July 2, 2025 • 37 mins
Serving wine at the proper temperature can enhance your tasting experience. But many white wines are served too cold and red wines served too warm. Learn helpful guidelines and tips on serving wine at the right temperature by style, storing wines to protect them, selecting glassware, and other tips for gifting wines. Fearless Fabulous You's Melanie Young, a certified specialist of wine (CSW), also discusses how to use leftover wine in spritzes and sangria so nothing goes to waste!
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Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Fearless Fabulous You Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
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Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I am so excited to be seeing
all of you. Most of the time, I'm doing an
audio podcast, and this is like my first video podcast,
so I'd love to hear from you and tell me
what you think. I'm open to ideas, critics, and suggestions.
(01:03):
I travel a lot. If you follow me and my
husband David Ransom, we host the show The Connected Table,
you know that we are blessed to be in the
business of writing about wine and food and travel, and
I'd like to sometimes bring that enthusiasm and my knowledge
to you. My followers and listeners are fearless, fabulous you
because did you know that over sixty percent of wine
(01:25):
purchased in the United States is purchased by women. That's right.
Women have considerable purchasing power when it comes to enjoying wine,
and I want you to enjoy it responsibly, with pleasure,
in moderation, and with knowledge on how to serve it,
pair it, and store it. So today we're going to
(01:47):
talk about something that's popped up because it's summer and
it's hot, and everywhere I seem to go, the wine
is being served too warm. But sometimes the white wines
are too cold. So we're calling this. We're calling this
when it comes to drinking wine, check your temperature. This
episode is going to talk to you about how to
properly serve wine at the proper temperature, also how to
(02:09):
store it so it doesn't turn and go bad, what
to look for if the wine is not optimum, and
also what to do with wine that maybe a day
or two old that you just it's not as fresh,
but you can still use it, turn it into wine
coolers and sprintsers. So that's the plan. And then I'll
have two wines that are here to talk about that
are Rose's because I'm channeling Provence right now. I'd like
(02:30):
to go there. I'd like to see the sunflowers and
the lavender fields that are going to be popping up
in July. So maybe with these wines from both from Provence,
that trip will happen, you know, channel it. Okay, So
here we go. So first of all, are you drinking
wine at the right temperature? Here's the reality. White wines
are often served too cold, and red wines are often
(02:54):
served too warm, and that really affects the aromas and textures,
flavors of the wine and your enjoyment. White wines that
are served I do have notes. Sorry, White wines that
are served too cold can overwhelm the nuances of flavors
that you want to enjoy in the wine. So here's
some tips for white wines. Sparkling wines you want to
(03:14):
serve chilled. Okay, what are sparkling wines. We're talking about prosecco, cremants, champagne.
They all fall, even though they're all very different, into
the sparkling wine category. Also, lambruscos, which are sparkling wines.
You should probably serve them along with white wines and
Rose's at forty five to fifty degree fahrenheit, so chilled
(03:35):
but not cold. Sometimes they're just cold chilled. Okay, that's
about seven to ten degrees celsius if you're in the
Celsius area of the world, So those are going to
be chilled, but not cold. Refreshingly cold but not bracing
fuller body. Wines you want to serve at about fifty
to fifty five degree fahrenheit, so slightly less chill, but
(04:00):
still chilled enough so they're not too warm. That's about
ten to thirteen degrees celsius. So I'm going to just
say this now, So what happens if you get a
wine that's too warm or too just too warm? Can
you put an ice cube in it? Well? You can.
I have, particularly with red wines that are always served
(04:21):
too warm, and I'll get into that in a minute.
You just don't want too much ice in there because
it does dilute it. And some of my fine wine
friends are probably like gagging right now, they're even recommending it.
But you can, and I have, particularly with lighter fruit
of your wines and wines you just need a little kick.
So it's better to just chill your wine. If you're
serving wines that need to be chilled, put them in
(04:41):
the fridge or put them over ice on an ice bucket.
The best way to do that is to put water
in the ice bucket with the ice. Water in the
ice bucket with ice will chill your wines faster. Do
that for twenty minutes, maybe thirty minutes before serving. Sometimes
we'll pop a white wine in the freezer if we
have to just pull it, chill it fast. You don't
want it to be over, but you do want it
(05:01):
to be chilled. Okay, it's really important. As for red wines,
you want to serve these more or less at room
temperature or slightly chilled to coax out the layers of fruit, spice,
and tannin rule of thumb. Serve light and medium body
reds a fifty five degree fahrenheit thirteen celsia. So that's
(05:24):
just about the same as the fuller bodied whites that
I just mentioned. So what are some lighter reds well, Boujeotie,
which is made from Geme love that lightly chilled Choppatino,
which is a phenomenal red wine from the freely Venitzia
Julia area. If you can find it, buy it. I
love Frapato from Sicily and Chirosola de Bruzso from a
(05:46):
Bruzso these are wines that are lighter and style where
they're red. They are so good, lightly chilled, and so refreshing.
It'll change your mind about what to drink for the summer.
But just remember you can pop an ice cube if
you have to, just don't do it regularly because ice
becomes water and it dilutes the wine. What to do
(06:07):
about medium body reds and fuller body reds. Well, the
heavier and the more fuller body of the red, the
less you want to chill it, but you still don't
want it to be too warm. Rule of thumb. Light
medium body red wines fifty five degrees fahrenheit, that's thirteen
degrees celsius. Fuller bodied aged reds like an Age Bordeaux
or a Burgundy or something of that ilk sixty to
(06:30):
sixty four degrees fahrenheit. That that's still cool, because I
don't know what you keep your air conditioning at. We
keep hours at seventy one. My mother used to keep
ers at sixty eight. So when you think about sixty
to sixty four degrees fahrenheit, it's still fairly chilly, right
or cooler For the Europeans, that's fifteen to eighteen percent celsius. Okay,
(06:50):
So what you really want to do is, first of all,
you don't want to open up a lot of wines
at one time. If you're having a dinner party, open
up what you need at a time, so you're not
stuck with unopened bottles of wine that can go to waste. Yeah,
wine can last another day. My husband, I'd argue two days,
but really they lose their freshness and at that point
you might as well cook with it, which we do
a lot with open bottles of unfinished wine. But fortunately
(07:14):
for us, we tend to finish our wines and don't
have that problem. Okay, So another important thing about red wines.
Many red wines, especially older, finer vintages and full of bodies,
they are going to benefit. And some whites, a few
whites that are biodynamic, they benefit from being decanted. What
does that mean? You get a decandor and I wish
(07:36):
I had my decanter. Here. We have two we broke
one one is fancy from water for crystal for good
special dinners, and the others like eBay twenty bucks and
decanters a vessel. Basically, you could also use a picture
if you'd had to. You pour the You pour the
wine in to the decandor and let it sit and
(07:57):
allow the wine to oxygenate a little bit, which will
bring out the aromas and flavors and also balance out
the tannins. It also can help remove sediments. So some
of the aged wines have sediment. You've seen sediment. It
It ends up in the bottom of your glass and
you're like, what is it? Well, it's perfectly it's not
dangerous or anything. It just happens based on how the
(08:17):
wine is made. And I won't get into science here,
but the point is one way to remove the senate
is to decant the wine, maybe twenty minutes before serving,
maybe a little longer for older wine. Have a wine
filter on top of the lip okay and pour the
wine out through the sea or wine funnel or wine
(08:39):
net so the sediment does not go into your glass.
We always decant most of our red wines because we
tend to drink older reds. What's an older red, Well,
it could be anything, could be nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties, gosh,
I'm feeling old. It could be two thousand these days.
It depends on the wine, but it does bring out
the aromas and flavors by giving that wine time too.
