Summer Refreshers
Add some refreshment to the hot summer days with Wine Spritzers. For the most common spritzers use 3 oz of any wine you enjoy, over 4 oz of ice, then add 3 oz of a soda (citrus flavors work well) and garnish or add your favorite fruits (cherries, pineapples, lemons, limes).
Sangrias are another favorite for the season. Strawberry-lime sangria is a blend of rosé, lemon-lime soda, fresh strawberries and mint, while citrus sangria is a great combination of grapefruit, orange, lemon, and lime.
If you are feeling fancy you can mix up a bishop cocktail, made with red wine, rum, simple syrup, and lime juice, or a glamour girl martini, which combines rosé, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice.
Recipe for Simple Syrup:
Simple Syrups can include all sorts of flavors from lavender wildflowers from a spring yard to rhubarb to cranberries. But the base of any simple syrup starts with two ingredients – water and sugar.
A base recipe will keep in the refrigerator for a month in a tightly sealed glass jar.
Boil ½ cup water
Slowly add ½ cup granulated sugar
Stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Cool. Store in glass tightly sealed jar in the refrigerator.
For most of us, storing wine is not much of a problem. We are consuming the wines we purchase and have no need to find a place to store them. But for those who are stocking up, there are some big do’s and don’ts for keeping wine.
The first big DON’T is to keep wines out of the kitchen! The biggest enemy for a wonderful bottle of wine is heat, light and big swings in the room temperature.
Wines that are allowed to heat to temperatures higher than 75 to 80 degrees for an extended time will find that the wines simply no longer taste good. Some of our favorites are the most damaged by heat, such as Pinot Noirs, the sweet reds.
Once temperatures go above 80 degrees, wines start to cook. That means that a wine kept in a kitchen over the summer, stored in the trunk ofa car will start to taste sour or like prunes. Extreme heat will also damage bottle corks. The heat causes the cork to begin to rise in the bottle and this means that the airtight seal will break. Wine may leak from these damaged bottles, but air is also getting into the bottle. Over oxidizing wines make them taste flat or like apple cider.
Best Places for Bottles of Wine do not necessarily mean building a wine cellar! In fact, any place out of the way, dark and with some temperature control will work. This could be in a closet, under your bed or in a basement. Some wine lovers will put their decorative wine racks inside a closet to create safe inexpensive storage.
And remember that you don’t want to stock up on too much wine. Frequently the very best time to drink it is right when you buy it or receive it as a gift. Avoid waiting for that perfect special occasion! Pick a wine! Open it up and find a comfy place to enjoy! Cheers!
