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Percentage increase in gin consumption globally in 2018, the largest such gain in beverage alcohol consumption in the world that year, according to the International Wines and Spirits Record. One reason for the spike in gin consumption? The new popularity of pink gin, which sold more than 72 million cases last year.

When pairing a dessert with a sweet wine, the dessert should be sweeter than the wine to enhance the latter’s flavor.

Answer: False.

The best dessert and dessert wine marriages are usually based on pairing a not-too-sweet dessert with a sweeter wine. Desserts that are sweeter than the wine they accompany can make the wine taste blank and dull. Essentially, the sweetness of the dessert knocks out the character of the wine. Super-sweet wedding cake, for example, will diminish anything in a glass. But something like a not-very-sweet fruit or nut tart enhances the complexities and nuances of the sweeter wines around them.

“We entered the wine industry when there were no wine magazines, no wine critics, no 100-point scale—all 23 of us vintners in the Napa Valley in the 1960s. What we learned, we learned from the vineyard itself. Back then, it seemed like less was better.”

— Janet Trefethen (Trefethen Family Vineyards is 50 years old this year)

8.3

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