(09:01):
As I say, breathe. You don't have to use it
to canter for all wines. You can just open up
the bottle of red wine and let it breathe and
sit in the bottle. But decanting actually gives it a
lot more fullness, particularly with older vintages. It's kind of important.
It's kind of like if you're older and you need
to go out and take a walk to catch your
energy up. Right, Think of it that way. The older
(09:21):
we get, you got to get your energy up. You
got to go take walks to pump in that oxygen
and feel better. That's how I always with older wines.
I love that comparison. Okay. I love sherry, particularly in
the summer, a good dry fino or monteato sherry. I
love them, chilled. I love good port. I love pork
(09:42):
cocktails in the summer, particularly white port and tonic. I'm
going to touch on these as well, because I think
you should be trying these and sweet wines and they
deserve special attention. First of all, sweet wines, I never
call them deserve wines because you can have many sweet
wines with savory dishes, fois gras, spicy Asian dishes, blue
(10:03):
cheeses so great with sweet wines. So we never call
them dessert wines because then they're stuck in the dessert category.
And like women, nobody wants to be stuck in one category. Right.
Sweet ones are a large category, and there are many styles.
You've got saw turns from France. You've got pistos from Italy,
you have ice wines from Canada and the Niagara region.
(10:25):
They're all wonderful. They're all very different in how they're
made and the grapes and styles another discussion for another time.
But rule of thumb. Rule of thumb. You want to
serve these more chilled forty three to forty seven degrees fahrenheit,
which is sixty to eight degrees celsius. They are very refreshing.
(10:45):
That way you will enjoy them well. Vintage port and
sweeter sherries. You serve a warmer sixty four to sixty
eight degrees. It's eighteen to twenty degrees celsius, so that
the cold is not over the layers of textures. I
have actually a bottle of sherry in the refrigerator. It
(11:06):
keeps for quite a while, and like still wine, sherry
can keep because it's fortified. And I've had it there
for it's Apollo cortado, and I've recently brought it out
and put some of it in some homemade a sponsor
I made over the weekend. So those are wonderful wines
to have for Appartiff's sherries in the summer and year round,
just so you try some new things. Okay, A couple
(11:27):
of other important details in serving wine, and this is
probably one of my biggest pet peeves everywhere is glassware.
Not the style I mean usually the rule of thumb.
As you use a flute for champagne because it captures
the bubbles. The tulip or straight the tulip is the
one that captures the bubbles and essences. White wines are
a medium sized glass, and then the fuller bodied bowl
(11:49):
glasses are wine again to capture the aromas. But I
can't to tell you how many times I've had a glass.
I've smelled the glass, which I always do before I
have the wine tastes it and the glass smells like
a sponge or dishwasher detergent because if you go out,
obviously the wine glasses are you know, cleansed in a
(12:10):
dishwasher and sometimes they have a detergent smell. So always
smell your glass before you have someone pour with wine
in it, and if it smells funky, spongy chemically or
detergent or residue of some kind, ask for another glass.
I've done that a lot, but it will impact your
enjoyment of the wine. So think about the glass and
(12:32):
serving your wine at home and clean glasses as well.
Doesn't really matter the style. You know, Reedle has the
ones that are wine specific. We have a range of
a range of wine glasses from you know, little tiny
handheld stemless to fine crystal. As long as it's clean,
(12:52):
that's what's important. You really want to obviously, if you're
at a retail store before friend you're retailer and ask
that person to suggest wines the based on what you're
serving at home. If you like a dry white wine
but you want to get out of what you're usually drinking,
like someone Young Blanc or Pino Gresio, ask for something different,
(13:13):
but say normally I drink Sevenyon Blanc or Pino Grezio.
What can I try different, let them know your price point,
and take home a few bottles to try at home.
At a restaurant, it's a bit different because you're opening
a bottle of wine. It's usually like three times marked up,
sometimes even five. I always do this. I always ask
for the wine director or the somnia and I'll say, look,
(13:34):
I'm interested in ordering some wine. This is what we're having,
this is what we're in the mood for, and I'm
honest about our price point. We don't always are the
least expensive. We certainly can afford the most expensive. But
I always say, I'm looking for a special wine that's
got great value for quality. Value for quality, that's the buzzword.
(13:55):
And I'll ask if they can offer me a taste
of a wine. Maybe they have it already opened or
just opened, or serving by the glass, so I can
taste it and see if I want to buy the
whole bottle for spending the money, you're not sure buying
order the glass. But at the end of the day,
if you're going out four people ordering a bottle of
wine versus a glass of wine, it's going to be
much more cost effective. You can get four to six
(14:17):
glasses of wine out of a bottle that's forty dollars,
fifty dollars, sixty dollars or more. But these days a
glass of wine by the glass can run shoot fifteen
dollars to thirty dollars. So think about the price point
and how you want to do it. A couple of
other things. I can't begin to tell you. There's a
(14:37):
lot of things called wine faults. I'm not going to
get into them. I'm going to get another one. That
was my earphone coming out. I'm the other one that's
most common, And I just have to laugh because I
know a lot of people that have drunk corked wine
tainted wine and don't even know it. So corked wine
or corked taint is probably the most common wine fault
and very common, very common, even at the wine tastings
(15:01):
at the best restaurants. I've had corked wines served to
me on airplanes. I've seen people drink cork wine because
they have no idea they're drinking at cork wine. We
were at a dinner party with a really good friend.
She was so proud of bringing out her cellar wines
from the Rhone Valley. Two out of the three were corked,
and all of us went, it's corked, it's corked, it's corked.
(15:23):
And my friend got a little defensive and pissed off
because we were all going corked. And I tease her
about that all the time and call it the chorus
of cork. But the reality is you really don't want
to drink corked wine because the wine has been tainted.
It's off. It's not going to kill you like a
spoiled food eating spoiled food, but it's just not good wine.
(15:44):
It's gone bad, so you might as well not drink
it and ask for another bottle. And if you're not
sure and you're at a restaurant or you're with somebody,
ask them to taste it. Smell it because you can
smell it first. You can smell it a lot, and
then taste it and say do you agree with me?
Most of the time they will, okay. What causes cork wine, Well,
(16:06):
first of all, wines that are corked, So if you're
drinking wine from a screw cap or an artificial cork,
you're not going to have a problem with cork tank.
It's a mold that grows in the barks of the
cork trees, because corks come for trees. Okay, there's many
places that make cork. Portugal is probably one of the
biggest producers of cork, along with France. A mold grows
(16:29):
in the tree called Trichlora trichlorona soul. It's commonly called
TCA and a lot easier to pronounce. That causes cork taint,
and it is a common problem with many wines, old, young, whatever.
Sometimes an older wine that you've had in your cellar
and maybe hasn't been stored for a while or it's
just gone, is also going to just taste less fresh.
(16:51):
The rule of thumb is drink your white wines young
and drink your red wines, depending what they are. Lighter
food a younger, but older wines age the more. There's
really a lot of roller thumb in there, because I've
had some amazing aged white wines. I mean, I've had
some wine dating to twenty fourteen that were pretty awesome recently,
and that's over ten years old. So normally, if we're
(17:16):
at a restaurant and on the list they have a
white wine like a chardonnay or a so many on
bloc that's twenty twenty or twenty nineteen or twenty eighteen.
We usually don't order it because it's probably not the
best where we want to taste it first. We try
to keep our white wine orders within the last two
to three years. To say, on the safe side, anyway,
(17:40):
you want to avoid cork wine by screwtop or artificial cork,
there's nothing wrong with that. It's a great way to
preserve the wine. Once you've opened your wine, you'll want
to recork it or get a wine stopper because again,
you don't want air to get into the wine. Okay,
so I think that's really really important. Finally, I think
(18:04):
this is really really important. Let's talk about storing wine. Okay.
