Homemade & Commercial

Wine, Beer, Spirits, Cider & Mead Guides

Alcoholic beverages; most commonly beer and wines made at home. Brews made from brewing kits purchased at shops specialized in spirits. The Beer Pirate features homebrew recipes, equipment requirements, and commercial productions information; and all the best practices needed to make that perfect batch!

Personalized champagne flutes by The Tipsy Grape

As a host, you want to appear generous. But avoid the temptation to fill a wine glass too full. Pour to a maximum of two-thirds of the capacity of the glass. This will allow your guests to swirl the wine (to get more of its bouquet) and they won’t give their noses a bath when they go to drink. Four to six ounces is an adequate measure.

Pouring Champagne

All sparkling wines should be poured one-third of a glass at a time to allow the initial bubbles to settle. Otherwise, the wine will overflow.

No Dripping

To avoid that last drop falling on the tablecloth, give the bottle a half turn with your wrist just as you finish pouring a glass. This will ensure that the drop falls back into the bottle.

Washing Up No-smell Glasses

Dishwashers can leave a soapy film on glasses which can adversely affect the taste of wine and can render sparkling wines flat. It is best to hand-wash wine glasses in hot soapy water. Rinse well and if possible leave hanging to air-dry. If not, use a clean, lint-free cloth or paper toweling.

Wine Glass Storage

• Don’t store your glasses in the cardboard cases you bought them in. They will take on the “taste” of the carboard and you will have to rewash them every time before using them.
• Don’t store them in your cabinet, bowl down. The entrapped air will permeate the glass with the smells of the cabinet.
• Wipe the glasses with a paper towel before use to remove any dust that may have settled on them.

Wine accessories for your bar by The Tipsy Grape.

Most wines these days have capsules that are made of plastic or tin foil. They are also engineered so that you can remove them with your fingers. But older wines will have lead capsules which have to be removed so that the wine does not come in contact with them.

Step 1:

Cut the capsule in a circular motion below the lip of the bottle and remove.

Step 2:

Wipe the neck of the bottle with a cloth. There may be some debris or harmless mold under the capsule.

Step 3:

Insert the point of the helix into the centre of the cork and slowly work it down with a circular motion of the wrist. Ensure that the helix is going in straight. Continue turning until you see only one circle of the helix left. Avoid letting the point break through the bottom of the cork as this will create debris on the surface of the wine.

Step 4:

Clamp the lever against the lip of the bottle and hold it in place. Slowly lever the handle upwards. As the cork begins to rise (and with it your elbow), change the position of your hand so that you are gripping the corkscrew with your thumb pointing upward. This will make you more comfortable for the final removal of the cork. Continue the gentle upward pressure. Once removed, use the cork to wipe off any debris around the mouth of the bottle.

Find personalized wine glasses at The Tipsy Grape.

What do you really need to serve wine at the table with style? There are on the market any number of devices, gadgets, glasses, decanters, thermometers, filters and other wine-related paraphernalia which are fun to own. But to enjoy wine, all you really need are some good glasses, a serviceable corkscrew and a decent decanter.

Glasses

Keep in mind that the wine is more important than the glass and you won’t go wrong when it comes to choosing what you are going to drink out of. There are many beautiful glasses on the market – etched crystal, ornate stemmed, gilded and tinted in fanciful colors. Avoid them. They may look good on the table or in your glass cabinet, but they will ultimately detract from your enjoyment of the wine.

The watchword in selecting wine glasses is simplicity.

What you need is a plain, well-shaped glass with a long enough stem so that your hand doesn’t have to touch the bowl (and warm up the wine) and a curved shape that captures and intensifies the wine’s bouquet.

Elegant glasses have been designed that will show the faults in wines as well as those that flatter the wines. It all hinges on where the wine actually comes in contact with your tongue which registers various tastes in different parts. An Austrian company named Riedl has designed 24 glasses, each with a specific wine type in mind.

A well-equipped household needs only three shapes. For the starting wine drinker you can even make do with a single glass.

• White wine: Clear, slim, elongated tulip shape with a longish stem, not too thick around the rim.
• Red wine: Clean, rounded bowl whose aperture is smaller than the circumference of the belly.
• Sparkling wine: Tall, slender, flute shape narrowing at the aperture. Long stem, thin glass.
• Single all-purpose glass: The standard tasting glass tulip shape, elegant bowl that narrows towards the aperture.

Corkscrews

There are many corkscrews on the market; many are inadequate

• Avoid:
• Devices with needles that involve injecting or pumping air into the wine to force out the cork. Any flaw in the bottle neck could cause it to break under the added pressure.
• Butterfly ratchet-style openers. They break down easily.
• Plastic corkscrews usually found in hotel bedrooms.
• Simple ‘l-shaped corkscrews. Too difficult to use.
• The Ah-So. A two-bladed device with a metal grip that slides down between the cork and the bottle neck. Most people end up pushing the cork into the bottle rather than extracting it.

When selecting a corkscrew, make sure that the helix (the metal spiral) is long enough (at least two inches) to pierce far enough into a Bordeaux cork to withdraw it without breakage. And if possible, it should be teflon-coated for ease of insertion. The helix should be thin, shaped in a circular spiral and not be sharp-edged. A thick helix with a cutting edge will force the cork apart and may cause it to break up.
Make sure that the point of the helix is sharp and that the blade is kept sharp at all times.

Find engraved wine glasses for your special occasion.

Learning to match food and wine is not as intimidating as it might seem at first blush. It is not a jigsaw puzzle; there is no one perfect wine for a given dish which would exclude all others. And there are no hard and fast rules because everyone’s palate is different and some people might prefer taste sensations that others find less agreeable.

There is also the question of the changing equation. A cut of red meat, or chicken or fish, is not to be matched to just one style of wine. The selection of wine depends upon how the meat is prepared – whether rare or well done – what herbs and spices are used, and whether the meat has been marinated or is to be served with a sauce.

Take steak, for example. To say you must have a red Burgundy with steak begs the question. How was the steak prepared? Was it marinated in olive oil and soya sauce? Was it grilled with pepper and flared with brandy? Is it to be served with a bernaise sauce or in a pastry shell? All of these different methods of cooking would call for a different style of red wine, if you want to be politically correct about it.

But wine and food are pleasurable experiences, so you shouldn’t get anxious about what wines should go with what foods, to the exclusion of choice. The only rule is, You shouldn’t have to interrupt your conversation to stare at the wine glass and wonder what on earth possessed the host to pair the wine of his birth year with frankfurters and beans.

There are some principles that will help you to choose wines for food, whether at home or in a restaurant. Basically, once you have asked yourself two questions, the rest is just fine tuning.

Are the food and the wine the same weight?

Match the weight of the food to the weight of the wine. A light dish demands a light wine. A hearty plate requires a full-bodied wine with lots of flavor.

How acidic is the wine?

Acid cleanses the palate of various tastes, including salt (shellfish, pickles, etc.), smokiness (smoked fish or meat) and greasiness (animal fat, butter, oil).
On the other hand, the fruit in the wine (its sweetness) reinforces the sweetness in the dish and works against saltiness, smokiness or greasiness.

Once you have determined if the dish you want to serve is light weight, medium weight or heavy weight, choose a wine style that corresponds. How do you determine the weight of a wine? Look on the label for the alcohol content.

• Light-bodied wines: 8% to 10% alcohol
• Medium-bodied wines: 10.5% to 12% alcohol
• Full-bodied wines: 12.5 % to 16 % alcohol

Now ask yourself how salty, smoky or oily is the dish?

Consider the plate as a whole, not just the meat or fish. Vegetables can be highly acidic or, if glazed with brown sugar or honey, can be sweet-tasting.

Perhaps the saltiest, smokiest, oiliest dish there is is smoked salmon. It is very rich and concentrated in flavor which puts it in the heavyweight class of food. Imagine having a soft, delicate, sweet wine with smoked salmon – it’s enough to make you gag.

But match it with a full-bodied, dry white wine with lots of acidity and you have a marriage made in heaven. A dry Alsatian Gewurztraminer makes a wonderful partner. (Try it also with a dry sparkling wine, preferably champagne. Bubbles have a wonderfully cleansing effect on the palate.)

Where do you find acidic wines?

High-acid wines come from cool growing regions.

• France: Loire, Alsace, Champagne, Savoie, Jura Germany: Mosel, Rheingau, Ahr, Franken
• Italy: Trentino Alto Adlge, Friull-Venezia Giulia, Veneto
• Austria: Krems, Wachau
• Ontario, Canada: Niagara Peninsula, Lake Erie North Shore, Pelee Island
• British Columbia, Canada: Okanagan, Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island
• New York, USA: Finger Lakes, Long Island, Hudson River
• New Zealand: South Island

Fruity wines with less acidity come from hot growing regions.

• Rhône
• Languedoc-Roussillon
• Australia: Victoria
• California, USA
• Chile
• South Africa
• Sicily
• Corsica
• Sardinia
• Portugal