Why do some people like to drink foreign wine? How to taste?

Guangdong coastal areas like cognac and their eating habits are influenced by Hong Kong and Macao. Since the reform and opening up in the 1980s, people have moved between the two places. Guangdong is the only populous province near Hong Kong and Macao, which are developed cities. The eating habits of Hong Kong people have a great influence on mainlanders who travel between the two places. Mainlanders who travel to and from the two places are proud of drinking cognac, which is also used as banquet wine in Hong Kong and Macao. Cognac is a coastal area of Guangdong province deeply influenced by Hong Kong and Macao.

And some people will confuse brandy with whisky, because they are both called foreign wine, but foreign wine refers to foreign spirits including brandy, whisky, rum, vodka and gin, not just one kind of wine! Brandy and whisky are both distilled spirits, but the difference is that the brewing materials and technological requirements are also different! Grapes, apples, pears and other fruit distilled spirits can all be called brandy. There is a kind of brandy made of grapes called Bai Youni, which has the highest quality and is the most famous. Hennessy and other brands of cognac all use this grape white jade as brewing raw material! The raw materials for brewing whisky are barley, wheat, oats, corn and other grains! The only constant is that it will be cooked in oak barrels.

There are many brandy producing areas in the world, and cognac in France is recognized as a high-quality brandy in the world! Brandy produced in cognac producing area is called cognac or cognac, which is protected by law, just like sparkling wine produced in French champagne producing area is called champagne.

Brandy produced in cognac region has strict wine quality grade. Distilled wine brewed from raw materials is put into oak barrels to make the original wine. The grade of wine brewed with the original wine aged for more than two years is VS.

The grade of wine brewed with original wine aged over four years is VSOP.

After more than ten years of aging, the grade of the brewed wine is XO.

In recent years, there have also been controversial XXO levels above XO. The year of the original wine is not clear, but we can know that the year of the original wine is above XO.

Hennessy XXO

Martell XXO

There is also a rare extra level, which is also above XO.

Kamu Jinhua EXTRA

Pepsi Ji te Ji

In addition to this well-defined cognac, there are also some aged wines, such as Remy Martin Louis XIII Hennessy Baile Pavilion. After more than ten years and decades of aging, the price of the original wine is also above several thousand.

Remy Martin Louis XIII

Remy martin diamond

Remy martin 1898

Hennessy Richard

Hennessy Bai Le Ting Huang Xi

Hennessy Paradies

Hennessy HP

Shang Supreme Martell

Martell Di Chin

Personal experience of drinking cognac for many years, cognac brand has always chosen three giants: Hennessy Martell remy martin!

Choose entry-level VS cognac, and recommend Martell VS Swift. Because VS-class cognac is aged in oak barrels for a short time, the taste will be spicy, not very delicious or need to be blended with ice, but Martell VS Swift is much softer than Hennessy VS, and the price is around 200 yuan. (The price is subject to 700 ml bottles)

When choosing this level of cognac, many people will choose Martell celebrity Hennessy VSOP Axe Poetry remy martin Club wildebeest. I personally recommend wildebeest! Oak wine is richer than Mattelli's celebrities and tastes better than axe poems. The price is around 500, and the axe poems of celebrities are similar.

There are many choices in choosing XO cognac. Hennessy XO gourd poem is the first one I want to recommend, which is too high! The taste is not only mellow, complex and changeable, but also full of layers. Martell XO arch bridge tastes more mellow than Hulu poem! The taste is fresh, and Martell Blue Ribbon is the most cost-effective cognac of XO. Remy martin XO is a cognac with rich style and strong taste. There are also some special wines above XO, and the price is higher.

In addition to the Big Three cognac, there are other high-quality cognac brands, such as Napoleon Camu Jinhua Hardy Jinji Louis, master PepsiCo Jimogo Royal Deer and so on.

Compared with brandy pot-bellied glass, I prefer to use the Welsh fort wine tasting glass of German brand Bei Le Co., and drink it directly without ice. Drinking cognac doesn't need to shake the glass like drinking red wine. Shake it hard will make the alcohol of white wine surge, so you can't smell any other fragrance except the pungent alcohol smell! XO-level cognac is not recommended for drinking with ice.

