Great Fine Wine

If you’re like me, you like your wine…a lot, and you drink it after work, with a special meal, or for a particular occasion. You may have a bottle or two around the house. That’s what I always did, that way I was always ready for a last minute guest or event, but I didn’t know one thing: how to store my wine properly.

There’s a lot of wine rules and standards that a bunch of wine enthusiast follow, but Ii was never one to follow them. I assumed that knowing the basics was all I needed to enjoy my wine just enough, without overdoing it. At first, I didn’t use a wine decanter or even gave a second thought to the type of crystal wine glasses I was using. This went for how I stored my wine. But then, on a lark, I thought I would try storing my bottles the way you are supposed to, and believe or not, the taste improved dramatically, so even if you aren’t overly consumed by the latest wine rules, consider this one on wine storage a staple.

Temperature: First off, no matter what type of wine you have on hand, it should always be stored in a cool setting-yes! This is why wine enthusiast have wine cellars, for optimal taste! While the best tempurature for wine varies slightly, 55 degrees is a good target.  Too much warmer than this temperature, and you will find a much more acidic taste to your wine-one that you won’t enjoy. Moreover, make sure that the temperature is steady and not subject to fluctuation, as this will dramatically alter the contents of your wine bottle.

Light: Make sure if you want your wine to retain its original full flavor, that you store it in a place where not a lot of light can get at it. If a bottle of wine is in the light for extended periods of time, it will age the wine considerably, affecting its flavors.

Humidity: Another key consideration when it comes to optimal wine storage is making sure that the humidity levels are just right. It should be, on average, more humid than not in order to keep the wine corks from shrinking. Air will oxidize your wine, so make sure you don’t get cork shrinkage. So, what the right humidity level for storing wine? Somewhere between 65% and 75%. This is why damp basements and cellars can work so well for wine storage.

Sideways: This may seem a strange one to some, it did to me, but there has got to be a reason so many wine racks and cellars hold their wine bottles sideways instead of upright, right? Yes. It is because in order to ensure that the cork is protected from shrinking, it needs to stay moist. That said, the best way to keep the cork moist is to store your wine on it’s side.

Travel: When traveling with your wine, you know, to a party or to a BYOB resaurant be sure to use a wine bottle bag.  This will help keep your wine at the right temperature and keep it protected from bouncing around.

Further Reading:

The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life, and SpiritIn Eating Well for Optimum Health, one of Amazon's bestselling health books of 2000, alternative-medicine maverick Andrew Weil revealed his version of the ideal diet (and backed it up with scientific proof): a variety of unprocessed, or "whole" foods; just-picked, organic vegetables; whole grains; "good" fats, such as the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and nuts; fresh herbs and spices instead of heavy sauces; and a minimum of meat and dairy products. Eating this responsibly is certainly an admirable pursuit, but home cooking of this caliber can be intimidating, requiring much more energy than it would to pull up to the drive-through and order a burger and fries. In The Healthy Kitchen, Weil successfully teams up with Rosie Daley, formerly chef at the ritzy Cal-a-Vie Spa, to show how to cook with confidence within these dietary guidelines, creating dishes that are not only good for you, but are also fun to prepare, beautiful to look at, and delectable.

For those of you predicting a tofu-fest, have no fear: Weil stresses he's "unwilling to eat food that is boring, artless, and devoid of pleasure even if it's somebody else's idea of healthful." Indeed, the gorgeous color photography in The Healthy Kitchen will get you drooling over healthy entrées like Warm Chicken and Asparagus Salad and desserts like Lemon Yogurt Sorbet. You can be proud to serve these recipes to your family and friends--many of the appetizers and entrées are perfect party foods, sized to feed a dozen. Some recipes are notably more complicated than others--Cold Vegetable Pasta Primavera involves grilling five different veggies; baked Vegetable Wontons are time-consuming if you're not familiar with the folding process. However, Daley and Weil advise working your way up to these more complex dishes.

Sprinkled throughout the book are witty and wise health tips from Weil and cooking shortcuts from Daley. The two admit they don't agree on all cooking matters; Weil would substitute cashew milk for coconut milk and adds his two cents on making the Thai Shrimp and Papaya Salad spicier, for example. The Healthy Kitchen seems to be influenced a bit by Martha Stewart's Healthy Quick Cook, with Weil's text shaded in that unmistakably Martha sage-green, and Daley's in what Stewart might call bisque. Both books emphasize seasonal fresh foods and boast sumptuous photography and tempting menu suggestions. However, Weil and Daley outdo her with calorie and nutritional breakdowns for each dish, shopping guides for easy meal planning, and tips on encouraging children to help out in the kitchen (and develop lifelong healthy eating habits in the process). --Erica Jorgensen

The Bread Lover's Bread Machine CookbookThe greatest invention since sliced bread may be the machine that makes the loaves that you dream of slicing. The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook finally bridges the gap between great taste and convenience, with over 300 glorious recipes for bread machines. The automatic bread machine makes it possible to enjoy fresh and signature loaves of bread without the time and expense usually involved in bread baking or purchased artisanal breads. Today's bread machines are versatile, affordable, safe, and efficient, turning out perfect loaves time after time. Try Croissants or Banana Bread for breakfast, lunchtime sandwiches on Honey Whole Wheat Bread or Tomato Bread, a loaf of Garlic Focaccia or a Sage and Onion Bread-stuffed roast for dinner, or even Candied Chestnut Panettone and Pumpkin Cloverleaf Rolls for the holidays. Classic white loaves, hearty whole-wheat breads, sweet breads, swirled breads, pizza doughs, quick breads, even jams are easy to make right in the bread machine. Renowned bread baking expert Beth Hensperger's best bread recipes yield great results-- just add the ingredients, and let the machine knead, rise, and bake loaf after loaf of fragrant, delicious fresh bread.

Balloon Bottle TopperBalloon Bottle Toppers turn any bottled beverage into a gift. Inflates by straw and assembles in seconds.

Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn

Balloon Bottle Toppers (pkg.of 6)Bottle Toppers are brand new. Six different syles to suit almost any occasion. Terrific on a bottle of wine or spirits.

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