Maderized

A term for a wine that has been subject to a long period of heat and oxidation. The best-known example is Madeira, from which the term maderized comes. Table wines should not be maderized.

Blue cheese generally makes most red wines taste richer and livelier.

Answer: False.

While I love blue cheese, I usually don’t have it with wine. Extremely salty and pungent, blue cheese’s aggressive, palate-coating flavors strip the flavor of virtually all dry red wines, making them taste insipid and washed out. Just about the only wine that can counterbalance a blue cheese’s forceful character is a powerhouse like Port. Because it is both sweet and fortified, Port has the intensity and body to stand up to blue cheese. The combination, in fact, has been considered a European classic for centuries.

Binge-ing in Italy?

A friend once told me that when an Italian drinks too much, they don’t say he’s drunk too much; they say he hasn’t eaten enough food yet. By that standard, the residents of Alto Adige must be… Continue reading

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