Rating Beer and Recording Your Evaluations
Because of the wide availability and reasonable pricing of beer, you may want to keep a record of the beers you taste and your reactions to them. You can write down a full profile of a beer in only a few [more…]
Types of Ales
Looking back through beer history, ales are considered the beer of antiquity. Ales come in a very wide range of flavors and styles. The following list covers some of the best known: [more…]
Contract Beer Brewing
Microbreweries (brewers who make fewer than 60,000 barrels of beer a year) have sort of cornered the image market on gourmet beer: Most of these beers sell for more because consumers consider them superior [more…]
Entertaining with Wine at a Dinner Party
When hosting a dinner party, you probably serve more wines than you would during a normal dinner. Instead of just one wine throughout the meal, you may want to serve a different wine with every course. [more…]
Ten Terms for Describing Wine
Wine descriptors are common terms that you can use to describe a particular wine. Descriptors can help you put words to the wine you’re tasting. Unless you want to drink the same wine for the rest of your [more…]
Recommended Wine-and-Food Pairings
Certain wine-and-food pairings go better together than others. But when you’re unfamiliar with the flavors and complexities of wine, you may have trouble knowing which wine to serve with which food or [more…]
Tips for Smelling Wine
When you smell wine, you're sniffing out its aroma, or flavor. Wine may deliver the aroma of fruits or flowers, tobacco or toast, chocolate or butterscotch. You may detect a hint of herbs, vanilla, mocha [more…]
How to Match Wine with Food
Two principles can help in matching wine with food: the complementary principle and the contrast principle. The complementary principle involves choosing a wine that is similar in some way to the dish [more…]
How Tannin Affects Red Wine’s Taste
Have you ever taken a sip of a red wine and rapidly experienced a dried-out feeling in your mouth, as if something had blotted up all your saliva? That’s tannin. [more…]
Distinguishing Champagne and Sparkling Wines
Champagne is a sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France. Sparkling (bubbly) wines are produced in just about every country that makes wine, and they come in a wide range of tastes, quality levels [more…]
Buying and Serving Champagne and Sparkling Wine
If you’re entertaining with Champagne or sparkling wine, you'll want to know how to best serve bubbly and which foods work well with sparkling wines.
Following is some advice for buying and serving Champagne [more…]
How to Select a Wine When Dining Out
When you order wine in a restaurant, you usually have few details about the wines listed on the menu. And if you’re new to the wine scene, you may have trouble remembering which wines go well with which [more…]
A Collection of Images from Buying & Serving Wine In A Day For Dummies
The figures in this gallery are from Buying & Serving Wine In A Day For Dummies and illustrate different concepts related to wine. The images appear in the order that they appear in the book. [more…]
A Collection of Buying & Serving Wine In A Day Images
Sometimes it’s tough to see the details of the images in your e-reader of choice. To get a closer look at the figures included in Buying & Serving Wine [more…]
Buying Wine with Confidence
Don't get frazzled when you're shopping for wine. Browsing and buying wine should be a fun, positive experience. Remember these helpful hints when you hit the wine shop: [more…]
Quick Guide to Wine Pronunciation
Correctly pronouncing wine names is one way to keep from irritating a wine snob; the following table can help you out. The stressed syllable in each word is italicized; if no syllable is italicized, all [more…]
Useful Terms for Describing Wine
When describing wine, wine merchants, restaurant servers, and your oenophile friends will use specific language to tell you about its characteristics. Knowing these words will help you understand the wine [more…]
Easy Wine Identifier
Most wines you find in shops and restaurants are named in two basic ways: for the variety of the grape or for the place the grapes are grown. This instant guide decodes common wine names and tells you [more…]
Wine For Dummies Cheat Sheet
Selecting a wine you like is easy when you can correctly pronounce wine names, use appropriate terms to describe wine, decode wine names, and approach the selecting process with confidence. [more…]
Pairing Food and Wine 101
Although personal preference is an overriding factor when it comes to enjoying food and wine together, most people can agree on the outcome, positive or negative, of a few basic taste interactions. The [more…]
Considering Versatile White Wines and Bubbly
Serve any of these crisp, dry whites with just about any food, and you can avoid natural taste disasters. These versatile white wines (and Champagne) are also great when the meal includes multiple dishes [more…]
Pairing Food with Versatile Red and Pink Wines
When you’re not sure what wine to serve, look to one of these zesty, not too oaky, low tannin (not overly mouth-puckering) reds or anything similar in style. Remember that the more expensive the wine, [more…]
Dealing with Spice When You Pair Wine and Food
Really spicy foods can ruin the enjoyment of wine (or anything else you drink alongside), but mildly spicy foods can be paired effectively. When your dishes include a lot of spice, follow these tips to [more…]
Serving Wine and Cheese: What Works Well
Far from foolproof, cheese can be tough on wine. And contrary to popular belief, whites often fair better than reds. For your next wine and cheese party, try serving the following combinations for a tasty [more…]
Pairing Food & Wine For Dummies Cheat Sheet
Food and wine pairing isn’t a matter of life or death. But isn’t life a little better with a good taste in your mouth? Starting with wine you like (and food you enjoy, too) is ground zero. All the other [more…]
