 |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
|
||||
            |
||||
 |
|
Guiding Principles of Matching Food and Wine
Champagne has become a symbol of ceremony, the drink that is raised to the hour of glory. It launches ocean liners, toasts the triumphs, salutes successes, and welcomes the innocent to the font and the altar. But you don't need a celebration to enjoy champagne, because it is also a companion to everyday enjoyment. It is the perfect aperitif, the one wine that can compliment every course of a banquet, and the most stylish and prestigious of drinks for any social situation. What's the difference between non-vintage and vintage champagne? The French champagne houses generally add a quantity of old or reserve wine, from previous harvests of great quality, to their selected blend of new season wines. This gives the champagne subtlety and mellowness and makes the effervescence more lasting. It also allows each house to maintain a certain continuity of taste from one harvest to the next. What does the term "brut" mean on a champagne label? Sparking wines range from dry to sweet. Labels may say brut (very dry), extra sec (fairly dry), sec (medium sweet), demi sec (rather sweet), or doux (very sweet). Tips for greater enjoyment: Champagne should be enjoyed at a temperature of 6-8 degrees Celsius. If its too cold, it loses its taste, if too warm, it is heavy and the sparkle loses its liveliness. Champagne should be cooled as gradually as possible. The refrigerator may be used, but only the least cold parts of it, never the freezer. The best method is to put a bottle in a champagne bucket in a mixture of ice and water. The best trick for opening a bottle of champagne, is to simply unwrap the foil, twist the wire restrainer undone as you hold the bottle away from you (and others) at a slight angle, and twist the cork gently while holding the bottle stable. Twist gently and ease the cork out.
Getting the best from your wines: White wines should be served at 8-12 degrees Celsius. An hour or two at the bottom of the refrigerator will achieve this. Putting the wine in an ice bucket with ice and water will achieve the desired temperature even faster. For express chilling (when friends stop by unexpectedly or you are overwhelmed by a terrible need), wrap the wine bottle in a damp tea towel and place it in your freezer. The moisture particles in the tea towel will freeze rapidly and a drink is just 10 minutes away. One of the most common faults performed by wine waiters and generous hosts, is to overfill glasses. A wineglass should never be filled to more than two-thirds of its depth, nor refilled until it is less than one-third. This is especially important with chilled wines, because mixing cold wine from the bottle with that in a glass that has been warmed by the hand, detracts from its enjoyment.
CHARDONNAY Wines from cool years can be lean and citrusy; warmer years rich and round and pear flavoured; and hot year wines display melon and macadamia flavours. RIESLING Young wines can range from a herbaceous, green apple flavour to tropical pineapple. Aged Rieslings range from buttered toast and honey to ripe pears and apples. SAUVIGNON BLANC Cool season wines can recall herbaceous cut grass and asparagus, while good seasons can produce a flavour explosion of gooseberry and passionfruit. SEMILLON Green and grassy when picked early, but lemony and creamy when picked a little riper. With age, semillons develop into rich, complex wines.
Whether you want something full-bodied or something softer, there is a red to suit. More tips for greater enjoyment: Many young red wines, as well as older wines, benefit from decanting. Young wines restrained in displaying their full fruit character can be transformed into things of rich, ripe generous beauty by decanting. Wine should be served immediately after decanting. Don't be overwhelmed by the formality. A wine poured from the bottle into a glass jug, left for 15 minutes, and poured back into the bottle, will display all the benefits of those accorded full ceremony. To decant an aged red, allow the wine to stand for at least an hour so the sediment settles at the bottom. The sediment should settle in the shoulder of the bottle and slide towards the neck as your pour carefully. Pour slowly and in a continuous stream until almost all of the wine is separated and the sediment is touching the neck. During hot Australian summers, room temperature reds lose their structure and separate into jammy berries and alcohol. Ten minutes in the refrigerator can do them a favour.
