Global Public Articles

Wine is the most used drink on occasions, lunches and dinner parties. It is one of the main ingredients in celebration and get togethers. However, once you open a bottle of wine and it remains half used, how do you preserve the wine, till you use it again, without it losing its flavor?

If you are like me, you can’t finish the bottle yourself, and my wife doesn’t drink wine. For me, a way to enjoy wine is finding a way to make a full bottle last. Here are some tips on how to preserve wine.

Once you open a bottle of wine, air gets into the bottle. When you have a half-used bottle, you need to close it by removing the air out. How do you do this? Put the stopper on top of the wine bottle ad simply pump out the air using a pump. The stopper will close in on the mouth and will become an airtight seal blocking out air into the bottle.

These pumps are easily available at most wine shops, and they are very economical. When you visit a restaurant, and you see all those open bottles, the better restaurants use a pump system.

Wine should always be stored in a refrigerator. Heat deteriorates wine because it oxidizes wine. When you place the wine in a refrigerator this oxidation process slows down. Re-corked wine an lasts for about two to three days in the refrigerator. Oxidized wine taste different.

The cold wine is stabilized. When you have a glass of wine, just let the wine temper to the right temperature, and you will have a wonderful glass of wine. You can keep the wine toward the bottom of the refrigerator and it will be less cold.

You can buy preservative gas and spray it into the bottle of open wine and close it up quickly. When this is done, it pulls out air in the bottle, sealing the wine with its flavor intact. While this is a valid method, you will spend more money on buying more gas. The pump is free once you buy the pump.

You can freeze the bottle of one wine. Simply put it in the freezer compartment and melt is slow when you want to use it again. While this works, the thing you should really try to do is drink the wine within a week from opening.

Add some glass beads or marble to the open wine bottle, the wine level raises. Now re-cork it and store in a cool place, the wine flavor is maintained. Again, this is to keep as much air out of the bottle.

By using these small tips to preserve left over wine, you do not have to waste wine which is left over. You can re-use it without the wine tasting funny or different. So don’t worry about things when you get that next bottle. You can have one or two glasses at a time, and still enjoy it until the bottle is gone.

Learn more about wine at Washington Wine Club. Visit epicureanwineclub.com to get more info on Washington State wine clubs.

Wine of the month clubs are organizations that specialize in finding the best wine available in the world. One of the really nice things about wine of the month clubs is that you can get different wines sent to you, and the work is done to find the best wines and interesting wines that you may enjoy. There are many different kinds of wine clubs out there.

You can find a club that focuses by country, or you can find clubs that focus on styles of wine. Some only offer White wines, some Red wines, and others only dessert wines. Any way you slice it, you can find the right club for you, or a great gift for someone.

Wine has been enjoyed for centuries, and it seems that for every vineyard, a new taste is discovered. There are numerous varieties with unique aromas, flavors, and characteristics to be explored and enjoyed. It has become a passion of many people to continuously seek the highest-quality wines available from the best growing regions of this country and internationally.

If you are a fan of wine, then you might want to consider joining a monthly wine club. Many monthly wine clubs offer new and tantalizing wines as well as knowledge about wines. Every month a new award winning wine will be sent to you for you to taste. Monthly wine clubs also offer newsletters and information about wines and wine events.

If you consider yourself something of a wine connoisseur, a monthly wine club would be a great idea to ensure a monthly supply of new and different wines from different wineries. If you are not a wine connoisseur, a wine club can educate you on the finer points of wine. After all, wouldn’t you like to know exactly what kind of wine goes with what kind of food the next time you are at a restaurant staring at the wine list?

You may be already going to your local wine shop and talking with the wine store owner. That is fun, and you will learn alot from that person, but often times, the wine shop owner may not be able to get all the kinds of wines you enjoy. Getting into a wine club will expand your options exponentially.

Take a few minutes and the internet and do a search for the term “wine of the month club” When you do that, you will be given the option of literally hundreds of companies that offer wine programs for you to take advantage of. Read about the program and the testimonials.

Once you get your first bottle of wine, you are sure to be hooked on the service! Don’t forget, if you do join a premium wine club, take the time to invest in a wine cooler to keep your wines at the right temperature, and from going bad.

Learn more about wine at Washington Wine Club. Visit epicureanwineclub.com to get more info on International wine clubs.

Wine tasting is a technique that takes some practice and skill to master. Obviously, wine tasting is the most important activity that goes along with writing a wine review and scoring a wine. That being said, wine tasting is something that you can learn, and something that you can everyone can do.

Wine tasting starts with simply looking at the wine. You should look at the wine by pouring it into a clear glass and holding it in front of a white background. This allows you to observe its full color without any background effects. Color differences can be very subtle, and can indicate many aspects of the wine. For example, colors in white wines give different flavors, or might indicate age. You could also tilt the glass to observe the color of the wine’s “rim.” In wine tasting, a purple color in the rim could indicate a young wine, while brown could mean a mature wine.

Also, with white wine, if color in the rim is green, the wine may be grassy, like a Sauvignon Blanc. Or if it is very golden, it may indicate that the wine is more sweet with residual sugar.

