Click here for custom labeled wine at www.AmberCrestWinery.com

Click here for a wine glass chart

In this episode we’ll find out how to hold a wine glass, talk about the right wine glasses to use and learn about the smooth jazz of wines, Merlot.

The best way to hold the glass is very simple.  Grab the stem and try and keep you hand off the bowl of the glass.  The reason wine glasses have stems is because temperature is very important to the taste.  Our hand is the magic 98.6 degrees and if you hold the glass by the bowl, it will warm very quickly.   Not to mention you can crush the glass…

 Now lets go to our question of the week

 Pamela Siege writes in

Do you use the same glass to serve both red and white wine and how are champagne glasses different?

Pamela, excellent question and one that causes a lot of confusion with wine drinkers.

Wine glasses have evolved to an extreme over the years.  Remember years ago with you had one small glass that was used for everything.  Now if you go out to a restaurant, red wine glasses seem to be so big that you would think they could hold the whole bottle.

Pamela, there is a school of thought that the shape of the glass make a big difference to how the aromas are sent up to your nose.  Red wines have more aromas and if the glass is big enough to get your snooze down in the glass, you will get more aroma, and then more flavor.  I agree with that to a small degree, but remember glass companies are trying to sell glasses, to.

Champagne glasses are called flutes because of their long narrow shape.  These glasses are shaped like this because it makes more bubbles flow to the top of the glass and it just looks nicer. 

Pamela, here’s what you do about glasses.  I’m presuming you want to forgo the plastic cup method so get a set of regular sized glasses to serve your white and then get a bigger set to serve your reds.  A set of champagne flutes would round off your collection.

If any of you would like to be more specific, I have a chart on my website that shows you specifically what glass is supposed to go with what variety of wine.  You can download it free by using the link on the screen or the link in the notes below.

If you would like to hear more wine tips, follow us on twitter and facebook.

For reading her question on air, Pamela Siege receives a $25 gift certificate to use toward custom labels wine at AmberCrestWinery.com    If you would like to submit a question to be read on air, click the ask mark pages and type away. 

Now lets go to our wine of the week.

Merlot

Merlot is actually low in tannins, usually low amounts of oak and has an easy to drink plumy taste. 

To me this wine is a lot like the white wine pinot grigio in that you may not be fanatically in love when you taste this wine but you definitely won’t hate it.  For this reason, it is a wonderful wine to serve at a party or wedding when you have various wine preferences.

It’s probably the first red wine that I suggest you try.

It’s home is in the Bordeaux region of France.  It is typically blended with cabernet there to give that region its distinctive “Bordeaux style” wines.

In the US it can also be blended with cabernet but is often sold as its own variety.

So here’s the wine skinny on Merlot:

*Smooth and easy to drink

*Sometimes blended with Cabernet Sauvignon to mellow the taste

*Usually has a hint of oak

*Great to serve at weddings or parties

Give merlot a try, you’ll be glad you did.

OK wine fans, that concludes our show for this week. Please remember to sign up for show updates and leave your comment in the comment section.   Our next episode will show you how to store your wine, give you the skinny on wine Clubs and talk about Pinot Noir.  To see all of our past episodes go to Really Fun Wine Show.com  and click the past episodes button.  So see ya next time. Same bat time, same bat channel. Cheers!

Click here to go to Amber Crest Winery for custom wine labels

Click here to get your FREE Wine and Food Pairing Chart 

I was at a really nice restaurant recently, my lovely wife of 21 years was talking to me and as a husband of 21 years I was bobble heading her conversation…….Guys you know this maneuver.

A man a few tables away did something interesting. He ordered a $200 dollar bottle of wine. I was intrigued. Did he know what he was ordering? Or did he just blow 200 clams because he could. Ah, the plot thickens.

On his first sip, he made the biggest bitter beer face I’ve ever seen. At this point I about fell out of my chair laughing, thinking he obviously hasn’t been to one of my wine classes….

