It’s Summer – It’s Sangria!
Sangria is the archetypal summer drink. It even looks like summer, with its glowing red body dotted with bobbing slices of lemon and orange, or with apples and raspberries if you’re the adventurous type.
It’s also responsible for some killer hangovers as many people put spirits in it – often brandy or rum – as well. This is why this warning is here:
Drink some water while you’re muddling your fruit!
OK, with that out of the way, here’s how to make the perfect sangria that’ll become a mainstay of your barbecues from now on.
The ingredients
One lemon, sliced
One lime, sliced
One orange (you know the drill…)
1.5 cups of rum
0.5 cup of sugar
One bottle of chilled dry red wine
One cup of chilled orange juice
You can try different fruits and fruit juices, or different spirits, as you become more familiar with the techniques and you work out what you like most.
Obviously if you’re expecting a large crowd, then simply scale up the quantities. If you prefer a less alcoholic beverage, then omit the spirit or add more fruit juice. Some people add fizzy water to their sangria and over in the UK they sometimes add fizzy orange sodas – those crazy Brits, eh?
The method
You start by muddling your fruit slices in the sugar and rum. Muddling basically means squashing to release the juice and the flavour into the rum and to melt the sugar. Once everything’s good and muddled (should take 30-45 seconds), you should leave it in the chiller for at least a couple of hours (some people leave it overnight) for everything to combine.
Then, you simply pour the chilled wine and orange juice over the fruit slice, sugar and rum mixture and stir gently to mix. Don’t mix too hard or the sangria could become cloudy.
Finally, you’re ready to serve – pour the sangria into chilled glasses with plenty of ice cubes in.
Then enjoy – responsibly, of course.
Interesting Facts about Prosecco
Prosecco has taken the wine world – and our social lives – by storm in the last few years and is now a feature of many parties and occasions. However, we tend to think of it as a cheap Champagne rather than as a drink in its own right, which just isn’t fair!
To even things up a bit, here’s some interesting facts about this popular fizz.
There’s a town called Prosecco
Prosecco is a suburb of Trieste in Northern Italy. The name is actually from the Slovenian “prozek”, or “path through the woods”. Of course, Prosecco is produced in lots of other regions now, but this is where it all started.
It started a long time ago
Prosecco often uses the Glera grape, which the ancient Romans knew well. In fact, Pliny the Elder namechecks this wine in his Natural History. Take that, Zinfandel! Other grapes that can produce Prosecco include the Verdiso, Perera and even Chardonnay.
Prosecco isn’t made with the Champagne Method
It’s made by the charmat method, or the tank method. The already-fermented wine goes through its second fermentation in a steel tank, not the bottle. This means less contact with yeast sediment – although some wineries might allow controlled contact if they’re after a particular flavor.
The charmat method makes it cheaper
It’s faster and more efficient, therefore it’s less expensive than Champagne. Huzzah! This doesn’t mean it’s less complex, though, as steel tanks are in many ways cleaner, so lots of aromas and flavors can come through.
There’s a flat Prosecco
There’s three degrees of perlage – or bubbliness. Spumante is the fizziest, then frizzante, then tranquillo is the still one.
Prosecco was flat until the 19th century
Although the Romans were fond of it, as well as more recent Italian generations, Prosecco remained still until Antonio Carpenè sent a batch for a second fermentation. Then the legend was born, with the CarpenèMalvolti winery being the first to make fizzy Prosecco for widespread consumption.
Go On – Try a White Zinfandel
It's everywhere, and has been so for quite some time now. Many an experienced wine drinker started out on this easy wine. In fact, many American drinkers were coaxed away from tacky cocktails and onto wine via this blush-pink gateway-glug, whether it was from a bottle or (most likely, a three-liter box).
It’s maligned and ridiculed, is White Zin; it even started out by accident, but it paved the way for the rosé revolution that we’re experiencing now.
How White Zinfandel started
In the 1970s North Californian wineries were having trouble making deep red wines, especially when they used Zinfandel grapes. One idea was to remove some of the juice from the fermenting red wine while it was still in contact with the grapes. This made the pigment more concentrated, which was what everyone wanted. The poor drawn-off blush Zinfandel juice either got discarded or was subject to a comedy fermentation for people who didn’t really like wine.
In stepped Darrell Corti
A Sacramento grocer with a real zest for life and food, Corti brought balsamic vinegar and truffles to American attention in the 1960s. He was also a champion of Californian wine.
Corti sold the produce of several wineries in his stores, including Sutter Home (which grew into Trinchero Wine Estates). One year, Sutter Home’s dry White Zin stuck – not all the sugar was converted – so the winery ended up with a sweet rosé instead of a dry white. No-one else wanted it, but Corti saw something in it.
And it sold – to the extent that Sutter Home didn’t make another dry White Zin and every wine shop carried it. White Zin is still one of the most popular wines in the US.
Rosé rose through the ranks
Once White Zin had worked its way into the hearts and minds of US wine drinkers, by the 1980s, rosé started to change. Importers brought dry pink wines from Europe – Provence in particular – and people realised that there was more to it; it could actually be complex and sophisticated. This meant that local wineries started to take it more seriously and looked at using grapes that were specifically for rosé, rather than using the drained-off pink juice of the 1970s.
Rosé today
Now, White Zinfandel is back in the fold, with Turley Wine Cellars declaring it to be a dry white. There’s also a few more White Zinfandels that sport the label of Rosé of Zinfandel.