We now know that most of a taste actually comes from our sense of smell. Thus, after observing the wine’s color, during a wine tasting you should smell the wine’s “bouquet” or “nose.” This helps identify subtle tastes that your tongue won’t recognize. This is where things get most confusing for many wine drinkers.

When it comes to describing the wine in terms of smell, you hear all kinds of terms. Just keep in mind, that if you are starting out, terms like fruity, floral, grassy, earthy, berry like, and jam like, are good terms to start with. As your exposure to wine increases, you will start to become much more specific with the terms you are using. Eventually you will be able to identify specific fruit, flower, and other aromas.

Then, take a sip of the wine and swish the wine around in your mouth. It was first thought that only certain taste buds on the tongue were able to detect certain tastes like sweetness or bitterness. You will also be able to discern soureness, and saltiness. Let the wine wash over all parts of your tongue. At this point, you want to breathe deeply through your nose.

What happens is you are now balancing the aromas, with the flavor on the tongue. Now you can really think about what you are tasting.

While you’re tasting it, you should be able to develop a first impression, or what tastes are most apparent from the wine. Next, take a breath with the wine in your mouth to get an idea of the texture of the wine — light, rich, smooth, or harsh. Last, you can either spit out the wine or swallow it, and get an idea for the wine’s aftertaste.

Let your palate sit for a few minutes and you will now be able to discern and create your opinion of the wine.

Learn more about wine at Washington Wine Club. Visit epicureanwineclub.com to get more info on International wine clubs.

For wine lovers who are planning to visit San Francisco, you should consider driving a short distance to Napa Valley to visit one or more of their many vineyards. Today, many vineyards understand the worries about drinking and driving, so they have started offering special packages.

Whether or not you have tasted wines or maybe you simply find a dislike for the beverage, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised at some of the many great wines that are found in California’s Sonoma Valley and Napa Regions. The wines that are displayed at the vineyards are usually the best, quality wines that the vineyards have to offer. Depending on whether or not you are a wine connoisseur or just a plain ordinary mortal, you will still gain an enormous amount of knowledge about the wine making process and the different styles that are available.

Several different companies offer tours to a variety of vineyards. If you’re going out for wine tasting, be sure to take along someone who has not been drinking so you can get home safely. This could save your life or someone else’s so it’s very important to figure this out prior to your wine tasting trip. Please be responsible and be very careful on your excursions to the vineyards and your subsequent tastings along the way.

If bus tours are not your thing but you don’t want to get behind the wheel after trying all of the fabulous wines that will be offered to you at the tasting, smaller SUV tours are also available.

Here are a few quick tips: On your trip, it’s a good idea to avoid wearing scents such as perfume and cologne, as they can dominate the fragrance and taste of the wine. When you taste, a wine glass should be held by the stem, to avoid raising the temperature of the wine. And while you’re wine tasting you want to eat something very bland before trying the next one so you will get the real flavor of the wine.

Even if you have had never had a glass of wine before, you will still be able to benefit from the knowledge of the different styles of wines and their regions and vineyards. These wine tours offer something for everyone. Even for the novice all the way to the connoisseur. You should know that people of all ages are invited to come on the tours, but only guests who are over the age of 21 are able to sample the wines available for tasting.

Richard Ramey provides much information dealing with wine glasses, plus many other great articles, at his cheap wine glasses guide website.

Wine collectors are a particular bunch. As the years go by suddenly it’s not uncommon to have several hundred or even more than a thousand wine bottles in your collection. It’s also true that many of these wines, both red and white, are priced higher than an average bottle of wine. Because of that, you should be concerned about how to protect the wine in the bottle.

One thing you may have heard around the tasting table concerns the importance of storing whites separately from reds. You may have read an article somewhere insisting that wines need to be stored at different temperatures. You may even have seen a dual-zone wine cabinet that you really like and are considering buying.

Don’t be fooled.

While it’s true that white, red and sparkling wines are served at different temperatures, it does not mean that they need to be stored at different temperatures.
Let me repeat that. You can serve wine at different temperatures but you can safely store them at the same temperature.

The ideal storage temperature for all wines is roughly 56 Degrees F (or 14 Degrees C).

The thing that most people don’t talk about is that humidity is equally important, and ideal levels are between 60%-80%. If your cellar, or wine cabinet, is set to maintain these levels then both your reds and your whites will age and develop properly (provided all other optimal storage conditions are also met).

A dual zone wine cabinet is a wine cabinet that essentially has two different compartments and allows you to set temperatures independently in both of these compartments. On the surface this sounds like a great idea, and you may have your heart set on a dual zone wine cabinet to store and protect your red and white wine collection.

How to use a dual zone wine cabinet properly.

Since there are a few good dual zone wine cabinets out there, here is how to use them properly.

Store and age your wines in a proper cellar or wine cabinet set to maintain ideal wine storage conditions. Every so often, transfer the bottles you know you’ll be drinking within the next few weeks into your dual wine zone cabinet.

You can set your zones to match ideal conditions for serving red or white wine.

Then, whether you’re in the mood for red or white, your wines will be ready to serve at the right temperature, yet will have benefited from being stored properly.

Gary Bombay is the President of Blue Grouse Wine Cellars of Vancouver, BC. His depth of knowledge in wine cellar and wine cabinet selection can be found at http://www.bluegrousewinecellars.com