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ADVANCED...
New! Wine Drinkers Have Healthier Diets Than Beer
Drinkers
Just because you drink wine and have good health, does that
mean that good health follows from wine drinking? Or could it be
that people with good health just seem to choose wine as their
beverage of choice?
Read more...
Reader's
Digest Articles by Ben Killerby
Recently, wine writers Huon Hooke and Max Allen teamed up
with Ben Killerby to write a special feature for the Readers
Digest on wine.
Read more...
One Million Dollars
Offered In Response to Our Wine Scam Article
Our previous article on
Wine Scams (see "Wine Magnets and Other Scams About to Hit Our
Shores" below) stirred up a lot of interest and emotions.
The saga continues with a most interesting offer.
Read more...
Red
Wine Stain Removal
One of the unfortunate side effects of a life devoted to
wine is the abnormally high rate of wine stain accidents. So
what IS the best way to remove a red wine stain?
Read more...
Wine Magnets and Other Scams About to Hit Our Shores
Advanced warning of some wine scams about to hit our
shores... wine magnets and snake oil.
Read more...
Creating a Cellar In Your Home
A lot of new homes
and apartments have racks in the kitchen or in a cupboard for
storing wine bottles. But is this the best way to cellar
your wine?
Read more...
Red Wine and
Cheese: Perfect Pairing or Wine and Food Disaster?
Have you ever been
at a dinner, nursing a nice red after main course, and then a
big plate of cheese appears? Is this the perfect end to the
evening? Or is it a wine and cheese disaster?
Read more...
The Four Steps in Wine Tasting Technique
Ever wondered how winemakers and professional wine tasters
actually go about tasting their wines? Well, here are the four
steps that they go through.
Read more...
How to Taste: Step One – Sight
Tasting wine involves three steps: looking at the
wine, smelling the wine and tasting it. So when we look at wine,
what are we actually looking for?
Read more...
Tasting Acidity
One of the most important aspects of the wine you drink is
acidity. The right acidity in a wine gives it crispness
and zip. In grape growing, there are two main things that
concern us as winemakers...
Read more...
Tasting Tannins
Tannins are one of the most obvious
flavour compounds in red wine. So where do they come from, and
what do they do?...
Read more...
How to Identify Cork Taint in Wine
The waiter reluctantly
returns a bottle of opened wine to the kitchen. "The gentleman
out there says this wine is corked, and wants another one." So
what is cork taint?
Read more...
The Sudden Popularity of Sauvignon Blanc
The 2003 Killerby Sauvignon Blanc has just been selected in
Winestate magazine’s annual “Best of 2004.” What is it with the
sudden popularity of sauvignon blanc?
Read more...
Red Wine Cuts Cancer Threats in Men
Men who drink red wine have a significantly reduced risk of
developing prostate cancer, according to an article in the
Australian last weekend.
Read more...
Why Cellar Wine?
If you are holding wine for
drinking later, you have a wine cellar. While the words wine
cellar conjure up thoughts of underground caverns, a wine cellar
is any space dedicated to storing wine.
Read more...
How Long Do
I Cellar Each Variety?
Explore this article by wine writer Joelle Thomson for tips on
cellaring seven popular varieties...
Read more...
Nine Tips on Ordering Wine Like a
Professional
The restaurant is the best in town, your guests are seated and
the sommelier is hovering attentively. You have the
wine list in your hand and all eyes are on you. Here are
nine tips to help
you confidently choose the wine and have a great wine and food
experience.
Read more...
Breathing
and Decanting
It is
sometimes thought that opening a bottle and letting it stand for
a few hours to “breathe” will somehow be beneficial to the wine,
but does it make a difference?
Read more...
Four Ways to Keep an Opened
Bottle of Wine
Often you will find you have the last part of a good bottle of
wine left over at the end of dinner.
The question is: how long can you keep it?
Read more...
PERFECTION...
New! Red Wine Pill the
Next Big Thing
Scientists in Europe are beavering away to create a pill
from cabernet sauvignon that will help prevent cancer.
Read more...
Reality Show Fever Hits
Winemakers
A new TV series in
production in the US follows 12 people in a competition to
launch their own wine label. Think “Australian Idol” type
recorded first auditions in front of the judges – could some of
the aspiring winemakers possibly be worse than some of the
prospective idols?
Read more...
Name Those Big Bottles
And Amaze Your Friends!
Everyone
knows that big bottles have special names, but most people can
only name one or two… “Umm… magnums… jeroboams…” So here
is the low-down on the names of all bottle sizes. See if you
can memorise them and amaze your friends!
Read more...
The Effect of the Shape of
A Wine Glass on the Flavour of Wine
Whenever I visit restaurant clients
with new wines for them to taste, I always bring my special
padded bag with Riedel wine glasses inside. Why?
Read more...
How Do You Rate as a Wine
Drinker?
Whilst we all think of
ourselves as individuals when it comes to wine, the big wine
companies do not think of us in that way. See where you fall in
a recent study of wine consumers.
Read more...
How Wines Age
The one thing that
distinguishes wine from almost every other beverage is that a
good wine gets better as it gets older. Ageing a wine lets
wonderful changes occur inside the bottle. It sometimes also
increases the value of the bottle.
Read more...
Wine with Sushi
Sushi bars have blossomed in Australia in the last 20 years.
In Australia, we more often than not match sushi with
wine. But are we making the most of the possible flavour
combinations?
Read more...