So, when summer approaches and you see the pink pyramids of bottles start to form in your local liquor shop, grab one and celebrate one of our happiest accidents!
Cooking with Wine
You might be new to cooking with wine and asking yourself why people do this rather than drink it! Well, adding wine to food brings out the flavors that would otherwise stay hidden, as well as imparting its own aroma and taste.
If this is something you’re feeling a bit nervous about, then these easy tips will help you on your way to a whole new culinary experience.
You can use cooking wines, but you should be aware that these already have salt and other additives in, so use less salt than your recipe asks for to balance things out.
You don’t need an expensive wine, but you shouldn’t go too cheap either, as cooking intensifies the wine’s flavors and so anything harsh or unpleasant will come to the fore. If in doubt, use a wine that you drink regularly and enjoy.
Unless, that is, your favourite wine has a particularly dominant characteristic, like being very fruity or sour. This quality will over-emphasised after cooking.
Once you’ve added a slosh of wine, let your dish simmer for ten minutes or so before testing. Wine needs time to do its thing, so if you add some and test immediately, you’ll be fooled into adding more and the results may not be great.
You also shouldn’t add wine at the end of cooking for the same reason – it needs to simmer and blend with your food and making it a late addition can mean a harsh and overly alcoholic taste.
If you see a recipe that asks for Champagne, don’t expect the bubbles to last! The Champagne is there for the drama, rather than for actual results. If you’re all out of fizz, try a very dry, acidic white instead.
If you’re cooking with wine, avoid using aluminium or cast iron pans or cookware aa the acids in the wine can react with these metals. This can cause discoloration in your pan, as well as an odd taste and leached metals in your food.
Why We Age Wine in Oak
When we think of large quantities of wine, we don’t think so much of several bottles, or a metal vat, we think of a big oak barrel. Those rotund vesselsare a comforting sight and we’ve fetishized them to the degree that retired barrels are often turned into bookcases, seats and tables (where we sit and…drink wine).
Why, though, do we age wine in oak barrels?
For many centuries, wine was stored and transported in clay jugs, or amphorae, as the wine-loving Romans called them. There’s only one thing that Romans loved more than drinking wine – building empires.
Empire building needs lots of travel and so of course that wine had to go with them. At that time, fermented drinks were safer than water, provided soldiers with calories and, of course, was just as much fun as it is now.
The clay amphora was a convenient way to transport wine – it could be made airtight, made to different sizes and didn’t weigh too much. The Mesopotamians used palm wood barrels, but palm wood is hard to bend, so this was unusual.
As the Roman Empire spread northwards, away from the Mediterranean, moving clay amphorae became costlier and more difficult. Longer distances = more breakages, for a start. The Romans knew about palm wood barrels, but found them tricky and expensive to make.
The Gauls came to the rescue
When the Romans reached modern-day France, they found the Gaulsusing oak barrels to store and transport beer, and realised they’d found the solution.
Oak is softer than palm wood and so is easier to bend, meaning it also needed minimal toasting, making the construction of a barrel swifter and cheaper. In addition to this advantage, oak’s tighter grain made it waterproof. As if this wasn’t enough, Europe was practically covered in oak trees at that time.
They were sold – within two centuries, the amphora had been discarded and replaced by the barrel.
Added benefits
The Romans, and everyone else who drank their wine, soon noticed that wines stored in oak barrels had better tastes than those stored in other containers. Prolonged contact with the wood made wines taste and feel smoother and the fact that oak is hardly toasted meant that other flavorscould come through into the wine – cloves, vanilla, caramel, allspice and so on.
The longer the wine was stored, the more these qualities came through, and that is how aging wine in oak barrels started.
Why do We Use Different Glasses for Different Wines?
One of the things you’ll notice when you go to buy new glassware is the bewildering range of shapes and sizes. You’ll also notice that you’ll be encouraged to buy a different type of glass for the different types and styles of wine. You have to have a glass for red, one for white, one for Champagne… There’s even slightly different styles for varietals.
While it can be nice to have a wide range of glasses – setting out the Champagne flutes ahead of a special dinner is a real joy, for example – the truth is that you don’t actually need them!
That’s right. A good glass of red will taste and smell just as good in a tumbler as it will in a balloon glass designed specifically for oaky reds with a hint of vanilla.
Why do I have a cabinet full of different glasses?
In a word, marketing.
Back in the early 1970s Austrian glassware manufacturer Riedel was looking for ways to sell more glasses and boost its profits. It came up with the Riedel Sommelier range; the first range featured ten glasses, each with a different shape, designed to optimise the aroma and taste of various wine types. The shape of the glass, buyers were told, directed the wine to the area of the mouth that would pick up the dominant characteristics of the wine. This sales pitch worked and sales soared.
However, 30 or so years later, these ideas were debunked by a series of studies in Europe and the US. These studies worked out that your brain doesn’t interpret tastes or aromas differently if they come from different regions of the mouth.
That said, owning lots of styles of glasses is fun, and you are somewhat justified in serving Champagne, prosecco or any other fizz in a flute because this concentrates the bubbles right under your nose.
You only really need two types of wine glass
There’s nothing to stop you filling your cabinet withal sorts of styles, shapes and colours of glasses – in fact for many people it’s a hobby – but if you’re space or cash-poor, you only need regular, all-purpose wine glasses and flutes.
You could even join a burgeoning trend and go stemless, although this tends to work best with reds as your hands will warm up the wine.