Category: Wine & Spirits

What’s better than enjoy good wines with good friends? There are numerous occasions to enjoy wine when you’re not eating a full meal. Whether enjoying a relaxing afternoon with friends, having an after work party with colleagues or a late night snack with music, the proper combination snacks and wines will embellish any social gathering. The wine you pair with snacks should be easy-going, reasonably-priced and have specific qualities that bring out the best qualities of the snacks. Here are some of my favorite Chinese snacks with natural wine companions. It’s party time!

I love Barbera wines, not because they are the most beautiful, famous or prized wines in the world, but because the better examples have a unique and charming personality.

Bordeaux has bequeathed wine lovers many liquid treasures over the past two millennium. Some continue to please our palates while others have been transplanted to distant countries and found happy new homes. One such story involves the Carmenere grape. Until the mid to late 19th century Carmenere was one of the six noble red wine grapes of Bordeaux blended with the other five grapes to create some of the finest wines ever made. There are also theories that suggest this grape may be the direct ancestor of the legendary Biturica, a variety highly-prized in ancient Rome over 2,000 years ago. The downfall of this variety started with the devastating Phylloxera plague in 1867 that destroyed most of the vines in France and elsewhere in Europe.

One of the beauties of traditional wine is that although it is made with only grapes it can offer thousands of different aromas and flavors. Where and how the wine is made, the weather, the wine-maker and many other factors will influence what aromas and flavors reside in your glass. Different grapes also have their own distinct characteristics. In the wine world, when we think o f cherries we often think of the red wine grape Sangiovese.

All romantics that truly love to eat must have a special place in their hearts for chocolate. And I mean real chocolates that contain an abundance of phenylethylamine, the same chemical that is released in the brain when people fall in love, and serotonin, a feel-good stimulant that produces a feeling oftern referred to as love-buzz.

At events and in the media, I am often fond of saying that many wine professionals tend to take themselves and the subject of wines too seriously. Instead of making wine appreciate fun and easy they build up a culture of snobbery and exclusivity. This can really be a turn off to consumers especially in a new market like China. Like most wine lovers when I drink the really good stuff, I never add anything to dilute the purity of its excellence and show respect to the wine by serving it the right temperature and in a proper crystal glass. In other words, there are times I’m a somewhat serious. But do we always need to be so serious? Not at all. Sometimes it’s enjoyable to let our hair down and have some fun with wine. One way to have fun is by enjoying wine cocktails. Here are three wine cocktails that are easy to make, delightfully delicious to drink and come with interesting stories.

Enjoying a top northern Rhone red wine is one of the wine world’s most profound experiences, unfortunately it is also one of the most expensive. In this week’s column I’ll introduce less costly ways to experience the intriguing red and dark fruit, herbal, spice and meaty qualities of northern red wines. Surrounding the prized hilltop Hermitage vineyards are the Crozes-Hermitage vineyards that have rocky, sand and clay soils. Crozes-Hermitage is the largest AC in the northern Rhone accounting for half of the region’s production. While not as structured or complex as the Hermitage and Cote Rotie wines, a good Crozes-Hemitage offers a lighter, more approachable style of wines than its more famous neighbors. The best of Crozes-Hermitage wines exhibit some of the qualities of Hermitage wine, albeit in a lighter more simple style. Croze-Hermitage wines are also some of the more reasonably-priced French wines.

Making New Year’s resolutions is an ancient practice thought to have started with the Romans. Some believe the practice began in 153 BC when the mythical Roman King Janis was placed at the head of the Roman calendar. Janis was a two-faced king who could see the past and also look into the future thus encouraging the Romans to make promises to reform bad habits and make positive changes in their lives. True or not, the habit of making New Year’s resolution is popular in many parts of the world. One resolution that I make every year is to continue the delicious endeavor of pairing the wines of the world with Chinese cuisine. Therefore, as in previous years I’m happy to share my 2011 New Year’s wine resolutions along with some suggestions for pairing with classic Chinese dishes.

The sweet memory of Christmas is only one day old but it’s already time to start thinking of New Year’s Eve and this means bubbles. Of all the wines in the world Champagne is the most associated with celebration and therefore the perfect way to greet the New Year with fun and optimism. After all as we contemplate 2011, we can only hope that our fortunes would be like the bubbles of Champagne and always go up, never down.

Winter has once again hit Shanghai with a vengeance. What better way to warm you body and soul than with a good wine. The wines we enjoy should not only entice the palate but also pair well with the heavier dishes of winter. Ideally, the wine should be full-bodied with plenty of dark fruit and earthy flavors. One wine that features these qualities is a Syrah red wine from California or Washington State. Though globally recognized as a premium variety the Syrah, or Shiraz as the Australians and some other new world producers call it, this grape in the U.S. has never achieved the success or popularity of other French red wine varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir.