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Tag: Food lovers guide to wine

  • A Few of Our Favorite Gifts for Wine Lovers

    Here are a few of our favorite gifts for the wine lovers in your life. Of course, you could start your shopping list with wine.

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    We have a bit of advice for anyone buying wine as gifts. As a general rule, don’t buy any wine you see in an ad on television. We have an earlier post about this that includes a great suggestion for the holiday season. Buy a great value wine by the case for gift giving, entertaining, and for your own enjoyment.

    On a recent visit to Bauer Wine & Spirits, we noticed additional half bottle offerings in the sparkling wine section. As those who follow along with our resolution to start each month with a glass of bubbles know, we love sparkling wine and enjoy trying many types. Having a few half bottles means you are always ready to celebrate major or minor victories! And, these little bottle make wonderful gifts.

    Our Favorite Wine Chiller

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    We told you about this in September in our post, “This Wine Chiller Works for Both Champagne & Skinny Bottles.”  We highly recommend it. It’s called a Rapid Ice Champagne Cooler and has become a popular item on our Amazon buyers list. Someone recently bought eight of these, perhaps for holiday giving. We have two of them!

    Quirky Wine Opener with Hidden Assets

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    Here’s our Quirky 4-in-1 Wine Opener. The 4-in-1 in the Amazon description is because this opener has hidden assets.

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    The two silver colored items on the top of the handle come out, and you have a pourer and a plastic cork for your wine bottle. Opener, cork, pourer, and number 4 is a couple of tiny circular blades in the base that cut the foil on the bottle. Cut, open, pour, and seal all in one sturdy, easy to work cork remover. We may add a second one to our travel kitchen bag. 

    The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine

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    It’s been quite a while since we reviewed this book. It has stood the test of time and we still love The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine and pull it off the shelf for help in matching food and wine quite often. It’s a staple for our food writing research. 

    Cilio Campagne Sealer

    The other day a friend said she doesn’t drink as much sparkling wine because you have to finish the bottle or lose the bubbles. And, most wine bottle stoppers don’t work all that well for sparkling wine. 

    We use the Cilio Champagne Sealer to cap the bottle and save the rest for another day. While you can stick the cork back into a bottle of still wine, these folks make one for that size as well. 

    Friends often ask us for gift suggestions and we keep meaning to turn some of these ideas into posts. We’ll try to fit in a few more in the days ahead. If you have a question about something we’ve featured or just want to ask about our favorite books, kitchen items, photography equipment, or dog gift ideas, you can write a comment below or add @BostonZest to your question on Twitter. 

    Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

     Details:

    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photography: © 2014 Penny & Ed Cherubino  

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  • Domaine du Salvard, Cheverny from Kermit Lynch

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    One of the wines in a recent sampler case from importer Kermit Lynch was the Domaine du Salvard, Cheverny. 

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    We love wines from the Loire, as a rule. This one is 85% Sauvignon Blanc and 15% Chardonnay. The folks at Kermit Lynch say, "We continue to tout the domaine’s wine as one of the greatest values for Sauvignon Blanc perfection." They use words like simple and elegant to describe it. We agree and we applaud the blend. The Chardonnay moderates the grapefruit quality of the Savignon Blanc.

    What’s more, this “meant-for-each-other” marriage of grapes graciously enhanced our main course– pan-fried (breaded) fish. A side of goat cheese drizzled with olive oil went well with this Cheverney’s acidity. We did go to Provence to add some olives and Herbes de Provence, and they were all nice neighbors and played well together.

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    When we see this label, we know we have a treat in store.

    And, while the front label is important, we've learned to look at the back label to see who brought the wine into this country. We've developed a list of favorite importers that we trust to supply us with wines we'll love. Kermit Lynch is one of them and we'll tell you more about him soon.

    Love wine? Join our Our Sparkling Resolution

    Check Out: Our Wine List

    Here's an easy way to Expand Your Wine Comfort Zone: Sampler Cases

    Want to learn more about wine? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site! Take a look at, The Food Lover's Guide to Wine– the latest addition to our wine reference shelf. Here's a great interview and review of this book over on Taste of the Past.

    Details:

    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino  

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