Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [108]
So classic it is practically a cliché, but worthy of its status because the dynamics are textbook: A boldly flavored, tannic red wine meets its match with a smoky, meaty, succulent steak. The fat and protein of the meat tame the tannins in the wine, unleashing the bold flavor and fruit. No wonder this one has survived nouvelle cuisine, macrobiotics, and everything else. It’s just too perfect.
Spanish Sherry and Tapas
I have mentioned dessert-style Spanish Sherry, but you really must try the dry styles of Spanish Sherry with food. They are truly classic, original wines and you will add a lot of Spanish excitement and flair—let’s call it allegría—to your life if you try some of these combinations. The basic Sherry styles for savory food are:
Fino This has a pale straw color, a nutty scent of almonds, and a crisp, fresh taste. When it comes to food, fino Sherry goes best with appetizers and salty nibbles, such as:
toasted almonds (the classic pairing)
aged ham such as prosciutto or serrano ham
olives (the other classic pairing)
fried foods (calamari, fish’n’chips, vegetable tempura, and so on)
charcuterie (cured sausages and meats)
Oloroso This has a nut brown color, with a scent and taste of toasted pecans or walnuts. Oloroso Sherry is fabulous with:
soups (from consommé to mushroom soup to lobster bisque)
pâtés
cheeses (mild, firm varieties)
sautéed mushrooms
CHAPTER TEN
Corkscrews, Decanters, and All Those Glasses
Choosing and Using Wine Gear
They say the devil is in the details. But if I’ve done my job right, you have now conquered your demons, or most of them, when it comes to the anxieties of choosing wine. We’ve explored wine styles, pronunciation, rules of thumb for buying wine, and food and wine dynamics. We’re left with just a few housekeeping details—wine-related gear, how-tos for serving and storing, cellaring if you want to, and, of course, getting the bottles open in a manner that befits a person of your wine prowess.
Opening Wine
My dream is coming true. In the first edition of this book, I fantasized about a world in which the affordable-but-tasty wines that appeal to most wine lovers came packaged in a bag-in-a-box. Further, I dreamt of a day when wine consumers would ditch their snobbery about the package and start embracing the bag-in-a-box virtues—easy-to-open (what a concept) with an easy-to-serve spigot and none of the disappointment and expense of spoiled, wasted wine, no spoilage from a flawed cork (more on these below), and none of the oxidation that occurs with bottled wine leftovers, because the bag inside deflates as the wine is consumed, so that no air gets in. Well, it has started to happen, with a growing number of wineries creating tasty, affordable bag-in-a-box wines that are perfect for everyday dinner enjoyment. Check ’em out. No corkscrew needed!
Bottles and corks do have virtues. They’re beautiful and traditional. The standard size, 750 milliliters, is a practical quantity for sharing between dining partners, for placing on the dining table, and for trading up to a finer wine, where you may want to drink less but better, and the manageable size keeps the cost in check. Finally, they are a pretty good (though not perfect) container for aging wines when that is appropriate, as I’ll explain below.
HOW DO EUROPEANS DO IT?
Per capita wine consumption in Italy and France is around ten times that of the United States. What is their solution to the cork conundrum? It’s a combination of attitude and options. Europeans grow up drinking wine every day, so they get more practice with the corkscrew, and are a lot less uptight about both product and package. They also have more options. For example, in French bistros and Italian trattorias there is no stigma around carafe wine, and it is indeed good stuff. And screw-caps? In Europe, the single-serving screw-cap bottles sold on trains and ferry boats actually contain real wine that is perfectly pleasant (e.g., a French Côtes du Rhône or Beaujolais). And the markets sell wine in bulk, priced per liter, to patrons