We've talked about decannying wine. We've talked about chilling wine,
getting the right temperature. We've talked about serving wine. We've
talked about cork taint. We've talked about speaking up if
you feel we've talked about glassware. We've talked about speaking
up if you think the wine isn't good, if you
(18:26):
think it's gone over the hills they say, or tainted,
speak up. You are not required to drink the wine.
Get another bottle. You shouldn't pay for that wine either.
By the way, you know a lot of wine. I'll
get into this before I talked about storage. It often
(18:47):
improves with age, and I think that we like to
improve with age. Some of the best wines are made
into poorest soils. That's right. Poor soils make great wine
because the wine fines have to struggle more to get
deep down and nourished. And sometimes we have to struggle
more to succeed and stay well. So poort is a
(19:08):
good term in wine. Struggle is a good term of wine,
and aging is a good term of wine. And there
goes my earplug again, because these are my husbands, and
these got bigger ears than me. Okay, I'm gonna talk
about storing wine. So for about what twenty something years,
I lived in this tiny New York apartment and my
dad sent me all these great wines and dumbo me.
(19:30):
I shoved them. I put them in the credenza, I
put them in my closet, I stored them under my bed,
I stored them in all the places I had space
in my tiny Newyar apartment. Some were put in the refrigerator.
Luckily they most of them survived, not all Why because
I didn't properly store them and there was temperature fluctuations
(19:51):
over the years. So hopefully you have more space than
I did in my tiny New York apartment. But if
you do live in a small space, invest a wine cooler.
That's the best way to protect your wine. And just
have a wine cooler. Or if you have a large
if you have a large collection, store it off site
and just go and spend the money doing that. Because
(20:13):
if you have a large collection of wine, I assume
it's a valuable collection of wine, so store it properly
for everyday use. Obviously, we store we don't store all
our wines in the white wines and rosees and refrigerator
because you really want to store them. You want to
chill them when they're ready to serve. You don't want
to just have them sitting in the refrigerator all the time.
That goes with bubbles as well. You want to keep
(20:33):
your wines this way. There's six basics of storing your wine, okay.
Six One, you store your wine bottles horizontally. Okay. You
maintain a constant temperature around fifty five degrees just like
serving temperature right fifty five degrees or thirteen degrees centigrade.
So if you live somewhere where it's hot, like I
(20:56):
do in New Orleans, we keep our downstairs where the
wine is the temperature and the ac are cranked up.
We try to keep it cranked up to the ideal temperature. Ideally,
we want a generator in case we lose power. We
don't have one, but we should. But if you own
a home, which we don't, you should invest in a
(21:17):
generator period because of power outages. You won't want to
lose your wine. You don't want to lose your food. Okay,
spend the money and get a generator. We have a
large wine cave. Somebody actually gave it to us. It's
called the europe Fan and it holds like five hundred
bottles of wine. And that's great. It holds the wine.
But if the power goes, it doesn't really matter. So
invest in a generator. If you do have a large
(21:39):
collection of wine. Avoids sunlight. Wine does not like light.
Wine does not like heat. Okay. Wine likes to be
cool and comfy and stored in a dark place. Okay.
It doesn't like a lot of movement. So if you
live over a subway or near a train or something
that vibrates. That's not good for the wine. Wine likes
(21:59):
to be still, quiet, dark, cozy in a cave. That's
why they call sellars wine caves. You want, believe or
not some humidity. Seventy percent. Wine likes humidity. Doesn't like
to be too dry, doesn't like to be too cold,
doesn't like to be too hot, and it doesn't like
strong odors around it. So neutral and that goes for you.
(22:22):
If you're going out and tasting wine, do not wear perfume.
If I smell perfume on somebody at a wine tasting amateur,
they shouldn't be there. You don't want a lot of scent,
So keep your wine very quiet, relaxed. Coudle it and
try to drink it. Don't just wait for some special occasion,
because it may never come. You should make every day
(22:43):
a special occasion. That's what we're doing now. We're drinking
our cellar because why not. We have a lot of wine.
My dad was a collector. I had a lot of
wine from my prior career in wine marketing. We got
to drink it before we die. There's no use waiting
for a special day. Sixty six years old, every day
better be special for me at this point, right, drink
(23:05):
the wine, have a dinner party, pull out the wine,
have a sip. Okay, what to do if you have
wine left over? I touched on a little bit A
cook with it. Put it in your chicken, put it
in your casseroles, put it in your braize with it,
make beef borgagnon like Julia Child. Cook with it. You
can also turn it and let it last for a
(23:27):
long time. It'll turn into vinegar and then you have
red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar. That's another option
if you want to consume it faster. Here's two ideas.
One sprits it, and that's a tip. If you don't
like the wine. You just don't like the wine. It's fine,
but you don't love it. Okay, you can spritz it
by mixing it with prosecco or club soda and make
a wine spritz. Pop a little lime on it, and
(23:50):
you're done. I mean your basic wine spritzer ice wine,
red white or rose, some club soda or prosecco if
you want to ramp it up, and some slow a
wedge of fruit. I like oranges, but I do that
when I'm just not thrilled with the wine and I
just want to drink it. And I also want to
cut my consumption because obviously adding club soda and spritsing
(24:11):
it not prosecco but club soda, you are cutting the
alcohol a bit. Another thing to do, it's a little
more labor intensive, is to make songria. Soungria was created
in Spain, and according to everything I've read, it's now
consumed more by Spanish tourists versus Spain itself. But I
happen to love songria. I like it with less sugar
because I really am adverse to sugar. Right now. It
(24:34):
can be red or white. The more traditional cungria is red.
I have a recipe here from a traditional Spanish songria
from Spanish soboris, which means Spanish taste. They recommend a
fourth cup simple syrup, and it's optional, and I say,
forget the simple syrup. Just get a young, fruity red wine.
(24:56):
Or if you're making white songria, a fruity white wine
and aromatic white wine. So what's a young fruity red wine,
gammet a younger temporneio creanza, a frapato. But if you
want to stick with Spain, just get a red a
young tempornello, or a or a monastral that's another or
(25:16):
boball those are Spanish wines. Just a young, fruity red wine.
It could be from anywhere, to be honest. Some oranges,
Slice up the oranges, some lemons, slice up the lemons.
You can also put in some limes, slice up a lime,
sangreas fruity, a cinnamon stick, an apple, ideally a green apple.
And then you can add in other seasonal fruits. It's
(25:38):
if it's summer, there's peaches and apricots and plums. If
it's fall, apples oranges, and then some carbonated water. It
could be flavored like orange and lime, or just club soda.
You can also add in prosecco if you don't ramp
it up a little bit, and optional two ounces of
(26:00):
vermouth or brandy. But I don't think you really need it,
and I just think you just do it with the
sparkling soda, orsecco or water. You put it in, you
mix it in a picture, let it sit so the
flavors seep in, all those wonderful fruit flavors. Often this
is served in punch. I like it, in a big
I like it in a big picture. But the more
(26:21):
you let it sit out and chill, and you do,
serve this over ice, by the way, the more you
let it sit out not on ice, just that all
those wonderful fruits will sink in and the cinnamon and
you'll get this wonderful fruity cinname spicy red wine or
white wine sangria, very refreshing. Serve it over ice. As
(26:42):
I was writing this up, I was like, I want
to make some gria. I want to maxanngria with some
non alcohol wine, because we are sent some non alcohol
wine zero alcohol or alcohol free as they call it,
wine to taste. I haven't found one yet that I
really like, but I do support the constant of alcohol
free options for people. But since I don't really love
(27:03):
any of the wines I've tasted, We're going to make
alcohol free songria with it and see if that works.
So there's always a way to use a bottle of wine,
whether you like it or not. You can cook with it,
you can drink it, you can spritz it, you can
make it songria. You can make a wine cocktail. Interesting stuff.
So I'm going to just also talk about wine etiquette.
(27:25):
You've been invited to dinner and you say, can I
bring a bottle of wine? People always want us to
bring wine because we have so much. I always say,
would you like a bottle of wine to serve with
the meal? And if so, what are you making so
I can bring something? Or would you like us to
bring just another bottle of wine for you to enjoy later?
(27:47):
Why is that? Because I've had friends who have brought
who have hosted dinners, and people have brought very nice
bottle of wines. And I've seen people open those very
nice bottle of wines for the dinner when they were
intended to be a gift for the guests. The haves
thing to do is if you were invited to a
dinner party, say can I bring some wine for the
dinner or the lunch or the brunch. That's says it
(28:08):
right there, and your host will say no, we're fine,
We've got plenty. And then you'll say, okay, then I'll
bring you a special wine to enjoy it later. If
you're bringing wine, be very clear to your guest, I
mean to your host, excuse me, I brought you this
bottle of wine. I would love for you to enjoy
it later. You don't need to serve it with the meal.
(28:29):
Or I bought this wine, I thought you'd like to
serve it with the meal. But be very specific because
I've seen some noses get at a joint when special
bottles were opened for special not so special occasions by
people who didn't know the bottles were special. So that's
a little wine etiquette. Another thing is when you're bringing
wine and say it's a picnic or outdoors, say can
(28:51):
I bring some glassware with the wine? Maybe they don't
have glassware, you can get this. And if it's outdoors,
would you like me to bring some disposable glassware? Do
you need an ice bucket?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Can I bring anything to serve with the wine? It's
just a courtesy because not everybody has wine accouterments, even decanters.
We've brought to canters with us to dinner parties just
because the people may not have decanters. Ask. It's always nice.
And if you're looking for a gift, wedding gift, home gift, whatever,
(29:23):
you know that people like wine are. They're creating their newlyweds,
creating their new home. A really great gift is either
a set of nice wine glasses and a bottle of
wine or a decanter. Doesn't have to be real expensive,
but a decanter and a wine funnel and a bottle
of wine. Because there's a great gifts. So not everybody
(29:45):
buys great wine glasses or decanters. They usually get cheap
stuff or they don't have a decanter at all. So
it's a nice gift to give. Wine stoppers, I think
are a total waste of money to give us gifts.
We got married, we were giving a lot of wine coasters.
We use exactly one wine coaster and I have the
rest here. I probably sell them on eBay. But if
(30:07):
the canner is great, and the canner's break, so you
probably want to have two or three to canners ready
at all times. And glasses break, so another fun thing
to do is to give people non breakable glasses. If
you know they have a pool, for example, or they
live at the lake. A fun, not too expensive gift
is to find some unbreakable wine glasses and put them
in a picnic basket, wrap them with napkins and say
(30:30):
this is and with a bottle of wine and say
this is for your next outing. That's a great gift also,
so think about that when you're entertaining or you are
going to an event, never go empty handed. My mother said,
never go empty handed, and always write thank you notes.
So I'm good Southern girl when it comes to that.
(30:51):
So I am going to conclude this little lesson on
serving wine with two wines that I have sent because
I'm in the mood for provensal rose. Now why is that? Well,
I've been in Italy a lot, and I love Italy
and i love Italian wines. But for me, Provensal rose
(31:14):
is the benchmark, and it is the fourth of July
is coming up, and I'm going to be chilling these
babies down. These are both from Provence. This one is
H and B is the name of the producer H
and B, and it is from organic grapes. It is
from Coutou de Ax and Provence one of the three
(31:38):
main production areas of provensal rose. I bet you didn't
know this, but Provence produces eighty percent of rose in France.
It's not the exclusive area because Tavo is wonderful, landak
Rusalem is wonderful, and there's other great rosees, but eighty
percent and forty percent are made in a very specific
area of production zones this is one. Another is Cooteau
(32:01):
de Provence and the ro kotoa Provence. Another is Bandol.
This is a very special wine. They tend to be
fuller bodied, more aromatic. This is probably a thirty dollars
bottle of wine, also from H and b uh it
is Mervedra grenache. And since most provon cell wines are
blends of Rohan style grapes from the south of France,
(32:25):
commonly grenache, since Mervedra it's a common common blend, this
is a little less expensive. I think this is like
twenty one dollars the H and B organic and it
is grenache sin so and roll, oh roll, that's interesting.
(32:46):
So grenache is the main grape. If it's in Spain,
it's called garnacha sin so in roll r L L
eight And I bet you don't know what that is.
And I'm gonna tell you it's verminino, a white grape. Yes,
there's a little bit of white grape in this wine.
So I'm going to chill these babies up to the
(33:07):
category that I said fifty five degrees, maybe fifty to
fifty five, and enjoy them this weekend. These wines are
provided by my friends at vineyard brands. They send us
a bouquet of rosees to try. They're all terrific. They
do a lot in the south of France. They also
do Lavier Fermei from the me Paran, which is a
(33:27):
very widely available often under ten dollars rose that is
really terrific. Great wines these a little bit more there.
Most rosees from fronts are under thirty dollars. You can
get a good one for ten dollars. As I said,
the for me Paran, which is actually from the Rhone
under ten dollars. You don't have to spend a lot
(33:48):
on rose. But I swear by French rose first and foremost.
Rose from Provence, rose from the Roan, Southern Roon, rose
from Lango doc Russalon and Tavel, which is a rose
only appellation in their own valley. Other roses I like, though,
I like Kiarato from Italy. It's from Lake Garda, which
(34:11):
has a Mediterranean climate similar to Provence. They make provan
Seu style dry rosees. I like my roses dry and
fruity and not overly heavy. You can't go wrong with
Provence rosees. You can't go wrong with Kiarata rosees. You
can't go wrong with tavel And if you liked a
(34:33):
darker style, more savory, gastronomic rose, check out Cherisuola de
Bruzso they're almost so dark that they look red, that
they're rosees and they're amazing. Okay, I've come to the
end of this little lecture on how to enjoy your
wine and serve it and store it. I hope it's
(34:55):
been helpful. My mouth is watering. I'm dreaming of Provence
in those level fields and sunflowers, which are not going
to happen this year. Maybe next. Here are the bottles
H and B Provence. Go out and check these out.
They're widely available, and ask your favorite wine shop, your
(35:17):
favorite so lia for tips on what you can enjoy
year round. And just remember this, these are year round wines.
They say they're summer wines, but they're year round wine.
You can join them all the time. I'm Melanie Young.
I hope you enjoyed the segment. I'd love to hear
from you on what you think about the TV part
(35:40):
of it. I'm a little nervous because this is my
first time doing it. I'd love to hear on topics
you'd like me to talk about more, and you can
reach me at Melanie at Melanie Youong dot com. You
can follow me on Instagram at Melanie Fabulous. You can
listen to this show on more than sixty five podcast
channels on demand anytime, including all the big ones. You
(36:03):
can check me out at Melanie Youong dot com. And
you can check out my other show with my husband
David Ransom on this network two pm Wednesdays Eastern and
anytime on demand on your favorite channel. It's called The
Connected Table, and there we talk about our travels and
the different producers and chefs and people in the wine
and food industry we meet. The goal is to help
(36:26):
you explore, enjoy, step outside your comfort zone and live
life with confidence, on your terms and in good health.
I hope I'm helping you make you do that, so
always you have the choice to choose life, choose on
your terms and saying fearless and fabulous forever. Thank you.
(37:03):
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(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I am so excited to be seeing
all of you. Most of the time, I'm doing an
audio podcast, and this is like my first video podcast,
so I'd love to hear from you and tell me
what you think. I'm open to ideas, critics, and suggestions.
(01:03):
I travel a lot. If you follow me and my
husband David Ransom, we host the show The Connected Table,
you know that we are blessed to be in the
business of writing about wine and food and travel, and
I'd like to sometimes bring that enthusiasm and my knowledge
to you. My followers and listeners are fearless, fabulous you
because did you know that over sixty percent of wine
(01:25):
purchased in the United States is purchased by women. That's right.
Women have considerable purchasing power when it comes to enjoying wine,
and I want you to enjoy it responsibly, with pleasure,
in moderation, and with knowledge on how to serve it,
pair it, and store it. So today we're going to
(01:47):
talk about something that's popped up because it's summer and
it's hot, and everywhere I seem to go, the wine
is being served too warm. But sometimes the white wines
are too cold. So we're calling this. We're calling this
when it comes to drinking wine, check your temperature. This
episode is going to talk to you about how to
properly serve wine at the proper temperature, also how to
(02:09):
store it so it doesn't turn and go bad, what
to look for if the wine is not optimum, and
also what to do with wine that maybe a day
or two old that you just it's not as fresh,
but you can still use it, turn it into wine
coolers and sprintsers. So that's the plan. And then I'll
have two wines that are here to talk about that
are Rose's because I'm channeling Provence right now. I'd like
(02:30):
to go there. I'd like to see the sunflowers and
the lavender fields that are going to be popping up
in July. So maybe with these wines from both from Provence,
that trip will happen, you know, channel it. Okay, So
here we go. So first of all, are you drinking
wine at the right temperature? Here's the reality. White wines
are often served too cold, and red wines are often
(02:54):
served too warm, and that really affects the aromas and textures,
flavors of the wine and your enjoyment. White wines that
are served I do have notes. Sorry, White wines that
are served too cold can overwhelm the nuances of flavors
that you want to enjoy in the wine. So here's
some tips for white wines. Sparkling wines you want to
(03:14):
serve chilled. Okay, what are sparkling wines. We're talking about prosecco, cremants, champagne.
They all fall, even though they're all very different, into
the sparkling wine category. Also, lambruscos, which are sparkling wines.
You should probably serve them along with white wines and
Rose's at forty five to fifty degree fahrenheit, so chilled
(03:35):
but not cold. Sometimes they're just cold chilled. Okay, that's
about seven to ten degrees celsius if you're in the
Celsius area of the world, So those are going to
be chilled, but not cold. Refreshingly cold but not bracing
fuller body. Wines you want to serve at about fifty
to fifty five degree fahrenheit, so slightly less chill, but
(04:00):
still chilled enough so they're not too warm. That's about
ten to thirteen degrees celsius. So I'm going to just
say this now, So what happens if you get a
wine that's too warm or too just too warm? Can
you put an ice cube in it? Well? You can.
I have, particularly with red wines that are always served
(04:21):
too warm, and I'll get into that in a minute.
You just don't want too much ice in there because
it does dilute it. And some of my fine wine
friends are probably like gagging right now, they're even recommending it.
But you can, and I have, particularly with lighter fruit
of your wines and wines you just need a little kick.
So it's better to just chill your wine. If you're
serving wines that need to be chilled, put them in
(04:41):
the fridge or put them over ice on an ice bucket.
The best way to do that is to put water
in the ice bucket with the ice. Water in the
ice bucket with ice will chill your wines faster. Do
that for twenty minutes, maybe thirty minutes before serving. Sometimes
we'll pop a white wine in the freezer if we
have to just pull it, chill it fast. You don't
want it to be over, but you do want it
(05:01):
to be chilled. Okay, it's really important. As for red wines,
you want to serve these more or less at room
temperature or slightly chilled to coax out the layers of fruit, spice,
and tannin rule of thumb. Serve light and medium body
reds a fifty five degree fahrenheit thirteen celsia. So that's
(05:24):
just about the same as the fuller bodied whites that
I just mentioned. So what are some lighter reds well, Boujeotie,
which is made from Geme love that lightly chilled Choppatino,
which is a phenomenal red wine from the freely Venitzia
Julia area. If you can find it, buy it. I
love Frapato from Sicily and Chirosola de Bruzso from a
(05:46):
Bruzso these are wines that are lighter and style where
they're red. They are so good, lightly chilled, and so refreshing.
It'll change your mind about what to drink for the summer.
But just remember you can pop an ice cube if
you have to, just don't do it regularly because ice
becomes water and it dilutes the wine. What to do
(06:07):
about medium body reds and fuller body reds. Well, the
heavier and the more fuller body of the red, the
less you want to chill it, but you still don't
want it to be too warm. Rule of thumb. Light
medium body red wines fifty five degrees fahrenheit, that's thirteen
degrees celsius. Fuller bodied aged reds like an Age Bordeaux
or a Burgundy or something of that ilk sixty to
(06:30):
sixty four degrees fahrenheit. That that's still cool, because I
don't know what you keep your air conditioning at. We
keep hours at seventy one. My mother used to keep
ers at sixty eight. So when you think about sixty
to sixty four degrees fahrenheit, it's still fairly chilly, right
or cooler For the Europeans, that's fifteen to eighteen percent celsius. Okay,
(06:50):
So what you really want to do is, first of all,
you don't want to open up a lot of wines
at one time. If you're having a dinner party, open
up what you need at a time, so you're not
stuck with unopened bottles of wine that can go to waste. Yeah,
wine can last another day. My husband, I'd argue two days,
but really they lose their freshness and at that point
you might as well cook with it, which we do
a lot with open bottles of unfinished wine. But fortunately
(07:14):
for us, we tend to finish our wines and don't
have that problem. Okay, So another important thing about red wines.
Many red wines, especially older, finer vintages and full of bodies,
they are going to benefit. And some whites, a few
whites that are biodynamic, they benefit from being decanted. What
does that mean? You get a decandor and I wish
(07:36):
I had my decanter. Here. We have two we broke
one one is fancy from water for crystal for good
special dinners, and the others like eBay twenty bucks and
decanters a vessel. Basically, you could also use a picture
if you'd had to. You pour the You pour the
wine in to the decandor and let it sit and
(07:57):
allow the wine to oxygenate a little bit, which will
bring out the aromas and flavors and also balance out
the tannins. It also can help remove sediments. So some
of the aged wines have sediment. You've seen sediment. It
It ends up in the bottom of your glass and
you're like, what is it? Well, it's perfectly it's not
dangerous or anything. It just happens based on how the
(08:17):
wine is made. And I won't get into science here,
but the point is one way to remove the senate
is to decant the wine, maybe twenty minutes before serving,
maybe a little longer for older wine. Have a wine
filter on top of the lip okay and pour the
wine out through the sea or wine funnel or wine
(08:39):
net so the sediment does not go into your glass.
We always decant most of our red wines because we
tend to drink older reds. What's an older red, Well,
it could be anything, could be nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties, gosh,
I'm feeling old. It could be two thousand these days.
It depends on the wine, but it does bring out
the aromas and flavors by giving that wine time too.
(09:01):
As I say, breathe. You don't have to use it
to canter for all wines. You can just open up
the bottle of red wine and let it breathe and
sit in the bottle. But decanting actually gives it a
lot more fullness, particularly with older vintages. It's kind of important.