Did you know that Australians drink five times more beer than wine? Today we have such an unparalleled choice of beers available that we should make the effort to appreciate the difference in flavour between them. Our beer choice ranges from sparkling lagers to rich creamy stouts; from tangy bitters to crisp, clean, cold-filtered beers; from light fruity elegance to those with chocolatey overtones; and from light alcohol to strong, mouth filling complexity. Each style depends on the quantities and types of malt, hops and yeast used, along with the brewing process adopted. Beer appreciation relies on the senses of smell and taste. Unlike wine, beer tasting relies on the back of the palate. It must be swallowed to appreciate the complex flavours of the brew.
Spirits and liqueurs are generally used as mixers and most commonly in cocktails. Most cocktails are based on spirit drinks such as gin, vodka, brandy, whisky or rum. Nobody can expect to stock a full range, but make sure you have the basics. It is a good idea to have a few brightly coloured drinks such as Creme de Menthe and Blue Curacao to add an exotic touch. But keep an eye on the strength of your cocktail ingredients. For instance, gin is not just gin. Gordons is 37.5 per cent alcohol and Tanqueray is 43.3 per cent. Likewise, the strengths of liqueurs varies enormously. Drambuie and Grand Marnier are as alcoholic as spirits (around 40 per cent) but many liqueurs are only a little more alcoholic than fortified wines (around 20 per cent).
Guiding Principles of Matching Food and Wine The matching of the ideal wine with a dish has only become a topic of interest in this century. Food and wine styles in any given region have generally evolved to complement each other, so that the strong but subtle flavours of Italian food are seldom as good as when the right Italian wine is served with them. Good French wines have a finesse that complements the elegance of French cuisine, and Australian wines, which can have far too much concentrated fruit to marry happily with complex French or Italian dishes, come alive when put with the simplicity of good Australian steak. There are also basic rules: red wine with red meat, white wine with fish and white meat. These still largely apply, but pleasingly they are not binding, which can make pairing dishes with wine even more difficult. Wine styles have changed in recent years, mostly for the better, and the way we view food has also changed. The people who laid down those rules had never thought of drinking wine with Chinese food, for example. To provide a guide to the perfect wine with every dish, would mean specifying individual producers and particular vintages, most of which would not be readily available. So the matches that follow are broader in approach. We suggest an ideal, easily available wine type with each dish. By referring to the wine style, a range of individual wines with similar characteristics can be found. There are still, though, certain points to remember. Match not only the flavour of the wine to the flavour of the food, but to the intensity of flavour and weight or body of the wine as well. A heavy, alcoholic wine will not suit a delicate dish. Try to match the acidity of a dish to the acidity of the wine. Acid flavours like lemon or tomato need acidity in the wine. Richness in a dish can either be cut through, with an acidic wine, or matched with a rich one. Either way, the wine should be full in flavour so as not to taste lean and mean. Consider sweetness when pairing wines with food. Sweet food makes dry wine taste unpleasantly lean and acidic. There is a great deal of sense in the old rule of white wine before red, young wine before old and light wine before heavy. The palate adjusts easily to wines served in this order, however it is only a guideline. A vigorous red served after a rich late-harvest white, for instance, will not show to best advantage. If a dish has a sauce, then the flavours of the sauce should be taken into account. Red wine is traditionally drunk with cheese, but white is generally better. Blue cheeses, in particular, are unhappy matches for red wines (except port). Pastry dulls the palate, softening the flavours of the other ingredients with it. Go for a more subtle wine than you might otherwise have chosen. Certain foods have a great affinity for particular grapes: lamb with Cabernet Sauvignon, for example. It often seems to be the case, too, that Cabernet Sauvignon is best with plain roasted meat and Pinot Noir is best with sauced meat. Contrary to the old adage that white wine should be served with fish, the red grapes Pinot Noir and Gamay can go with certain types of fish, such as salmon and red mullet. Syrah can, occasionally, if there is a lot of garlic involved. Other red grapes do nothing for fish. The final arbiter is your own palate. If you like Chardonnay with venison, then go ahead and enjoy it. CLICK HERE for the Food and Wine Matcher fron www.winetoday.com
|
|
