Wine

The book I read to research this post was Wine All in One for Dummies by various authors which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. There are various recommendations for what wine goes with what. 2 of the most interesting are an italian amarone with asian foods & a californian zinfadel with spicy foods. Sometimes you will see a classic wine at a very cheap price & the way they do it this cheap is to mix it with cheaper wine. Some expensive wines need to mature & this is traditionally done in french oak casks which especially if they are new cost a lot of money. France is the top producer of wine in the world & grapes have been grown there for thousands of  years. Nowadays the different areas specialize in specific types of wine but this has not always been so. Improved transport links & susceptibility of certain grapes to certain types of fungus like mildew has made the french do this. The french consume more wine per capita than any other nation. There are 2 major types of wine, table wine which by law has less than 14.5% alcohol & dessert wine better known as port & sherry which has alcohol added to it. Yeast dies when the alcohol content reaches 14.5% so if you want to increase it you must add it. An interesting idea in wine which is popularly produced in canada is iced wine where the grapes are frozen prior to fermentation this gives the taste a certain nuance. Although french wine is often considered the best & is probably the most expensive for a vintage one other countries produce excellent wine which is often a lot cheaper & is often better value. In particular australian & californian wines.