Category Archives: Sunday read

Mar 03 2013
15 Comments
Food and Wine Pairings, Sunday read

Sunday Read: An Overview of the ISA Wine Pairing Criteria

I love what this blogging community has brought to my life. One of my favorite fellow writers is Stefano Crosio, whom I first met through the fabulous Italian food blog Flora’s Table, his wife’s blog on Italian and American food (an awesome resource!). Stefano is in charge of photography and wine and food pairings on the blog. His suggestions are informed suggestions because he is a certified sommelier according to the Italian Sommelier Asssociation (ISA) rules. Stefano has now started his own blog Clicks & Corks on which he shares his stunning work in photography and his love for and knowledge of wine.

Last week, Stefano posted a fabulous article and I am happy to share it with you. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes struggle with figuring out what wines to pair with the food I prepare. I have developed some rules by trial and error, have consulted a few information sources and tried these, but it has all been a bit all over the place. I am not saying this is not fun or educational, but it was also hit and miss. Stefano has summarized and explained ISA’s general suggestions on how to pair certain types of flavors and textures with wines. It is not a “steak = Cabernet Sauvignon” or “asparagus = Silvaner” type of guide which I greatly appreciate. This guide helps me understand the qualities to look for in the food and the wines to make pairings work.

I will be using this guide in the future and see how it works out. I thought it is worth sharing! Have a great Sunday, and thank you, Stefano.

Corks & Clicks: An Overview of the ISA Wine Pairing Criteria 

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Feb 24 2013
6 Comments
Something about wine..., Sunday read

Sunday Read: Seven Wine Faults

Sometimes people ask me how I can tell whether a wine is flawed or not. I don’t know about you, but I do struggle with detecting faulty notes or aromas in wines. I usually can recognize a “corked” bottle, but have had issues with other flaws. This is a touchy subject for winemakers and drinkers alike: We don’t want to label a wine as bad when in fact it was faulty which is not necessary the winemaker’s mistake: storage and other reasons can impact a wine and turn it into a bad wine. And there is hardly anything worse (in the wine world) than blasting a wine for flaws that have nothing to do with the winemaker’s skill or ability. But it can be hard to know what went wrong with a wine if you don’t know what characteristics certain flaws have.

That is where this article by Madeline Puckette comes in. She gives summaries of common wine flaws, how to detect them and what can be done about them (if anything!). I believe this can help understand what’s going on when we get across a bottle that has issues.

Happy Sunday!

Wine Folly: Seven Wine Faults and How to Detect Them

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Feb 17 2013
12 Comments
Something about wine..., Sunday read

Sunday Read: 5 Words Not to Fear

This Sunday, I want to point you to a thoughtful piece by Eric Asimov, the wine critic at The New York Times. A few weeks ago he published this piece in which he argues that words that have certain connotations that can be perceived as bad, but are not per se bad. The five words are: Bitter, Green, Oak, Dark and Cold.

While I use bitter, green and oak usually as a bad connotation for wines I describe (yes, even oak. I think it is sometimes heavily overused in production, especially in a lot of new world wines), Asimov argues that there are good things to all these descriptors as well. Dark and cold are the two other words where he tries to steer us away from dogmatic views.

I am all for shattering dogmata, so I thought I’d share.

Happy Sunday!

The New York Times: 5 Words Not to Fear

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