Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Little Green Bottle






Sometimes you don't finish a bottle of wine.  Sometimes you even plan to not finish a bottle you open.  Then sometimes you finish more wine than you should.  The solution for the latter is for another time.  The solution for what to do with left over wine is our topic for today.  



The best, most cost effective and simple way to preserve an opened wine is to remove it from its current bottle home and put it into a smaller bottle home.  Like empty nesters selling their four bedroom colonial for a two bedroom rancher.  When I know I am not going to finish a bottle of wine when I open it i break out my mini green bottles first thing.  (This happens more often than not, as the Mrs. and I disagree on wine choices.)  I use the litte 8oz green bottles (pictured above) that were previously ginger ale bottles.  These small green bottle are perfect because they prevent wine deterioration and make for a handy single serving size.  Fill each of the 8oz green bottles as close to the very top of the bottle as you can, at least up to the small neck of the bottle.  Now only the smallest portion of wine is exposed to oxygen as possible.  Oxygen and wine's relationship is like the friend who comes to visit for a few days that turns into a few weeks..  At first oxygen makes wine seem bigger and better than it was, until it has been around too long, then it becomes the wine's mortal enemy.  So keeping oxygen away from wine until you want them to cohabitate is essential in preserving wine.  The fridge is the place for all unfinished wine regardless of color and creed.  The cool air temperature in the fridge also helps to reduce the wines proclivity to self destruction much like it does for any and/or all meat, produce and cheese.  


So in review:

1 Fill small green (8oz) bottle with extra wine to the tippy top of the glass jar. (Put the top on the small green bottle.

2 Refrigerate said jar.

3 When you get home pour yourself a glass out of the well preserved wine.

4 Say hi to the family and change your clothes

5 Drink well preserved wine.  


Enjoy.  


Saturday, July 11, 2009

A Necessary Option




Sometimes necessity is the mother of unusual choices.  After a long day, sometimes a glass of wine and something to eat is a necessity more than an option or choice.    

Thusly tonight I had the pleasure of a pot of Amy's Organic Mac N' Cheese and a glass of Barefoot Chardonnay.   As you can see by the awesome golf ball stopper, the Chardonnay had already been opened prior to my arrival and drinking.  (It was used for a pork shoulder recipe.)  You can also see, if you look closely, that a spoon is the preferred utensil for mac n' cheese.  Mac n' cheese is best eaten out of the vessel it is cooked in so as not to miss a morsel of cheese. 

Sometimes wine is just for drinking with no further thought than that.  Sometimes you drink a wine because it is cold, has some alcohol in it and provides a certain amount of refreshment.  In those circumstances the Barefoot Chardonnay was exactly what the doctor ordered.  Fresh fruit of apricots and pineapple with a little bit of vanilla cream.  The wine was as refreshing as a yellow Gatorade after a mile run on a summer Virginia day.  That's it.  That's all the wine was designed to, and so it did.    

Drink whatever the hell you like when ever you like.  If for some crazy reason you don't finish it, use a fun bottle stopper and put the wine in the fridge (Yes red wines as well.  The fridge works its preserving magic on red wine just as it does red meat.) until tomorrow.  

A Forgotten Vineyard




san luis reservoir.html.jpg


There are few things more depressing than a forgotten vineyard.  All that hard work going into planting the vines in perfectly straight rows, training them and then carefully harvesting the bounty of grapes.  To then just leave it and walk away is a sad a sad thing.  Almost like starting a blog and semi-diligently logging posts, then leaving it fallow for so many months with no new attention paid.  


Well we are here to reclaim our lost blog.  We will hack out all the underbrush, retrain the vines and began anew.  So please have patience as we begin our process of reclamation and regrouping to produce a better and more well maintained product.