BTW, my wife was still talking and had her back to our fine gentleman and thought I was laughing at her. After an explanation and some damage control with the Mrs.,

I saw Mr. $200 wine bottle try and pawn his wine off on his wife.

Surprise, she bitter beer faced it, too. Now here’s the good part of the story, you would think that since they didn’t like it they would have not had any more, right?

Well, I kid you not, they drank every bit of that bottle, taking a bite of food and grimacing on every sip.

Well, I say don’t be wine tools like our infamous couple, its too easy to pair wine and food and select wine that you like and in today I’m going to show you how.

Lets get started by learning how to order wine in a restaurant

The big day, the celebration, the promotion, the anniversary, the birthday, all big days, right? If you plan on going to a restaurant and ordering wine, you’re probably more nervous than a grape on crushing day.

Over the years, I have literally seen confident, self assured people break out in cold sweats at the prospect of going through the “wine ritual” of approving the cork and wine in front of the rest of the table. Well, I’m here to demystify this age old process for you. It’s actually pretty simple.

The first thing the waiter or waitress will do is present you the bottle of wine. Usually they will place it over their other arm, draped over a white cloth napkin. Besides verifying that this is the wine you ordered, the whole purpose of this is to make you feel good about your choice and to set you up as the big cheese in front of your table.

(Hey, they know your are paying the bill and they want you to look good, too.) They are thinking big tip here.

Smile and simply nod your approval. Not the bobble head nod, BTW.

Next they will methodically open the bottle as if it’s a gigantic stage production. This also has another significant purpose. It’s simply to verify in front of you that the wine you are receiving is from that bottle. Although today I don’t believe it goes on at all, in the past it was not been above the realm of possibilities for an unscrupulous person to refill an empty bottle of expensive wine with far lesser priced product.

Ah, then the cork sniff…this is where you see the unknowing, break down. You can see the fear in their face every time. They sniff, then nod and try not to look foolish. Then regardless of what they say or do, the waiter will say “very good sir or madam”.

So, OK, what are you sniffing for? All you are looking for is that the cork does not have some type of funky, swampy smell. Think burned match, think sulfur. If it smells like wine, you’re fine. The reason you smell the cork is that if the cork smells bad, the wine has probably gone bad. In times past this could be a problem and certainly happened to a fraction of bottles. But it’s now the 21st century, computerization and modern assembly lines fill and cork most bottles. This very rarely happens. Way less than 1% of the time.

So after you approve the cork the waiter will pour a tasting sample into your glass. All eyes are on you, the big moment…. If you’re a ham, this is your time! Enjoy the attention, let the momentum build, and then with authority, swirl and sniff you wine. The table waits. The world stops, you take a sip, the anticipation grows. Oh no, is the wine good? Is the wine bad? The waiter begins to sweat. The clock ticks. You can hear a pin drop. What will you do?

Sorry to be so anticlimactic…but you say its very good!

The waiter will then smile, say thank you, pour a glass for everyone and then you can put the pretense behind you and enjoy your wine and meal.

And people have anxiety over this? Go figure. Not so hard is it? You can do this and do it with confidence!

Gary Martin writes in,

Dear Mark: Is there a really easy way to learn about wine and food pairings?

Well, Gary…Certainly

Here’s the main thing you need to know. All there is to food and wine pairing is that similar wine goes with similar foods. Duh, OK, that’s overly simplistic but think of it this way. Light wines with light foods, heavy wines with heavier foods. For instance, we all know white wines go with chicken and fish and red wines go with red meat, right. That’s not an absolute, BTW. But is right in most cases. Here’s why that is. White wines are lighter than reds, like chicken is lighter than steak.

I think most people over think wine and food pairings and over complicate a really fun thing. So I’m going to do two things today to make it easy for you.

