The Spirituality of Wine

I met someone the other day, who was new to our area, for the first time.  She was very nice and through conversation the question was asked of me, what do you do?  I answered, I’m a wine educator.  The response I got was, I don’t drink wine, accompanied with a facial expression that said “wine is bad”.  This was not the first time I’ve run into someone who had the same perception about wine.  But it was the first time I thought, how sad.  Wine has been traced going back about 6000 years.  It’s origins is thought to have been somewhere around Turkey, and if you believe the biblical interpretation of the first vine grower and wine maker, Noah would be the one who started it all.  I don’t know if the Noah theory is factual or not, I do know, from biblical accounts, that Jesus must have been a big proponent of wine.  That fact, along with a few others, should ease the “wine is bad” perception about wine, especially here, where I live, within the bible belt, Georgia.  Putting biblical account aside, wine is a living breathing, vibrant, entity that springs from our earth.  It evolves just as we do and in most cases gets better with age, just as we do.  Through the ages, vintage after vintage, wine, coupled with food, has played an enormous part in bringing people and ideas together.  And through wine we experience places we’ve never been before, terroir is its soul and a place.  How could something so moment enhancing and the catalyst for bringing people together be held in a bad light?  Wine is good and when you have a really good vintage in your hands it’s even better, and when you have family and friends and great food along with that…..the experience is even better.  Speaking of a wine with soul…..Chateau Du Pin 2006 Bordeaux.  I’m sure I’ve written about it before, but shear memory of the experience is worth mentioning again.  Find it, experience it,  and by all means….. enjoy wine!

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What’s on the Global Food and Wine Table?

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The European Wine Table  1: is about wine and its relationship with food and the people that share both together.  I’m on the quest, starting now, to find out what’s on the tables in America and abroad.  How I’m going to accomplish this I’m not sure yet, but the intention is out there and my will be done.  On my food and wine table are often a lot of pasta and Mediterranean style foods, and a good deal of Italian and French wine.  On my neighbors table there’s a lot of low carb, low fat foods with a good deal of organic wine.  The food tables across the globe speak volumes about family life and I’m going to find out about as many of them as I can…I’ll report back and if you’d like send me some of your favorite recipes, jacqueline@theeuropeanwinetable.com, I’ll create a special file called “recipes from around the globe”, this way all can share and learn.

chow

Following Bliss

One of my true passions, besides talking, writing about, and tasting wine, is antique shopping.   I have lost the time to do it lately, but finding this book while cleaning clutter reminded me of what I use to love to do each Saturday morning.  When I lived in Southern New Jersey there were converted barns everywhere filled with not longer needed treasures from various estates.  My home is filled with such items like the Salvador Dali I found buried at the bottom of an old box filled with picture frame (don’t get too excited, it’s a reproduction),  the roll top desk that I write my hand-written “thank you” notes to clients, and the antique rotary dial phone that we had rewired, and is the phone I use in my home office.  Such treasures these are!  You know, the book in the photo is called The Business of Bliss – How to Profit from doing What you Love.  It was published by Victoria Magazine years and years ago and it is the book that inspired me to begin finding out what my “bliss” was, and you know what, my bliss is everything…..bliss is the feeling you carry with you, always.  In all that you do, whether it’s antiquing, or cooking, or talking about wine,  you make a choice to show up with your bliss.  And now I’m going to bring my full bliss into the bottle of Washington State Riesling I picked up at my local wine shop, Bridgman Riesling 2008 (Columbia Valley) (see review).   It will be perfection with my homemade Chinese style fried rice.  Next Saturday morning, I’m going antiquing.

enjoy

Real Simple

This has been the hottest summer on record, thus far, and this recipe book, Real Simple Meals made Easy, has been my go to book all summer long. Real Simple magazine has been around for quite a while providing readers with a more simplistic way of living, from gardening, to providing entertaining tips, and yes, recipes.  I bought the Meals Made Easy book at a book fair years ago and especially love cooking from it during the summer.  Within this book are one-pot recipes, no-shop recipes, 30-minute meals, no-cook meals, freezer meals and reliable sides.  Each recipe, as within the title, are real simple to make and beautifully illustrated.   Speaking of real simple, the wines I’ve chosen to partake of this summer have been simplistic and uncomplicated.  Wines like Vinho Verde, Dolcetto,  Pinot Grigio, and Viognier, have accompanied my brunch, lunch and dinners.  Here’s one of my favorite simple recipes from Real Simple Chicken with Olives and Thyme, pair it with a simple Bordeaux white like Les Caves Joseph Bordeaux Blanc.  You can find it at Trader Joe’s. 

enjoy

Finding Sherbet

Technorati Tags: German wines

I recently attended a business networking event at a neighborhood restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised by the food for the event…cheese fondue with nachos, and assorted delicious finger foods.   You know normally these events are limited to cheese and crackers.  Anyway, after browsing the wine list, I ordered a glass of German Riesling.  I’m not sure who the producer was but something happened when I sniff the wine.   First, let’s talk a little about German wines. German quality wines are classified and graded by their ripeness or sweetness level, in order of sweetness;  Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, Beernauslese, Eiswein, and Trockenbeerenauslese, the greater the level of sweetness the more expensive the wines become, mostly due to rarity.  It’s rare in Germany for the grapes to ripen fully enough to make wines on the higher sweetness level.   So back to sniffing the wine.  I usually give my wines a quick conscious sniff, this time, probably because of people being around me, I gave it an unconscious sniff, just a pass by the nose kind of thing, and you know what?  I sniffed Sherbet…fragrant, childhood memories, Sherbet.  I’m sure it was always there and I’ve known that that was one of the qualities in German wines,  but this time I caught it.  What really surprised me was that I wasn’t intentionally nosing the wine, I gave it a short unconscious sniff, and then…Sherbet.  That sniff helped me find what was most likely always there.  Lesson….stop trying so hard.  All is revealed in due time.

enjoy