Wines and SpiritsAged Old Wine Story in a 21st Century New Age Bottle
Wine, like woman, has a tag or intrigue and mystique associated with it. Wine has the power to seduce and engage wine drinkers by permitting you to peer within, yet keeping itself aloof and a little out of reach.
The bouquet of complex aromas, the rich colors, the soils and climates of where the grapes are grown all contribute to the nuances associated with wine. The well know traditional rituals of wine tasting such as swirling and smelling the wine, and all things associated to it has helped wine cultivate a rich vocabulary and the very many nuances contribute to this mystique.
And it has engaged the attention levels of the occasional drinker as much as it has involved the serious and professional wine maker. Even though wine is found in mall shelves good wine has always kept this veil of mystique intact.
And every well known wine label has deliberately contributed to this mystique by highlighting these nuances, and pertinently teasing our senses. The global wine drinking population is increasing day by day primarily owing to it being marketed as a health promoting natural beverage, when consumed in appropriate quantities.
It is a documented fact that wine drinkers have the highest levels of protective antioxidants in their blood and that both dietary levels and blood serum levels of antioxidants are linked to cardio-vascular function. Unlike alcohol, wine is removed from the guilt which accompanies conspicuous consumption. Wine is the new-age drink of the masses which is cool with mild intoxication and comes without any of the guilt associated to drinking.
Till recently, Champagne is the only alcoholic beverage you can drink for breakfast and risk not to be stared down by those at the table as it contains less than 20% of alcohol in content. Having said that, in the Cognac region of France, a farmer"s daily breakfast usually starts with cognac mixed in glass of orange juice and their neighbors, the Italians, fire up their morning espresso with a little grappa. So why shouldnò€™t you try to integrate wine into your breakfast menu, at least for the weekends? The old rules of pairing reds with beef, whites with fish and poultry still has merits though the habit in practice is a falling fast behind.
Wine is the new drink for any time, table and occasion. Moving ahead with time, wine bottles too have come far from the traditional way of corking and uncorking the bottle, corks are being replaced with screw caps which would spare you from the spate of search for a corkscrew.
Even though buying a bottle of wine from the beverage counter is as easy as buying anything else, some do not enjoy it as much as buying their own fruits and fermenting their own wine at home before bringing it to the table to be shared. Home wine making is deceptively simple process, for the first timer as much as it is for the experienced wine maker.
All it takes is putting together either fruit or a concentrate and adding up a few other ingredients into an air tight container and leaving it to Mother Nature to work upon. Proper proportion, an environment that aids healthy fermentation and timely stage-wise checking is all that need to be done to make your batch of home made wine.