99 Bottles Winery & Vineyard

Pairing Food & Wine

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:44:00 +0000

This neat infographic is from winefolly.com. They have all sorts of wonderful information for wine snobs and novices alike. (Click on the image for a larger version)

Wine & Food Pairing guide from Wine Folly:

Sommeliers use opposing taste profiles such as sweet and sour all the time to create perfect food and wine pairings. Follow the simple set of guidelines below to make the best wine and food pairings at home.

5 Wine & Food Pairing Guidelines

Champion the Wine

The number one guideline is to bring out the best characteristics of a wine. A high tannin red wine will taste like sweet cherries when paired with the right dish. Focus on the characteristics that you want to champion and make sure that the wine will shine instead of fighting against the food.

Bitter + Bitter = Bad

Since our taste buds are very sensitive to bitterness, it’s important to pay special attention to not pair bitter food and high tannin wine. Green Beans with Cabernet Sauvignon will multiply bitter tastes. If you want to pair a high tannin wine, look to foods with fat, umami and salt for balance.

Wine Should be Sweeter

As a general rule, make sure that the wine is sweeter than the food and you will have a successful wine pairing. If the wine is less sweet than the food it’s matched with, it will tend to taste bitter and tart. This is why Port wine is perfect with dessert.

Wine Should be More Tart

A wine should have higher acidity than the food it’s matched with otherwise it will taste flabby. For instance, a salad with vinaigrette is better with an extra brut Champagne than a buttery Chardonnay.

Improve an Earthy Wine

Ever hear that Old World Wine is better with food? On their own, Old World wines can be very earthy and tart. However, when you pair an earthy wine with something even more earthy like mushroom stroganoff, then the wine tastes more fruity.

Want to know more? Visit Wine Folly for more tutorials, infographics, and how-to's.

It's Finally Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:42:00 +0000

Time to sit back and wait for the wine to be ready...

Now that harvest is over, we're working on our other winery projects:

EVENT SPACE
We are currently working on converting one of the farm's original outbuildings into a cozy event space. We hope to have the event space up and running by next year!

WINE MAKING ROOM
Due to our recent licensing, we are no longer able to take people into the wine making room. So, we're going to do some remodeling, so you can still see into the wine making room, even if you aren't allowed to actually go in there. Technically, Mark and I are the only ones allowed in, so I'm not exactly looking forward to this construction project... But really, it won't be too bad, and we're excited to let you see the magic happen!

WEBSITE CHANGES
We are going to begin featuring a cooking blog attached to the winery website. The cooking blog will feature cooking with and pairing with 99 Bottles Winery & Vineyard wines. Contributors to the blog will be the exceptionally talented June Newman, and her daughters: April Holtan, Amber Wagner, and Mandy Newman. Be sure to check it out, you'll love it!

The website is also under construction, so please excuse the mess/random links, images, and mis-matched fonts. I'm going as fast as I can!
Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,

Mandy

Thanks a Million!

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:43:00 +0000

Thank you so much to everyone who came to help out with the grape harvest!
Once again, thank you to everyone who came out and helped us. We couldn't have done it without you! (Well, we could have, but it would not have been quite so much fun!)
We had a great time, and we hope you did too! The majority of the grapes have been picked, now is the hard part: waiting for all that wine to be ready to drink!

We're still jumping through some licensing hoops, but this year's harvest will definitely be available for purchase!

Its Finally Time...

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:39:00 +0000

...for the 3rd annual Grape Stomp!

We plan on starting the harvest around 1:00pm. Stomping and fun will continue through the afternoon and all of the "work" activities will be done in time for an evening meal for the workers. We will have plenty of refreshments for all ages, including plenty of last year's vintages to sample and lots of Sangria and Wine Spritzers to drink!

Call if you want more details, but this is a fun event for the community, the more who come the more fun we have!

STOMP GRAPES!

Mark: 641-425-6003 or email at: mark@99bottleswinery.com or mandy@99bottleswinery.com

Thanks! We hope to see you there!

How to Drink Wine & Eat Food Harmoniously

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:37:00 +0000

Lovely flowchart from www.winefolly.com.

Grape Stomp Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:27:00 +0000

It's time to STOMP GRAPES!

Watch for possible changes in dates and time, but now we are planning on Saturday, September 1 at 3:00pm for the Marquette! The Marquette is about 1/3 of the vineyard and should be about 50 or 60 gallons of juice.

This will be fun and will involve picking, and stomping (for kids and women, only, Sorry guys!). We squeeze the grapes and show you the start of the wine-making process.

There will be BBQ and, of course, plenty of wine sampling and Sangria.

If wine's not your thing--we'll have cold beer just for you.

It's official, folks, you can call us vintners

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:24:00 +0000

99 Bottles Winery & Vineyard is now Federally and State licensed and able to sell wine in Iowa!

We are doing some website maintenance in order to provide a list of varieties currently available and spiff up the site a little more.
We apologize for the mess around here!

Feel free to browse, just please excuse the clutter.

Early Harvest!

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:29:00 +0000

We have already had to put the bird netting on the Marquette grapes. This is about three weeks earlier than last year, meaning the grapes are that much more ripe. Those robins know a good thing when they find it!

But, goodness, they'd eat them all up if we didn't net them!

At the rate these grapes are ripening, we may be picking Marquette by August 11th or 12th, but we'll keep you posted!

Wine Consumption in the USA

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:28:00 +0000

Per capita, per year wine consumption by state in the United States:

And here is the per capita consumption by COUNTRY:

Vatican City #1 = 14.47 gal.

Luxembourg #2 = 14.39 gal.

Norfolk Island #3 = 14.38 gal.

France #4 = 11.91 gal.

Italy #5 = 11.13 gal.

Canada #49 = 2.65 gal.

U.S. #53 = 2.57 gal.

Mexico #137 = 0.13 gal.

New Grapes Planted: Frontenac Blanc

noreply@blogger.com (Mandy Newman) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:26:00 +0000

Hey, Everyone!

We've planted a new variety of grapes at the vineyard! It is a Frontenac Blanc, a mutation of the Frontenac grape. Last year during harvest, we found three or four vines with these white grapes on them. Turns out, the University of Minnesota has been working on this mutated varietal for a while now!

These new grapes will make a full-bodied, flavorful white wine.