White Zinfandel is crap; not to be confused with Rose
July 2, 2009 |10:19 | Wine Types By : Team X
Let’s get down to business. As we head into the dog days of summer, can you think of anything more refreshing than a cold, crisp glass of your favorite Rosè? Rosè?
Yes, Rosè.
This is a wine that has been so over looked and been subjected to be placed in the stinking category of White Zinfandel. For what it’s worth, if you’re drinking White Zinfandel you are either very new to wine or very old. White Zinfandel has ruined wine like Red Lobster has ruined Seafood restaurants.Real blush wines are nothing like White Zinfandel. The only reason people drink White Zinfandel is because it’s sweet and cheap. Don't be one of those people, try something new.
As for a definition, they are often called Blush wines or summer wines. They have just a tinge of color, typically pink or slightly coppery. Most rosès are produced by crushing red grapes early on so that they are not able to impart their color to the final wine. In the old days, they use to just blend white wine and mix it with red wine to make a reddish blend.
Rosès are a beautiful expression of a wine makers blend or varietal and should be taken as seriously as a fine white wine or red wine. Rosè’s can offer complexity, depth and beautiful fruit as well as floral tones that will make for a wonderful sipping experience.
Two New Zealand wines have been named among the best in their classes at the annual International Wine Challenge (IWC) in London.
Faith Hy-Chan, Pastry Chef at Cissi’s Wine Bar & Market, is content to let her desserts speak for themselves, leaving guests with the enviable pleasure of savoring the passion that went into their creation.
The old culinary claim that red wine is best for beef and white wine is favored for fish and poultry has disappeared. Today, most people believe that wine and food combinations should be what one likes the best. As a general guideline, try to match the weight of the food with the weight of the wine. Or, in other words, the alcohol content of wine to the protein or fat in food. For example, a delicate flaky fish is light and would be overpowered by the rich flavors and high alcohol content found in a tannic red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon. However, chicken is denser in protein and fat than a light white fish and can go with many red wines. Weight also accounts for why Pinot Noir becomes a classic pair with the fleshiness of salmon.
We get questions along these lines pretty much every day. Fortunately, it has never been easier to learn what you like and don’t like in wine, even on a tight budget. There are plenty of good books on the shelves and we certainly recommend picking one up; there are excellent classes pretty much everywhere these days, and we definitely suggest attending; and there is more information online than ever before, and we think it’s a great idea to sign on. In the long run, however, the only way to truly learn about wine is to drink it—and there have never been so many fine merchants and so many great-value wines on shelves from all over the world.When we were starting out in wine, we went to good stores with a budget of $72 per case, an average of $6 a bottle, and always bought 12 bottles we’d never had before. When we’d finished them about two weeks later, we bought another $72 case. We still recommend that approach. We would suggest setting a budget of $120. We know this might seem like a lot, especially on a limited budget, but it’s cost-effective for many reasons: It’s $10 a bottle; you’ll likely get a discount on the case; and you will make wiser choices when you are taking a leisurely stroll down the aisle of the store than when you are rushing to pick up a bottle on the way home.
Fog Mountain is now selling wine in one-liter plastic bottles (PET #1) that the company says is "packaging that reduces wine’s carbon footprint while providing added convenience and value for the wine lover."
You've tried wine from Chile, South Africa and of course France. But Brazil? The country that is famous for its beautiful beaches, long-limbed inhabitants and being one of the key BRIC nations, is not as well known for producing a good glass of red. Yet Brazil has become one of the more eagerly anticipated attendants of a key international wine fair this week.
For a couple of decades, California rosé meant white zinfandel, a semisweet, sodalike confection with an alcoholic kick that was enormously popular with consumers but anathema to wine lovers who favor the dry, refreshing rosés of France, Italy and Spain. Dry California rosés were rare, especially outside California. (I have a sneaking suspicion they kept them for themselves.)Today, rosés from throughout the New World, not just California, are reaching our retail shelves. That's because consumers have realized that a well-chilled rosé is an ideal hot-weather wine and because modern techniques have wineries concentrating their red wines by "bleeding" some of the juice off the skins during fermentation, a technique called saignee. Instead of discarding this pink-hued juice, they make rosé. However, as in the Old World -- the area I focused on in last week's column -- the best rosés are those that are intended to be pink, whose grapes are picked earlier with stronger acidity to give the wine verve and structure..jpg)
It's in the 90s (the upper nineties, as I write this), and you want to do something fun in the air conditioning. We've seen all the good movies and every other place seems crowded after work. How about a wine tasting?