Instead of trying to memorize all the quote “perfect” matches, just do this. Find a red and white wine variety you like and in the beginning just pick those. I bet I’ve had 1000’s of glasses of ice tea in my life and I never stopped once to see if my tea went with my chicken or steak. When you stop overly worrying about your pairing, a funny thing will happen, you will start to enjoy both your wine and you food.

Next, I’m going to give you a copy of my wine and food pairing chart

Click here to get your FREE Wine and Food Pairing Chart 

We’ll talk more in the future on this topic but this will get you started

Now its time for our wine of the week.

Sauvignon Blanc

Mouthful to say, huh. No, not cabernet sauvignon, that’s the red stuff. This wine is a white wine with wonderful flavors that are made for food. This is actually my favorite white food wine and here’s why. Sauvignon Blanc has aromas of herbs, and grasses with just the right amount of acidity. What, huh? OK, bare with me here. Ever have lighter foods like chicken or fish seasoned with oregano or basil or thyme or rosemary? OK, we all do. Since we know now know to match similar foods with similar wines this wine is perfect for these foods because of the herbaceous flavor. The acidity of the wine will also bring out even more flavors. So what’s not to love?

So here’s the wine skinny on Sauvignon Blanc

It acidity brings our flavors in foods

Best from New Zealand

Great with lighter foods

Herbaceous flavors

OK, it makes U sound so-fist-to-cated when you say it

So break out of the Chardonnay rut and try this wine, you’ll be glad you did.

That concludes our show for this week and thanks for watching. In our next show we will learn how the region affects the flavor and we discuss a really fun wine and tongue twister, Gewürztraminer. So see you next time, same bat time, same bat channel. Cheers!

Hi. My name is Mark Adams and welcome to “The Really Fun Wine Show”.   The show that entertains and educates you about wine  

Ya know, somewhere along the way, wine became stuffy and snooty.  I don’t know why, but somehow I think we ought to blame the French… 

As wine becomes more popular, it seems that I’m meeting a large number of people who think because they know a little bit about wine, it gives them license to act like a pretentious jackass.  When I hear somebody spout off like this I’m thinking… Dude…it’s just grape juice….

I think that sums up my philosophy on wine.  The good news is that most people are not wine snobs.  I think that 99% of the people I’m around have what I think is the right idea.  Which is…wine tastes good, its fun to learn about and its great to share with friends.  It’s those 99% of youwho I hope watch this show.

I don’t like wine snobs…We’ll make fun of them here.  What’s your best wine snob story?  Leave it in the comments section.

I do own a winery, AmberCrestWinery.com and earn my living as a winemaker.  I have written a book on wine and speak about wine quite often. I created the Really Fun Wine show because I wanted to show you how easy learning about and enjoying wine can be. 

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to teach thousands of people in my wine classes and I’ve found that one of the main things that keeps people from getting more involved with wine is that there is almost a concern or in some people a downright fear that they are going to embarrass themselves or make some kind of ‘wine faux pas” Well, I’m here to tell you, you can’t and who cares if you do.  Even if you did, I think that somehow, life will probably go on.  So to get the most out of this show don’t worry about it, relax and have a good time.

As we progress, we will cover topics, like how to get the most out of tasting wines, how to determine your wine flavor profile and answer questions that most people have about wine.  Each week we’ll even discuss the characteristics of a different variety of wine.  After a few episodes, you’ll no doubt be an expert on wine.  Just promise not to turn into a wine snob on me….

Our wine this week is fruit infused wines…What are they?  Why should I start out drinking them? 

Basically, these wines start out as a traditional wine and then have a fruit flavor added.  For instance, maybe a merlot with raspberry or a zinfandel with pomegranate, maybe even a riesling with green apple.   They are great first wines to try.

Fruit infused wines will typically don’t have a “bite” to them and they will be smoother than traditional wines.  A perfect description would be light and fruity. 

So thanks for watching, let me know your thoughts on the show and remember to sign up for show updates.

Cheers

Mark Adams

Really Fun Wine Show