It's kind of like if you're older and you need
to go out and take a walk to catch your
energy up. Right, Think of it that way. The older
(09:21):
we get, you got to get your energy up. You
got to go take walks to pump in that oxygen
and feel better. That's how I always with older wines.
I love that comparison. Okay. I love sherry, particularly in
the summer, a good dry fino or monteato sherry. I
love them, chilled. I love good port. I love pork
(09:42):
cocktails in the summer, particularly white port and tonic. I'm
going to touch on these as well, because I think
you should be trying these and sweet wines and they
deserve special attention. First of all, sweet wines, I never
call them deserve wines because you can have many sweet
wines with savory dishes, fois gras, spicy Asian dishes, blue
(10:03):
cheeses so great with sweet wines. So we never call
them dessert wines because then they're stuck in the dessert category.
And like women, nobody wants to be stuck in one category. Right.
Sweet ones are a large category, and there are many styles.
You've got saw turns from France. You've got pistos from Italy,
you have ice wines from Canada and the Niagara region.
(10:25):
They're all wonderful. They're all very different in how they're
made and the grapes and styles another discussion for another time.
But rule of thumb. Rule of thumb. You want to
serve these more chilled forty three to forty seven degrees fahrenheit,
which is sixty to eight degrees celsius. They are very refreshing.
(10:45):
That way you will enjoy them well. Vintage port and
sweeter sherries. You serve a warmer sixty four to sixty
eight degrees. It's eighteen to twenty degrees celsius, so that
the cold is not over the layers of textures. I
have actually a bottle of sherry in the refrigerator. It
(11:06):
keeps for quite a while, and like still wine, sherry
can keep because it's fortified. And I've had it there
for it's Apollo cortado, and I've recently brought it out
and put some of it in some homemade a sponsor
I made over the weekend. So those are wonderful wines
to have for Appartiff's sherries in the summer and year round,
just so you try some new things. Okay, A couple
(11:27):
of other important details in serving wine, and this is
probably one of my biggest pet peeves everywhere is glassware.
Not the style I mean usually the rule of thumb.
As you use a flute for champagne because it captures
the bubbles. The tulip or straight the tulip is the
one that captures the bubbles and essences. White wines are
a medium sized glass, and then the fuller bodied bowl
(11:49):
glasses are wine again to capture the aromas. But I
can't to tell you how many times I've had a glass.
I've smelled the glass, which I always do before I
have the wine tastes it and the glass smells like
a sponge or dishwasher detergent because if you go out,
obviously the wine glasses are you know, cleansed in a
(12:10):
dishwasher and sometimes they have a detergent smell. So always
smell your glass before you have someone pour with wine
in it, and if it smells funky, spongy chemically or
detergent or residue of some kind, ask for another glass.
I've done that a lot, but it will impact your
enjoyment of the wine. So think about the glass and
(12:32):
serving your wine at home and clean glasses as well.
Doesn't really matter the style. You know, Reedle has the
ones that are wine specific. We have a range of
a range of wine glasses from you know, little tiny
handheld stemless to fine crystal. As long as it's clean,
(12:52):
that's what's important. You really want to obviously, if you're
at a retail store before friend you're retailer and ask
that person to suggest wines the based on what you're
serving at home. If you like a dry white wine
but you want to get out of what you're usually drinking,
like someone Young Blanc or Pino Gresio, ask for something different,
(13:13):
but say normally I drink Sevenyon Blanc or Pino Grezio.
What can I try different, let them know your price point,
and take home a few bottles to try at home.
At a restaurant, it's a bit different because you're opening
a bottle of wine. It's usually like three times marked up,
sometimes even five. I always do this. I always ask
for the wine director or the somnia and I'll say, look,
(13:34):
I'm interested in ordering some wine. This is what we're having,
this is what we're in the mood for, and I'm
honest about our price point. We don't always are the
least expensive. We certainly can afford the most expensive. But
I always say, I'm looking for a special wine that's
got great value for quality. Value for quality, that's the buzzword.
(13:55):
And I'll ask if they can offer me a taste
of a wine. Maybe they have it already opened or
just opened, or serving by the glass, so I can
taste it and see if I want to buy the
whole bottle for spending the money, you're not sure buying
order the glass. But at the end of the day,
if you're going out four people ordering a bottle of
wine versus a glass of wine, it's going to be
much more cost effective. You can get four to six
(14:17):
glasses of wine out of a bottle that's forty dollars,
fifty dollars, sixty dollars or more. But these days a
glass of wine by the glass can run shoot fifteen
dollars to thirty dollars. So think about the price point
and how you want to do it. A couple of
other things. I can't begin to tell you. There's a
(14:37):
lot of things called wine faults. I'm not going to
get into them. I'm going to get another one. That
was my earphone coming out. I'm the other one that's
most common, And I just have to laugh because I
know a lot of people that have drunk corked wine
tainted wine and don't even know it. So corked wine
or corked taint is probably the most common wine fault
and very common, very common, even at the wine tastings
(15:01):
at the best restaurants. I've had corked wines served to
me on airplanes. I've seen people drink cork wine because
they have no idea they're drinking at cork wine. We
were at a dinner party with a really good friend.
She was so proud of bringing out her cellar wines
from the Rhone Valley. Two out of the three were corked,
and all of us went, it's corked, it's corked, it's corked.
(15:23):
And my friend got a little defensive and pissed off
because we were all going corked. And I tease her
about that all the time and call it the chorus
of cork. But the reality is you really don't want
to drink corked wine because the wine has been tainted.
It's off. It's not going to kill you like a
spoiled food eating spoiled food, but it's just not good wine.
(15:44):
It's gone bad, so you might as well not drink
it and ask for another bottle. And if you're not
sure and you're at a restaurant or you're with somebody,
ask them to taste it. Smell it because you can
smell it first. You can smell it a lot, and
then taste it and say do you agree with me?
Most of the time they will, okay. What causes cork wine, Well,
(16:06):
first of all, wines that are corked, So if you're
drinking wine from a screw cap or an artificial cork,
you're not going to have a problem with cork tank.
It's a mold that grows in the barks of the
cork trees, because corks come for trees. Okay, there's many
places that make cork. Portugal is probably one of the
biggest producers of cork, along with France. A mold grows
(16:29):
in the tree called Trichlora trichlorona soul. It's commonly called
TCA and a lot easier to pronounce. That causes cork taint,
and it is a common problem with many wines, old, young, whatever.
Sometimes an older wine that you've had in your cellar
and maybe hasn't been stored for a while or it's
just gone, is also going to just taste less fresh.
(16:51):
The rule of thumb is drink your white wines young
and drink your red wines, depending what they are. Lighter
food a younger, but older wines age the more. There's
really a lot of roller thumb in there, because I've
had some amazing aged white wines. I mean, I've had
some wine dating to twenty fourteen that were pretty awesome recently,
and that's over ten years old. So normally, if we're
(17:16):
at a restaurant and on the list they have a
white wine like a chardonnay or a so many on
bloc that's twenty twenty or twenty nineteen or twenty eighteen.
We usually don't order it because it's probably not the
best where we want to taste it first. We try
to keep our white wine orders within the last two
to three years. To say, on the safe side, anyway,
(17:40):
you want to avoid cork wine by screwtop or artificial cork,
there's nothing wrong with that. It's a great way to
preserve the wine. Once you've opened your wine, you'll want
to recork it or get a wine stopper because again,
you don't want air to get into the wine. Okay,
so I think that's really really important. Finally, I think
(18:04):
this is really really important. Let's talk about storing wine. Okay.
