or decanter to be slid across the table, “coasting”, from one diner to another.

The earliest bottle stands were designed to provide support for the narrow, oval shaped bottles used in the 17th century. But when glassmakers started to make round, straight-sided bottles that could be stored in racks, a need arose to create a design that would enhance their look on the dining table.

Many early coasters were set on wheels so that they could be more easily pushed the length of the table, and in some cases elaborate designs of carriages or ships, concealed clockwork motors to drive them forwards. The carriage design of coaster became known as a wine wagon.

It became fashionable in the 18th century to remove the tablecloth before dessert so that the polished table could be admired. When the ladies had departed the men could sit back and enjoy their port. It was at this point in coaster history that baize began to be attached to the base of flat-bottomed coasters as this allowed them to be slid more easily and this is the standard finish to most modern coasters today.

Until the end of the 18th century, the standard wine coaster measured between four and a half inches and five inches in diameter; later coasters were made larger to a accommodate cut-glass decanters.

To this day sterling silver wine coasters are made in sizes to accommodate bottles or decanters in the London workshops of Hersey Silversmiths. Following the traditional design they have turned wood bases made in mahogany or Welsh oak. In the centre of this is a silver boss that historically would have been engraved with a coat of arms or family crest. Today this can be engraved with initials, a monogram or a special message or date to commemorate a wedding, silver wedding or other event. It is also possible to engrave the silver boss with a company logo.

A variety of designs are made either in solid silver or pierced in the Gothic style. They make excellent gifts for wine lovers and for those that enjoy entertaining and now you have read this short history of them they can become a conversation piece as well.