Five Week Wine Course - Commencing March 2011

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The Solent Wine Experience and Wickham Vineyard let you discover a world of wine with a five week wine course. Learn how wine is made and how to taste it properly. Discover how to match wines with food and how to detect faulty wine. You will get to taste wines from all over the world enabling you to discover different styles, giving you the confidence to try wines you have not tried before.

Venue - Wickham Vineyard
              Botley Road
              Shedfield
              Hants SO32 2HL

Date - March 1st - 29th 2011
           Tuesday Evenings 7.00pm - 8.30pm

Cost - £55 per person.

email - info@thesolentwineexperience.co.uk
           http://www.thesolentwineexperience.co.uk/
          Contact Jonathan on 07771867809

Wines For Your Christmas Feast

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The Christmas dinner, for most of us is the focal point of the festive season. The turkey, the crackers, the silly jokes, the Brussel sprouts all contribute to an afternoon of delight. A table full of great food can be the make or break for a Christmas to remember (or forget in my case one year after forgetting to cook the stuffing and the pigs in blankets and over doing the roasties!). Choosing a great wine to go with this great food for some is as important as the food itself and getting this right can take your cooking to the next level. Wine is all about personal choice. There is no right or wrong, its entirely up to you. But taking a few considerations into account you could discover a world of wines and wines you may never have tried before. Its all about confidence and choosing wines you know you will enjoy.

When deciding what to drink its important to look at dish as a whole. Take into consideration any sauces you are likely to add as these can have an effect. You don't want your food to take over the wine or the wine take over the food. Its all about finding that right balance. For example, you want to match acidic wines with acidic dishes like fresh salmon with lemon juice with a crisp dry sauvignon blanc or a robust, full bodied shiraz with a red meat dish like steak or game.

Turkey with all the trimmings tend to marry well with softer, rounder whites like Chardonnay, Viognier or Roussanne based white wines from the Rhone Valley. These tend to have more fruit to them and compliment each other. With your starters for example shell fish or salmon, stick to drier wines which are fresher and crisper for example Sauvignon Banc from the Loire or New Zealand for example or one of my favourite grapes Chenin, particularly from Australia.

If its red you want with your turkey then stick to lighter styles. The best is Pinot Noir either from Burgundy or from New Zealand. Some great examples are coming from Oregon in the USA but are slightly more difficult to find on the high street.

These are just a few suggestions for your Christmas feast and should help you enjoy your celebration even more.