We've talked about decannying wine. We've talked about chilling wine,
getting the right temperature. We've talked about serving wine. We've
talked about cork taint. We've talked about speaking up if
you feel we've talked about glassware. We've talked about speaking
up if you think the wine isn't good, if you
(18:26):
think it's gone over the hills they say, or tainted,
speak up. You are not required to drink the wine.
Get another bottle. You shouldn't pay for that wine either.
By the way, you know a lot of wine. I'll
get into this before I talked about storage. It often
(18:47):
improves with age, and I think that we like to
improve with age. Some of the best wines are made
into poorest soils. That's right. Poor soils make great wine
because the wine fines have to struggle more to get
deep down and nourished. And sometimes we have to struggle
more to succeed and stay well. So poort is a
(19:08):
good term in wine. Struggle is a good term of wine,
and aging is a good term of wine. And there
goes my earplug again, because these are my husbands, and
these got bigger ears than me. Okay, I'm gonna talk
about storing wine. So for about what twenty something years,
I lived in this tiny New York apartment and my
dad sent me all these great wines and dumbo me.
(19:30):
I shoved them. I put them in the credenza, I
put them in my closet, I stored them under my bed,
I stored them in all the places I had space
in my tiny Newyar apartment. Some were put in the refrigerator.
Luckily they most of them survived, not all Why because
I didn't properly store them and there was temperature fluctuations
(19:51):
over the years. So hopefully you have more space than
I did in my tiny New York apartment. But if
you do live in a small space, invest a wine cooler.
That's the best way to protect your wine. And just
have a wine cooler. Or if you have a large
if you have a large collection, store it off site
and just go and spend the money doing that. Because
(20:13):
if you have a large collection of wine, I assume
it's a valuable collection of wine, so store it properly
for everyday use. Obviously, we store we don't store all
our wines in the white wines and rosees and refrigerator
because you really want to store them. You want to
chill them when they're ready to serve. You don't want
to just have them sitting in the refrigerator all the time.
That goes with bubbles as well. You want to keep
(20:33):
your wines this way. There's six basics of storing your wine, okay.
Six One, you store your wine bottles horizontally. Okay. You
maintain a constant temperature around fifty five degrees just like
serving temperature right fifty five degrees or thirteen degrees centigrade.
So if you live somewhere where it's hot, like I
(20:56):
do in New Orleans, we keep our downstairs where the
wine is the temperature and the ac are cranked up.
We try to keep it cranked up to the ideal temperature. Ideally,
we want a generator in case we lose power. We
don't have one, but we should. But if you own
a home, which we don't, you should invest in a
(21:17):
generator period because of power outages. You won't want to
lose your wine. You don't want to lose your food. Okay,
spend the money and get a generator. We have a
large wine cave. Somebody actually gave it to us. It's
called the europe Fan and it holds like five hundred
bottles of wine. And that's great. It holds the wine.
But if the power goes, it doesn't really matter. So
invest in a generator. If you do have a large
(21:39):
collection of wine. Avoids sunlight. Wine does not like light.
Wine does not like heat. Okay. Wine likes to be
cool and comfy and stored in a dark place. Okay.
It doesn't like a lot of movement. So if you
live over a subway or near a train or something
that vibrates. That's not good for the wine. Wine likes
(21:59):
to be still, quiet, dark, cozy in a cave. That's
why they call sellars wine caves. You want, believe or
not some humidity. Seventy percent. Wine likes humidity. Doesn't like
to be too dry, doesn't like to be too cold,
doesn't like to be too hot, and it doesn't like
strong odors around it. So neutral and that goes for you.
(22:22):
If you're going out and tasting wine, do not wear perfume.
If I smell perfume on somebody at a wine tasting amateur,
they shouldn't be there. You don't want a lot of scent,
So keep your wine very quiet, relaxed. Coudle it and
try to drink it. Don't just wait for some special occasion,
because it may never come. You should make every day
(22:43):
a special occasion. That's what we're doing now. We're drinking
our cellar because why not. We have a lot of wine.
My dad was a collector. I had a lot of
wine from my prior career in wine marketing. We got
to drink it before we die. There's no use waiting
for a special day. Sixty six years old, every day
better be special for me at this point, right, drink
(23:05):
the wine, have a dinner party, pull out the wine,
have a sip. Okay, what to do if you have
wine left over? I touched on a little bit A
cook with it. Put it in your chicken, put it
in your casseroles, put it in your braize with it,
make beef borgagnon like Julia Child. Cook with it. You
can also turn it and let it last for a
(23:27):
long time. It'll turn into vinegar and then you have
red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar. That's another option
if you want to consume it faster. Here's two ideas.
One sprits it, and that's a tip. If you don't
like the wine. You just don't like the wine. It's fine,
but you don't love it. Okay, you can spritz it
by mixing it with prosecco or club soda and make
a wine spritz. Pop a little lime on it, and
(23:50):
you're done. I mean your basic wine spritzer ice wine,
red white or rose, some club soda or prosecco if
you want to ramp it up, and some slow a
wedge of fruit. I like oranges, but I do that
when I'm just not thrilled with the wine and I
just want to drink it. And I also want to
cut my consumption because obviously adding club soda and spritsing
(24:11):
it not prosecco but club soda, you are cutting the
alcohol a bit. Another thing to do, it's a little
more labor intensive, is to make songria. Soungria was created
in Spain, and according to everything I've read, it's now
consumed more by Spanish tourists versus Spain itself. But I
happen to love songria. I like it with less sugar
because I really am adverse to sugar. Right now. It
(24:34):
can be red or white. The more traditional cungria is red.
I have a recipe here from a traditional Spanish songria
from Spanish soboris, which means Spanish taste. They recommend a
fourth cup simple syrup, and it's optional, and I say,
forget the simple syrup. Just get a young, fruity red wine.
(24:56):
Or if you're making white songria, a fruity white wine
and aromatic white wine. So what's a young fruity red wine,
gammet a younger temporneio creanza, a frapato. But if you
want to stick with Spain, just get a red a
young tempornello, or a or a monastral that's another or
(25:16):
boball those are Spanish wines. Just a young, fruity red wine.
It could be from anywhere, to be honest. Some oranges,
Slice up the oranges, some lemons, slice up the lemons.
You can also put in some limes, slice up a lime,
sangreas fruity, a cinnamon stick, an apple, ideally a green apple.
And then you can add in other seasonal fruits. It's
(25:38):
if it's summer, there's peaches and apricots and plums. If
it's fall, apples oranges, and then some carbonated water. It
could be flavored like orange and lime, or just club soda.
You can also add in prosecco if you don't ramp
it up a little bit, and optional two ounces of
(26:00):
vermouth or brandy. But I don't think you really need it,
and I just think you just do it with the
sparkling soda, orsecco or water. You put it in, you
mix it in a picture, let it sit so the
flavors seep in, all those wonderful fruit flavors. Often this
is served in punch. I like it, in a big
I like it in a big picture. But the more
(26:21):
you let it sit out and chill, and you do,
serve this over ice, by the way, the more you
let it sit out not on ice, just that all
those wonderful fruits will sink in and the cinnamon and
you'll get this wonderful fruity cinname spicy red wine or
white wine sangria, very refreshing. Serve it over ice. As
(26:42):
I was writing this up, I was like, I want
to make some gria. I want to maxanngria with some
non alcohol wine, because we are sent some non alcohol
wine zero alcohol or alcohol free as they call it,
wine to taste. I haven't found one yet that I
really like, but I do support the constant of alcohol
free options for people. But since I don't really love
(27:03):
any of the wines I've tasted, We're going to make
alcohol free songria with it and see if that works.
