Tag: vin

9 Best Chilled Red Wines for Your Wedding 

chilled wineChilled red wine is officially a thing.

If you’re like most of us, you probably prefer your red wine room temperature, not chilled. But unless you’ve tried it straight from the fridge, you might be surprised to learn that some red wines are meant to be sipped this way—seriously! In fact, chilled red wines are officially a “thing” and are catching on more and more.

“It‘s a common belief that red wines should be served at room temperature, but unless the room is a pantry or cellar where it is normally cool and dark, most of our rooms are far too warm,” explains Benita Johnson, sommelier and owner at The Vine Wine Club. “Ideally, wine (all wine except sparkling should be served somewhere 52 and 55 degrees for tasting, but when we are simply enjoying a glass of vino, we typically aren’t looking for the specific flavor profile and nuanced characteristics of wine—we just want it to taste good.” Of course, personal preference reigns, so when choosing wines for your wedding, the most important consideration to make is the menu [ . . . ]

If you are open to and interested in trying out some chilled red wines for your big day, here are the ones that are trending and palate-pleasing, according to sommeliers.

Contine at BRIDES: 9 Best Chilled Red Wines for Your Wedding | Brides

Want To Work In A Vineyard? French Wine Growers Seek 2018 Harvest Labor

If working a wine grape harvest is on your bucket list, 2018 may be the year you realize the dream if you are eligible for employment in France. Due in part to an exceptionally hot summer in regions such as Jura and Alsace, the harvest date has crept up, leaving many growers in search of seasonal workers. As in other parts of the world, an agricultural labor shortage has become more common in recent years. In 2018, the early harvest in some parts of France has presented additional scheduling issues. Experienced pickers expect the work to begin a bit later in the year, and many of them are tied up with other jobs or are on leave.

Vineyard owners also say there seem to be fewer applicants as seasonal jobs appear less lucrative than in the past when some producers even held a waiting list for volunteers eager for the experience. Now some growers are prepared to provide bonuses, wine and small gifts to entice workers to choose their vineyards. Elise Bathelier is the human resources manager for Domaine Faiveley in Burgundy.

Employers realize the need to broadcast job openings via social media in addition to job fairs and personal networking. In late July, Alsace producer Domaine Allimant-Laugner posted on Facebook, “Harvest is approaching! Festivities launch on 8/24 or 8/27 with eight days of crémant harvest. Who wants to join our team?” Responses were met with personal messages regarding next steps. Soélis Défi, a provider of rural job matching services, has published an easy-to-use application form on Facebook.

The 2018 harvest in France is expected to produce a significant improvement on the yields of record-breakingly low 2017. According to July 2018 reports from the French Ministry of Agriculture, estimates are up double digits over last year. This is good news for the growers, but all those grapes must be picked at the perfect time.

Harvest is a flurry of urgent activity, with bands of laborers streaming down the rows with clippers. Harvested grapes are placed into bins that are carried or held on one’s back — when the bins are full they go into larger containers to be taken into the winery. This continues for days to weeks, depending on the size of the vineyard and the pattern of grapes being harvested.

Because grapes are harvested when they are perfectly ripe, certain portions of a single vineyard could be picked in their own time. Having a mobile team of workers on hand makes this process much easier. As vineyards blush closer to that magic moment, growers hope that plenty of eligible people answer the call.

Source: Want To Work In A Vineyard? French Wine Growers Seek 2018 Harvest Labor

Fantastique Wine Restaurants in Paris

 

There’s so much to fall in love with in Paris: the history, the architecture, and of course, the cuisine. The 13 Wine Spectator Restaurant Award winners below enhance the magic of French dining with stellar wine programs that deliver experiences to match the grandeur of the city. From a family-owned bistro to high-end hotel eateries, these wine restaurants shine bright in the city of lights.

Epicure
Epicure is housed in the opulent Le Bristol Paris hotel, which first opened in 1925.

EPICURE
A fine-dining staple in a longstanding hotel
Le Bristol Paris, 112 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré
(33) 1-53-43-43-40
www.lebristolparis.com
Open for lunch and dinner, daily

Grand Award
Wine list selections 3,000
Inventory 95,000
Wine strengths Head sommelier Bernard Neveu manages the wine list, which is entirely French except for a few pages of international labels. Burgundy is the strongest region, with nearly 200 grand cru reds alone. Additional highlights include Champagne, Bordeaux and the Rhône.
Above and beyond The team takes extra steps to ensure the best possible wine experience at Epicure. Each of the hotel’s dining outlets has its own cellar to avoid disturbing the wines with excess movement, and every selection on Epicure’s list is sourced from Neveau’s personal connections with winemakers.
Cuisine Chef Eric Frechon puts a modern spin on dishes firmly grounded in French cuisine, stuffing macaroni with black truffle, artichoke and foie gras, and serving lemon-thyme langoustines with an onion-mango condiment.
Noteworthy neighbors Le Bristol shares the block with the Elysée Palace, the official home of French presidents since 1848, as well as other cultural landmarks like Boutique Pierre Cardin and Christian Lacroix.