Food and Wine: Impossible
Matches
We read endless
articles about food and wine matches - but what about those
foods that have clashes with wines of toothpaste and orange
juice proportions?
Read more...
Ideal
Conditions for Tasting Wines
Wines are usually tasted at the dinner table, at
restaurants or even at the counter of a wine merchant’s shop –
none of which are usually ideal. So what's the best way?
Read more...
Tasting the Weight of a Wine
If you have ever heard of people saying that a wine
has “legs”, this is generally a clue to the weight of the
wine...
Read more...
How to Improve Your Ability to
Identify Wine Aromas
Unusual wine aromas
often awaken clear memories and past associations between
places, events and people. The ability to identify odours
in the short and long term has been extensively studied by
psychologists, who have found some interesting results.
Read more...
Sniffing Out the Secrets of
White Wine Aroma
Descriptions of
wines in terms of things such as grandmothers drawers, cobblers
tar, drenched dogs, cats wee and the like leave many people with
the distinct impression that either wine tasting is difficult,
or that the people using such terms are very imaginative.
Notwithstanding the fact that wine journos need to be
entertainers as well as being informative, there are good
reasons that so many terms have been used to describe wines.
Read more...
What Kind of Music Makes Customers Spend More in Wine Shops?
An article tucked away in a consumer behaviour journal provides
an insight into the way our purchasing decisions can be subtly
influenced by wine retailers.
Read more...
Wine
Software for the Home Cellar
Around the world there are many millions of wine bottles
languishing in wine cellars, garages, basements, cupboards and
sundry boxes. Here is a great way to stay on top of it all...
Read more...
How to Judge a Good Wine List
A wine list is not just a list of wines. The best
restaurant
lists have a lot of thought behind them. So how can you tell if
you are holding a great list in your hands?
Read more...
Choosing Wine Glasses
There are many different types of wine glasses, of varying
styles and quality. When choosing glasses to serve your
carefully chosen wines, where do you start?
Read more...
FASCINATION...
New! Fifty Seven Channels
(and Nothing On)
Remember when there were only four television channels in
Australia? Now, as Bruce
Springsteen once lamented, there are “Fifty seven channels
(and nothing on).” That, however, was before Wine TV.
Read more...
Good News! Live to
100 on Red Wine and Chocolate!
Weight Watchers all over the world rejoice! Someone has come
up with “The Red Wine Diet” that advocates we all drink
more red wine and eat chocolate! Fabulous!
Read more...
Eight Things to Know
About “Terroir”
Often you hear wine experts talking about “Terroir” in
almost mystical terms. If you ever asked them to explain what
they meant by the term, they usually assume an enigmatic smile
and say, “It’s a French word – it has no real translation in
English.” And that
is where the conversation usually ends. So what exactly
is “terroir” in the Australian context? Here are
eight handy things to know about the concept.
Read more...
The Riedel Glasses
Story
”The finest glasses for
both technical and hedonistic purposes are those made by Riedel.
The effect of these glasses on fine wine is profound. I cannot
emphasize enough what a difference they make.”
Robert M. Parker, Jr. The Wine Advocate.
Read more...
So, You Want to be a “Master of Wine”?
If you fancy you know something about wine, or you know
someone else who does, how about enrolling for the Masters of
Wine course? Test your knowledge with some questions from
Britain's premier wine institution.
Read more...
The Acidity in Wine
Without the proper acid balance in a wine, it tastes
flat and ordinary. So which acids are present in wine, and what
role do they play?
Read more...
Umami Part Two
If you
google “weird words” on the internet, one of the first
entries is “Umami.” Learn more about this weird and
wonderful concept.
Read more...
The Swami of Umami: A New Way
of Conceptualising Wine and Food Matching
Traditionally it
has been believed that the human tongue can detect only four
basic tastes. There is, however, a new school of thought that
proposes that the chemistry of taste is more complex.
Read more...
Hard
Advice on Wine and Food Matches
Get the
hard advice
on exactly which food goes with which wine.
Read more...
The
Right Temperature for Tasting Wine
It is often
said that Australians drink their white wines too cold. Indeed,
winemakers, when tasting wines in the winery, always taste their
whites around 15 degrees C. How does temperature affect the
wine?
Read more...
Pairing Food and Wine – The Six New Rules
Pairing food and wine is about synergy - neither one should
overpower the other. Read how to let your palate guide you.
Read more...
Sniffing Out How We Smell
Many would argue that the
sense of smell is our far most important sense when it comes to
evaluating wine. Without it all wines, rather than just a few,
would appear to be uninteresting alcoholic solutions of acid and
sugar.
Read more...
How to Use the Four Elements of Flavour to Develop A
Winemaker's Palate
The main difference between those who “know” about wine and
those who feel that they don’t is that those who “know” can
articulate what it is that they like.
Read more...
Cellar Wisdom
Why, When, Where, What, How and Hints on Wine Cellaring.
Read more...
A 200-Year-Old Treat
Ben Killerby Tries a 200 Year Old Wine That Once Belonged to Thomas
Jefferson...
Read more...
The Secret Language of Giving Christmas Gifts
Millions of
dollars are wasted every year at Christmas time because many people
fail to understand the secret language of giving gifts...
Read more...
Seven Essential Things to Know About Oak in Western
Australian Wine
Most of the great wines of the world
are aged in oak. Indeed,
all the wines for which Margaret River and Geographe are
famous (particularly Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay)
are aged in oak barrels. Here's
why...
Read more...
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