If you wanted to pick up a few bottles of red wine, which ones would you purchase? The following four wines are our favorites. These wines are affordable ($9-$13), and they're very tasty. Good wines for drinking by themselves or paired with dinner. Mark West, Pinot Noir, 2010. Nice grapes. Medium. Smooth. Fruit core. Smells like dark berries. Maybe boysenberries or raspberries. A taste of the wine starts with brown sugar and molasses, then is followed by some orange rind. A full taste is of plums, with a note of spice. The wine is aged in oak. I like to pair it with my pizza or a plate of sweet potato fries. Good with a turkey sandwich too - my favorite. The Wolftrap, Syrah, 2012. Good small grapes. Popular red wine. From the dry land vineyards. Dark. Tar. Intense spice with balanced tannins. Nice aroma. Blackberries and spicy pepper, but soft and supple. Dark and dense. Oak lingers. This wine is easy to drink. Good with cheddar and cow milk cheeses. Try a smokey blue cheese on a burger. Septima, Malbec, 2012. Really red color. Taste of cherries, drop of vanilla, and some brown toast. Smokey oak. Some strawberry jam sweetness with watermelon. Sweet tannins. Fruity aftertaste that lingers. Nice. Basic. Pair it with some barbecued meat, like chick drumsticks with barbecue sauce. Poggio Anima Belial Sangiovese Toscana IGT, 2011. Tuscany, Italy.
My favorite of the four. Hand-harvest grapes. Rolling hills of Tuscany. Lots of good fruit taste. Warmth in a glass. Rich color. Dark red fruit. Taste of mocha, espesso, a puff of medium cigar smoke, and the smell of herbs on your grill. Beautifully balanced. Not heavy, but solid. Silky finish. Nice red wine. Try pairing with everyday foods. Try pizza, pasta, and beef. Good late afternoon drink with your wife. Wine Glass If you're wondering about what type of glass to pour these good wines into, I go for the simple choice - go big and round for reds. I like the Cabernet/Merlot wine glass. I like them because their big, but not too big. A balloon-shaped wine glass allows the wine to promote better flavor and allows the wine to develop its full bouquet. Wine needs room to breathe and a tapered shape is the best for releasing the aroma. Remember, smaller glasses for white wine; bigger glasses for red wine. Red wine glass on Amazon. Men, side salads are important. Okay, stop laughing. But you can't eat french fries with every meal. So, here's a healthy recipe of mine that I've tried on my family several times. Each time, the serving bowl goes empty. Each time! I call it the TCF salad. Tomato, cucumber, and feta. TCF. Let's first list the stuff you need to get at the grocery store. Don't try to find this stuff (referred to as ingredients by many) in the cupboard or refrigerator. No. Just start fresh. Go to the store and buy this stuff. Fresh. "Fresh ingredients," tell your significant other. You need the following stuff:
Get a big bowl. You're going to throw everything in there.
Now, if you've got a blender, and I do, then use it to make a dressing out of the olive oil, vinegar, and feta cheese. It makes a nice dressing and helps break up the clumps of cheese into little bits. To make recipes for my books, I purchased the https://secure.vitamix.com/7500.aspx Here's what it looks like. The question is... How does it go with a burger? Answer? Awesome. You've got to try my TCF salad. (TCF: tomato, cucumber, feta) Here's what I ate with the TCF salad. A burger. I made several for the family to taste with the TCF salad. Here's a quick burger recipe to go with the TCF salad. Purchase the patties. All ready to go on the grill. But you've got to season them first. A little salt and pepper. Put all the patties on a large plate. Open the faces up to the seasoning all at once. Season. Flip the patties. Season the other side. Grill. Serve with salad. Nice dinner. Made by a man. I'm not sure what my girls wrapped around my head. But that's appreciation. Pair the burgers and salad with a good wine. I paired it with one of my favorite red wines.
Poggio Anima Belial Sangiovese Toscana IGT, 2011. Tuscany, Italy. Hand-harvest grapes. Rolling hills of Tuscany. Lots of good fruit taste. Warmth in a glass. Rich color. Dark red fruit. Taste of mocha, espresso, a puff of medium cigar smoke, and the smell of herbs on your grill. Beautifully balanced. Not heavy, but solid. Silky finish. Nice red wine. Tannin for wine is dryness. You sense tannin as bitterness, firmness or richness of texture. When you taste a dry wine, you're tasting tannin. Tannin is dry and astringent. You might feel it specifically on the middle of your tongue and the front part of your mouth. if the amount of tannin is high, you might sense it on the inside of your cheeks and on your gums. Unsweetened black tea is a great example of nearly pure tannin dissolved in water.
Tannin is a naturally occurring substance found in plants, seeds, bark, wood, leaves and fruit skins. Tannin exists naturally in the skins, seeds, and stems of grapes. As a characteristic of wine, tannin adds both bitterness and astringency as well as complexity. Tannin levels are far higher in red wines than in white wines. White wines have tannin from being aged in wooden barrels. You may describe a red wine as astringent, firm, or soft. Red wines have acid as well as tannin. Sensing the difference between the two as you taste a wine can be challenging. Pay attention to how your mouth feels after you’ve swallowed the wine. Acid makes you salivate (saliva is alkaline and will flow to neutralize the acid). Tannin leaves your mouth dry. |
Archives
December 2021
|