Store Hours: Tues - Sat 10 am-7 pm
and Sunday 11 am-5 pm

Truth or Myth #1:

Red Wine with meat, White Wine with fish

It is the body and components of the wine and not its color that are most important in pairing wine with food. Today, many red wines, such as Pinot Noir and Gamay (the grape that makes Beaujolais), can be lighter in body than, for example, barrel-fermented and barrel-aged California and Australian chardonnays. Try a Pinot Noir with fish (especially salmon) the next time you make it and see what you think!

Some Truths:

• Perceptions of a wine can be skewed by outside influences as innocent as eating a bag of M&M’s® or drinking a Coke®.

• At least 80 percent of taste is smell. Try holding your nose closed and chewing some raisins. Then, release your nose and chew the raisins some more. See a difference?

• Swirling the wine in the glass helps you smell and therefore taste the wine better.

• You continue to smell a wine once it is in your mouth.

• A full body is no guarantee of intense flavor.

• White wines get darker in color as they get older.

• Red wines get lighter as they get older.

Some Myths:

• Storing wine in racks above the stove is good for it. Excessive heat cooks the wine and temperature deviations can turn wine into vinegar and could cause the cork to pop.

• Serve red wine at room temperature and white wine chilled. Not necessarily, however, white wine served at room temperature or a little cooler does tend to have a better aroma and taste.

• All wine improves with age. Not. All wines have a definitive shelf life, and most are best when consumed young.

• The best wine is always the most expensive. Not really. The best wine is the one you like the best.

• Once the cork is out, you must drink the wine that evening. A good wine pump is a great way to extend an open wines life. Another way to get extra time from a bottle is to take a clean, empty, half bottle and fill it with the remainder of your full-sized bottle. Cork it up and it should last a few days.

Return to top