Le Taillevent
At Le Taillevent, a seasonal menu complements a world-class collection of French wines.

LE TAILLEVENT
A Parisian institution since 1946
15 Rue Lamennais
(33) 1-44-95-15-01
www.taillevent.com
Open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Friday

Grand Award
Wine list selections 2,300
Inventory 300,000
Going strong André Vrinat opened the restaurant in 1946, and his family maintained ownership until the Gardinier family purchased it in 2011. Seventy-two years after opening, Le Taillevent remains at the top of its food and wine game. It has maintained a Restaurant Award since 1984, longer than any other winner in Paris.
Wine strengths Antoine Pétrus is the general manager and wine director of the overwhelmingly French cellar. The Bordeaux and Burgundy sections are exceptional, with 12 vintages of Château Latour and more than two dozen labels from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Picks in Champagne, the Rhône, the Loire and Alsace are also outstanding.
Cuisine Chef Alain Solivérès serves seasonal French dishes with creative touches, like tomato jelly with lobster, and garlic flowers atop turbot cooked in butter. Occasionally, Solivérès will create a special tasting menu, like a recent one with a focus on black truffles.
Restaurant Award–winning sibling Le Taillevent’s sister restaurant, Les 110 de Taillevent in London, holds a Best of Award of Excellence for its 1,300-label wine list and 110 wines by the glass. Continue reading “Fantastique Wine Restaurants in Paris” →

Heat brings relief for French vineyards

Torrid temperatures across much of France have made the past few weeks unbearable for many, but with grape harvests kicking off this week, the country’s winemakers say the heat could not have come at a better time.

“Grape vines like the sun,” said Bernard Farges, president of the wine grower’s association for the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Superieur appellations.

“It rained a lot last spring in nearly all winegrowing regions, especially in the south… so the vines aren’t suffering from the drought,” he said.

Agriculture Minister Stephane Travert told AFP on Monday that this year’s grape output was expected to be “higher than average” after production was hit by weather-related losses last year [ . . . ]

Continue at Source: Heat brings relief for French vineyards

National Wine & Cheese Day: best pairings

The saying is — “when in Rome.” But today, we should really be looking to France.

“The French, we are lucky enough to have more than 365 variety of cheese. So every day. Every lunch and dinner we have a piece of cheese,” says Farmer and Frenchman owner Hubert Mussat.365 days of wine and cheese make the French the experts.We dropped by Farmer and Frenchman for the inside scoop on pairing — the gouda, the brie, and the bleu.

Best wine pairings:

  • Jalapeno, or anything spicy, goes best with sweet wine
  • Riesling pairs best with spicy foods and cheeses
  • Chardonnay does well with hard cheeses
  • Sauvignon Blanc is best with seafood, not cheese
  • Red wines pair well with soft cheese like fontina and brie

Continue reading at: National Wine & Cheese Day: Wine 50% off, best Tri-State pairings



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Investing in Fine Wine Is More Lucrative Than Ever – Bloomberg

Once an exotic market, parking your assets inside expensive bottles can yield tremendous profits.

 

Buying rare wines is like investing in a startup: You need 10 years of runway to see significant returns. But unlike a startup, wine is a lot more lucrative these days.

Had you allocated $100,000 to Cult Wines, a U.K.-based wine portfolio manager, your money—which is to say your wine—would have returned an average of 13 percent annually. In 2016, its index performance was actually 26 percent. The fine wine secondary market hovers at about $5 billion, a fraction of the $302 billion global wine market. But Euromonitor International Ltd. projects that while “key luxury players face mounting risks in 2018,” the wine and Champagne category is set to increase by an estimated 7 percent.

To anyone that knows wine, French is the must-have and French Bordeaux the absolute must-have

When it comes to what private bank Coutts & Co. calls the “passion index,” wine is right up there with fancy cars and rare coins [ . . . ]

Continue story at BLOOMBERG: Investing in Fine Wine Is More Lucrative Than Ever – Bloomberg


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