So there's always a way to use a bottle of wine,
whether you like it or not. You can cook with it,
you can drink it, you can spritz it, you can
make it songria. You can make a wine cocktail. Interesting stuff.
So I'm going to just also talk about wine etiquette.
(27:25):
You've been invited to dinner and you say, can I
bring a bottle of wine? People always want us to
bring wine because we have so much. I always say,
would you like a bottle of wine to serve with
the meal? And if so, what are you making so
I can bring something? Or would you like us to
bring just another bottle of wine for you to enjoy later?
(27:47):
Why is that? Because I've had friends who have brought
who have hosted dinners, and people have brought very nice
bottle of wines. And I've seen people open those very
nice bottle of wines for the dinner when they were
intended to be a gift for the guests. The haves
thing to do is if you were invited to a
dinner party, say can I bring some wine for the
dinner or the lunch or the brunch. That's says it
(28:08):
right there, and your host will say no, we're fine,
We've got plenty. And then you'll say, okay, then I'll
bring you a special wine to enjoy it later. If
you're bringing wine, be very clear to your guest, I
mean to your host, excuse me, I brought you this
bottle of wine. I would love for you to enjoy
it later. You don't need to serve it with the meal.
(28:29):
Or I bought this wine, I thought you'd like to
serve it with the meal. But be very specific because
I've seen some noses get at a joint when special
bottles were opened for special not so special occasions by
people who didn't know the bottles were special. So that's
a little wine etiquette. Another thing is when you're bringing
wine and say it's a picnic or outdoors, say can
(28:51):
I bring some glassware with the wine? Maybe they don't
have glassware, you can get this. And if it's outdoors,
would you like me to bring some disposable glassware? Do
you need an ice bucket?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Can I bring anything to serve with the wine? It's
just a courtesy because not everybody has wine accouterments, even decanters.
We've brought to canters with us to dinner parties just
because the people may not have decanters. Ask. It's always nice.
And if you're looking for a gift, wedding gift, home gift, whatever,
(29:23):
you know that people like wine are. They're creating their newlyweds,
creating their new home. A really great gift is either
a set of nice wine glasses and a bottle of
wine or a decanter. Doesn't have to be real expensive,
but a decanter and a wine funnel and a bottle
of wine. Because there's a great gifts. So not everybody
(29:45):
buys great wine glasses or decanters. They usually get cheap
stuff or they don't have a decanter at all. So
it's a nice gift to give. Wine stoppers, I think
are a total waste of money to give us gifts.
We got married, we were giving a lot of wine coasters.
We use exactly one wine coaster and I have the
rest here. I probably sell them on eBay. But if
(30:07):
the canner is great, and the canner's break, so you
probably want to have two or three to canners ready
at all times. And glasses break, so another fun thing
to do is to give people non breakable glasses. If
you know they have a pool, for example, or they
live at the lake. A fun, not too expensive gift
is to find some unbreakable wine glasses and put them
in a picnic basket, wrap them with napkins and say
(30:30):
this is and with a bottle of wine and say
this is for your next outing. That's a great gift also,
so think about that when you're entertaining or you are
going to an event, never go empty handed. My mother said,
never go empty handed, and always write thank you notes.
So I'm good Southern girl when it comes to that.
(30:51):
So I am going to conclude this little lesson on
serving wine with two wines that I have sent because
I'm in the mood for provensal rose. Now why is that? Well,
I've been in Italy a lot, and I love Italy
and i love Italian wines. But for me, Provensal rose
(31:14):
is the benchmark, and it is the fourth of July
is coming up, and I'm going to be chilling these
babies down. These are both from Provence. This one is
H and B is the name of the producer H
and B, and it is from organic grapes. It is
from Coutou de Ax and Provence one of the three
(31:38):
main production areas of provensal rose. I bet you didn't
know this, but Provence produces eighty percent of rose in France.
It's not the exclusive area because Tavo is wonderful, landak
Rusalem is wonderful, and there's other great rosees, but eighty
percent and forty percent are made in a very specific
area of production zones this is one. Another is Cooteau
(32:01):
de Provence and the ro kotoa Provence. Another is Bandol.
This is a very special wine. They tend to be
fuller bodied, more aromatic. This is probably a thirty dollars
bottle of wine, also from H and b uh it
is Mervedra grenache. And since most provon cell wines are
blends of Rohan style grapes from the south of France,
(32:25):
commonly grenache, since Mervedra it's a common common blend, this
is a little less expensive. I think this is like
twenty one dollars the H and B organic and it
is grenache sin so and roll, oh roll, that's interesting.
(32:46):
So grenache is the main grape. If it's in Spain,
it's called garnacha sin so in roll r L L
eight And I bet you don't know what that is.
And I'm gonna tell you it's verminino, a white grape. Yes,
there's a little bit of white grape in this wine.
So I'm going to chill these babies up to the
(33:07):
category that I said fifty five degrees, maybe fifty to
fifty five, and enjoy them this weekend. These wines are
provided by my friends at vineyard brands. They send us
a bouquet of rosees to try. They're all terrific. They
do a lot in the south of France. They also
do Lavier Fermei from the me Paran, which is a
(33:27):
very widely available often under ten dollars rose that is
really terrific. Great wines these a little bit more there.
Most rosees from fronts are under thirty dollars. You can
get a good one for ten dollars. As I said,
the for me Paran, which is actually from the Rhone
under ten dollars. You don't have to spend a lot
(33:48):
on rose. But I swear by French rose first and foremost.
Rose from Provence, rose from the Roan, Southern Roon, rose
from Lango doc Russalon and Tavel, which is a rose
only appellation in their own valley. Other roses I like, though,
I like Kiarato from Italy. It's from Lake Garda, which
(34:11):
has a Mediterranean climate similar to Provence. They make provan
Seu style dry rosees. I like my roses dry and
fruity and not overly heavy. You can't go wrong with
Provence rosees. You can't go wrong with Kiarata rosees. You
can't go wrong with tavel And if you liked a
(34:33):
darker style, more savory, gastronomic rose, check out Cherisuola de
Bruzso they're almost so dark that they look red, that
they're rosees and they're amazing. Okay, I've come to the
end of this little lecture on how to enjoy your
wine and serve it and store it. I hope it's
(34:55):
been helpful. My mouth is watering. I'm dreaming of Provence
in those level fields and sunflowers, which are not going
to happen this year. Maybe next. Here are the bottles
H and B Provence. Go out and check these out.
They're widely available, and ask your favorite wine shop, your
(35:17):
favorite so lia for tips on what you can enjoy
year round. And just remember this, these are year round wines.
They say they're summer wines, but they're year round wine.
You can join them all the time. I'm Melanie Young.
I hope you enjoyed the segment. I'd love to hear
from you on what you think about the TV part
(35:40):
of it. I'm a little nervous because this is my
first time doing it. I'd love to hear on topics
you'd like me to talk about more, and you can
reach me at Melanie at Melanie Youong dot com. You
can follow me on Instagram at Melanie Fabulous. You can
listen to this show on more than sixty five podcast
channels on demand anytime, including all the big ones. You
(36:03):
can check me out at Melanie Youong dot com. And
you can check out my other show with my husband
David Ransom on this network two pm Wednesdays Eastern and
anytime on demand on your favorite channel. It's called The
Connected Table, and there we talk about our travels and
the different producers and chefs and people in the wine
and food industry we meet. The goal is to help
(36:26):
you explore, enjoy, step outside your comfort zone and live
life with confidence, on your terms and in good health.
I hope I'm helping you make you do that, so
always you have the choice to choose life, choose on
your terms and saying fearless and fabulous forever. Thank you.
(37:03):
M
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