HOW TO CHOOSE THE "RIGHT" WINE

Only You Can Choose The "Right" Wine For Your Palate, Your Personal Tastes, Your Requirements.
But in this respect, the Competition's website offers you a rich lode of totally independent, helpful, focused, easy to access, current, objective information to make the choices easy.

Last Friday morning, a gentleman phoned to say he was in "a bit of a panic" because he had his carefully planned fortieth birthday luncheon coming up the following day. He enjoyed wine but was only an occasional taster. He had been fumbling around on the search engines but deriving no clear information as to what wines he should serve with his already determined Birthday Celebration menu. He heard from a mutual friend that we may be able to help and did I mind him phoning me direct! Well, of course not. That's the service we seek to provide, via the Competition's award winners, "feedback" at no charge.

The guest list was quite small: only twelve family members and close friends. I asked him about the menu, the first plate, and what he had in mind regarding the wine accompaniment. Seems the first plate was to be antipasto, cold cuts, smoked ham, rillettes, pâtés and toast points, parmigiano reggiano, sundried tomatoes, pickled chili olives, pickled cauliflower fleurettes, roasted aubergine, pickled cornichons and button mushrooms. And his first thoughts of a wine to complement the antipasto? A quality, dry white sparkling wine.

Ouch! The acidity of a dry white sparkling wine, accentuating the sharp acids of pickled vegetables? I suggested the palate tingling acidity of a dry white sparkling wine may be better suited to an arrival flute of same, to freshen the palate, stimulate the salivary ducts in anticipation of the food to follow. But Champagnes were now monopolising the Competition's Dry White Sparkling Wines category - and the starting prices were around $40.00 a bottle.

Next, an astounding admission. Our birthday man was not too worried about price for this special anniversary, equating wine price to quality and the hope that a quality wine would automatically go well with the chosen menu! What's more, he had budgeted for up to $60.00 per bottle to ensure his Birthday Guests were getting "the best" on his anniversary.

Chance aside, in themselves, the price of the bottle and the name on the label have a limited relationship to the complementary nature of the wine in the glass to the food on the plate.

I referred our birthday man to our website, and the "Help me Find my Ideal Wine" panel in the top right corner of the Home Page, in particular. Whilst still on the phone, we went through the exercise together.

Wine Style? I suggested he consider a Rosé for this antipasto course, suggesting that a dry or near dry Rosé would perhaps benefit his first dish. So we selected Rosés from the search engine's "Wine Style" drop down menu, clicked "Search" and the qualifiers from the Competition's Award winners suggested a purchase price of less than $AU20.00. Wow! Apéritif and first course wines determined and we were on target with the wine/food matching and way under budget already.

The next course, I gathered, was to be a dense soup. He asked "what should I offer with that?" Soups, mostly liquid, usually don't really require a wine complement. "Refill the Rosé glass", I suggested. By now, increasingly confident, our birthday man had got the idea of how to use the website's Search Engine. Later, we heard back from the mutual friend who had suggested he phone the Competition that the luncheon was a "great success" and that the wine and food combinations were "wonderful".

Think of the Style of wine you would like to offer with this food, click it into the "Help me Find my Ideal Wine" Search Engine, and you will find a range of current options. Read the judges' independent comments and then phone or email the contact details given for the closest retailer that stocks that wine, and you are almost there! Simple.

Your feedback on this segment will be appreciated.