Have you ever seen those stiff upper-lipped types doing a spot of the old wine tasting malarkey? You know the form ¨C sip, swill, spit. Yuck! Well this information has been written to help you understand the form should you ever find yourself in a ...

What in the world is up!

Was there a full moon or something? As I went through this past week I was struck by what seemed to be the theme for the week. I came to the conclusion that there are some career whiners out there. I mean people whin ...

The basics of tasting wine are relatively simple to learn. Once the fundamentals are mastered, the nuances and details can be enhanced over a lifetime. Like any other skill, tasting wine requires practice, and consistency is probably the most im ...

Correct wine etiquette makes the tasting experience much more enjoyable. Like most interests, there is a set of protocol that most wine lovers adhere to. Good taste dictates that tasting at wineries, ordering wine at restaurants, and hosting a d ...

The history of wine consumption in America has been frought with starts, stops, and inconsistencies. The American population has always had a love-hate relationship with alcohol. Historic prohibitionist attitudes amongst much of the American pop ...

As your love and knowledge of wine grows, it is inevitable that you will want to share your revelations with friends and family. Hosting a wine tasting party is a great way to do this.

When planning a wine tasting party, some obvious questi ...

The ideal temperature to store wines is between 55?F and 58?F (13?C¨C15?C). \rHowever, any temperature between 40?¨C65?F (5?¨C18?C) will suffice as long as it \rremains constant.\rThe degree and the speed of the temperature change are critical. A gra ...

One of the great joys of wine is to be able to select a bottle from your own cellar, \rperhaps one that you've been storing for some years, draw the cork and enjoy it \rwith friends. You can marvel at the changes brought on by maturity and, as a b ...

Decanting is a strange word to many people. Some do not even know what it means exactly. Taking the sophistication out of it, decanting literally means pouring the wine from the bottle to a special glass container. This is done in order to expose ...

Cooking wine is sort of a holdover from prohibition. People who grew up thinking Alcohol is Evil didn't want to have any in their homes. But they wanted those delicious flavors in cooking. Cooking wine seemed to be a reasonable compromise.

I ...