"wine and food" news and stories

Of course my earlier piece on matching wine with salad could be viewed as a little simplistic. Salads rarely come "undressed." A little mayonnaise or a light sprinkling of the extra virgin olive oil shouldn't make much difference to your wine choice, but throw in more strongly flavoured dressings and the wine selection might need to be adjusted to cope with the flavours

Vinaigrettes - vinegar is a killer to wine (try lemon juice instead) but crisp dry whites, Vinho Verde, Sauvignon Blanc, Romorantin, Verdicchio might be OK.

Creamy Dressings - need a creamy wine to match. Chardonnay springs to mind but go easy on the oak.

Blue Cheese Dressings - another tricky one. Never found anything that could be called a 'great match' but a Sauvignon Blanc should work OK.

Coriander or Garlic Dressings - a friend of mine is mad about Coriander (I'm expecting a Coriander cheesecake any day) but in a salad it is back to the herb-flattering Sauvignon Blanc.

Soy Sauce Dressings - rosé here, people

Barbecue Dressings - going more towards barbecues here rather than salads, but Merlot and Zinfandel should pop up on your list.

The annual list of top wine brands by sales has just been released. No real surprises in so far as the top six remains the same as last year. The only French wine brand comes in at No 11 (JP Chenet). The biggest success over the last year has been the McGuigan range from Australia that saw a 420% rise in sales putting them in at No 31 in the Top 100.

The top ten are

1. Hardys (Australia) (1)
2. Blossom Hill (USA) (2)
3. Gallo (USA) (3)
4. Jacobs Creek (Australia) (4)
5. Kumala (South Africa) (5)
6. Stowells of Chelsea (Mixed) (6)
7. Wolf Blass (Australia) (10)
8. Banrock Station (Australia) (8)
9. Lindemans (Australia) (7)
10. Echo Falls (USA) (15)

Last years position shown in brackets.

How about this for an oddity! If you can get through the bad, advert-strewn, design read all about Asian Snake Wine.

The website expalins that this Vietnamesse product contains rice wine, ginseng root, seed pods (ummm, which seeds exacatly?), red pepper ellets (for medicinal purposes) and a real green tree snake. In fact there are two snakes "artisically arranged" to show a cora with fully displayed hood snaking on the green tree snake. Delightful.

The snakes are left to ferment in the wine for "some weeks". It is no doubt this period when the "mystical sexual stimulative properties" are created. Of course this statement would make this product immediatly illegal in most Western countries. The product is also "believed to boost longevity, have high therapeutic properties, rheumatism, lumbago, back and muscle pain". Cost is 30 euros plus 15 euros shipping.

Oh yes, a delightful bottle of wine with more than a little dash of partialy fermented snake. Certainly a talking point at parties.

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