Wine Food Pairings make most of us nervous just thinking about it, but wait, someone just threw a monkey wrench (or should I say corkscrew!) into the mix!
Many wineries, in fact almost 90 and 8% of the wines that are sealed with a cork has that delightful moldy, kind of like wet cardboard taste and smell? The cause of cork taint is a mystery and is supposed to be harmless, but who wants to drink it? In addition, what food do you "pair" it with? I don't think you'll find any wine food pairing chart giving advice on that!
The screw tops of today are highly engineered pieces of metal that seem to do the job of preserving wine quite nicely. Basically, you want the wine to stay in the bottle and to seal out the air so no oxidation occurs. We Americans will just have to "get over" our prejudices on screw tops.
OK, just when you think it's alright to unscrew a bottle of your favorite vino, I hear the sound of a POP?. But wait it's not a cork'it's a ZORK?.what the heck is that you ask? Apparently, the Australians have been busily designing a new wine stopper. YIKES! It has the same airtight seal of a screw top and doesn't even require a corkscrew?..which you can't locate when you need it anyway! It is opened with just your hands and it easily goes back into the bottle to keep your wine fresh??.and guess what? It "POPS"! What more do you want?
Well, the WWF, formerly the Worldwide Fund for Nature, is lobbying the wine industry to continue with the cork stoppers, stating that the renewable source of cork, if not used will threaten one of the most important wildlife habitats. The environmentalists argue that the demise of the Mediterranean cork oak forests will endanger the Iberian lynx, the Barbary deer, the black vulture and the imperial Iberian eagle. "The cork oak forests could face an economic and environmental crisis unless we take action to secure their future now," said Rebecca May, WWF's forests campaigner. It is vital that the wine and cork industries maintain the market for cork stoppers and in turn help ensure the survival of the cork oak forests," she said.
The future should be interesting for the wine "sealing" industry?.who would have thought that we, as wine consumers, would face such a serious dilemma? Cork, Zork or screw top?..CHEERS!
Wine Food Pairing Chart
The latest craze or fashion if you will is the stemless wine glass. The Stemless wine glass is catching on with more and more consumers in the US trendiest restaurants, thanks to the wine industry efforts to demystify wine or the glass companies attempt to sell more stemware or in this case stemless ware! I guess it seems a bit more "earthy" to swirl your favorite wine in a tumbler versus holding a goblet by the stem. In Europe, for years, they've served wine in various shaped receptacles?.usually what ever is handy and it is totally accepted. Of course if the white linen comes out so does the formal stemmed glass.
All I have to say about this new trend is FINGERPRINTS?.no not to search for the culprit that stole the stem off my glass, but the ones that I leave on my glass if I am eating fried chicken with my White Zin! I enjoy looking at the colors of my swirling wine not my smudged digit marks and it is also a lot of fun to delicately hold the perfect stem and get a full twirl going! OK, perhaps I am getting a bit carried away, but what about TEMPERATURE? As I sit with my hot little hands wrapped around a tumbler, won't my chilled wine get a bit, well, warm?
Some wine experts argue that the stemless ware is the best of both worlds. They feel that the tumbler style glass allows you to swirl the wine and control its flow onto your palette. In addition, the glasses will fit nicely into the dishwasher which is indeed a plus! Glassware companies are now making the tumbler type glass in different shapes to accommodate the type of wine you are drinking, be it a big red or a delicate white.
I know as far as wine food pairing goes that I can be flexible and come up with the casual pairing that would work just right for the trendy new stemless ware. I can see myself sitting at the patio table, being served a medium rare steak, hot off the grill and a large bowled tumbler of Cabernet Sauvignon. YUM! I'm making myself hungry!
So, perhaps its goodbye to my formal stemmed red wine glasses in my cabinet. Wine food pairing has stepped into the next generation! CHEERS!
Denise Clarke has sinced written about articles on various topics from Wine and Spirits, Wine and Spirits and Family Travel. Denise Clarke has been passionate about wine food pairing for many years....to follow her blog go to:http://www.winefoodpairing.blogspot.comor to her website at:http://www.wine-food-pairing.com. Denise Clarke's top article generates over 12100 views. to your Favourites.
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