| Advanced Appreciation of Red Wines |
| Cheese and Cheddar Cheese and cheddar products are another traditional hot candidates for having together with a glass of red wine. Experts recommend that simple inexpensive red wines from the �New World� do well with the simple cheese and cheddar products that you eat everyday. Fiona advices that cheese which is quite salty in nature such as goat cheese goes well with wines that have a touch of sweetness in them, such as Rioja and Merlot. For rich creamy cheese, try pairing it with a powerful Burgundy or Pinot Noir. For cooked cheese products such as pizza, nothing beats eating them with the Italian Barbera or Chianti! For pasta, combine it with an Australian Shiraz and it would be perfect. Cheese is also perfect match for several white wines and hence you might like to try them too. For example, eating lasagne goes well with a light Chardonnay. But Fiona also warns that cheese and wines are delicate combinations and combining them with the wrong wines might make them even worse off than before. Please look through good cookbooks from the bookstore for more advanced cuisine combinations that involve cheese and wines. Heng�s remark: In Singapore, eating cheese is not in our common culture. Hence I recommend that we might as well do it simple: A wine such as Merlot or Shiraz for any food with simple cheese is good enough. And don�t forget that pizza goes well with Chianti, while you should try pasta with Shiraz or Zinfandel! Seafood with White Wines The above are just some examples. However it is worthy to note that red wines are not the correct wine for various foods. Many food on the recommended list do taste particularly good with white wines, beers and champagne but not particularly helpful with reds. For example, many seafood that we eat in Singapore such as fish, lobsters, crabs and oysters tastes superbly well with white wines, especially with Muscadat. Very spicy food such as curry and laksa is not good to drink with wines but may prove nice when accompanied by a cooling glass of draft beer. Conclusion: However, I should admit that it is mind-boggling enough to study the effects of red wines with food... and worse still, I have yet to learn about white wines which combines so well with many of the food that we eat here. Hence I cannot help you much if you are really interested in the wine and food combinations. To advance your knowledge further, please buy good cuisine guidebooks from the bookstores. The book by Fiona Beckett: Eating and Drinking is a superb book, which describes from A-Z all the food that is commonly available in the restaurants (the hawker center too). I strongly recommend this book because it is very comprehensive and is really professional. But even if you lack any expert guidance, you can also try different types of combinations on your own! Taste is a subjective matter and who knows, while you are tasting, you might even stumble upon an exquisite taste that no expert could ever teach you! |
| Notes on Buying Wines A trip to any neighborhood NTUC supermarket would suffice if you are a beginner, as most NTUC shopping marts should have a small section dedicated to selling wines from all around the world. All classic red wines that I describe on the previous pages (except for a few more expensive ones) can be found there. Not to mention that you can also find all sorts of white wines, champanges and sparkling wines on the shelf as well. I actually learnt all about red wines initially by taking a trip to the Bedok NTUC supermarket and tried to recognize all wines that I read from the books. I just discovered that the Tampines NTUC below Tampines Mall and the newly renovated NTUC behind Parkway Parade have one of the most exquisite selection of wines that I have ever seen!!! Wine lovers living in the East side should not miss them!! The Cold Storage under Centre Point is also another good place to go. In most neighborhood Cold Storage, not only can you find a wider variety of wines, some better and more expensive wines that you can't find in neighborhood NTUCs can also be bought there. Of course nowhere can rival what Carrefour in Suntec City has to offer!!... It has many of the best and most expensive wines that you can find anywhere... some even include the French 1855 Grand Cru Classe that are among the best in the world. If you have big bucks to spend on wines, then I would suggest going to Carrefour to buy several of the most expensive Bordeaux for cellaring at home so that they can be matured for years to come!! Very good wines are relatively rare in Singapore and the best collection so far that I've seen are those in Carrefour. If you have good matured wines which have been kept for at least ten years, don't forget to invite Ah Heng to savor it together with you!! |