Food&Wine Wine Club Dinner and Some Wine Basics

Tonight we did another wine club dinner - next of the wines was a full-bodied red from Mendocino County, CA, and suggested pairing is pasta with meat sauce. Specific recipe provided is orecchiette with sausage and cherry tomatoes (click here for recipe on F&W website) - a super easy and fast dinner dish (less than 20 mins!). Because this particular dish is so simple, even though I will go over it later, I would like to first share with you our tools and methods to enjoy wine.

Wine is a complicated drink, and proper ways to consume and enjoy it are a matter of taste. However, there are certain guidelines coming from sommeliers that are supposed to enhance the experience. Of course, most of us do not have the skill of a sommelier and won't be able to tell terroir of a wine down to a mile, just as an example, or recognize that a certain wine is better when drank one degree warmer or colder. But in general, we do know some guidelines and we do accept and follow them, for example most of us drink white wine chilled and red wine at room temperature, and we let the wine "breathe" a bit before consuming it. Over time we have acquired some wine accessoires that are helpful in getting our wines to the right state for consumption.