If you want to drink some VS and VSOP cognac with ice, I personally prefer to use the German brand Short's diamond whisky strength glass, and drinking cognac with ice is also more appropriate.

Personally, I think cognac will be passed down together with Cantonese cuisine in Guangdong's food culture. Guangdong has no domestic liquor giant like Kweichow Moutai Wuliangye, and its acceptance of foreign imports is higher than other places. Cantonese cuisine will still be paired with cognac in high-end business banquets. The light taste of Cantonese cuisine and the sweetness of seafood ingredients are very suitable for cognac, Sichuan cuisine and Hunan cuisine, mainly spicy. Matching is not recommended.

Tasting foreign wine is a process of enjoyment, because at this moment we can not only taste the characteristics of foreign wine, but also appreciate the beauty of this wine. You should know that when tasting, you should determine the occasion and drinking method of tasting according to different wines. However, regardless of the tasting of any wine, its basic elements are still divided into color, aroma, taste and aftertaste.

Take the most familiar wine tasting as an example. When we open a bottle of good wine, we need to wake it up with a decanter, because we need to wake the sleeping wine to a state suitable for drinking through the air. Then the sommelier will pour this bottle of wine into the glass and let the guests "taste".

In the process of wine tasting, guests need to carry out the following steps for wine:

1. Smell this wine. First, try to smell the cork. By smelling the cork, you can know whether this bottle of wine has an odor, whether it has a rich fruity aroma, and whether it has a strong bouquet, so as to compare the quality of the wine. If there is no problem, we can ask the sommelier to continue pouring.

2, color, this process requires guests to observe the color of the wine edge in natural light. If it is a mature wine, the edge of the wine is brown. If it is immature wine, it is mostly purple. Once you see brick red, this bottle of wine is over-oxidized.

Step 3 shake the cup. There are two points to note here. One is to smell the bouquet. If it is young wine, it will be fruity. If it is an old wine, it will have a complex aroma, which is a mixture of fruit aroma and various wine aromas. Senior tasters can learn a lot about wine from these complex aromas. The second is to understand the hanging situation of wine tears. Although the wine that can hang a cup is not necessarily good wine, good wine must be in good condition.

4. Taste, including taking a sip of wine, then rotating between the tongues and breathing in a certain space, during which the wine in the mouth can be oxidized. In this process, young wine tannins are new and astringent, but will become soft over time. When dining in a restaurant, if we are satisfied with the wine, we can signal the sommelier to continue pouring the wine. Of course, if you are not satisfied, you should also raise it immediately to express your disagreement.

In fact, the wine tasting process can reflect a person's status and self-cultivation, so we need to know more about it, so that we can show our style locally at dinner.

1, red wine, the drinking temperature is 18-20, and it usually takes 15-30 minutes to sober up, so that the wine becomes round, smooth and easy to eat. For red wine, it is suitable with meat and cheese. We can freely choose Bordeaux glasses or Burgundy glasses to drink.

2. Liquor, the drinking temperature is 10- 12, so it is generally necessary to use an ice bucket for ice cooling. Liquor is suitable for catering with seafood, and it is generally drunk in tulip goblets.

3, brandy, drink in a brandy glass, the amount of wine poured should not exceed 1/5 of the glass, you can hold the bottom of the glass with your palm, because this can make the body temperature slowly wake up brandy, and at the same time we can keep shaking the glass, so it is easy to let the fragrance of brandy flow freely. When we smell and taste it, it will help promote digestion.

4. Whisky is suitable for drinking at room temperature. If you want to dilute the alcohol content, you can usually add mineral water, but some people like to drink it directly with ice cubes. When adding ice cubes, we need to add 1/3 ice cubes to the upright glass first, and then be careful not to exceed the amount of ice cubes when pouring wine. Of course, this is the way to drink whisky every day. When tasting old whisky, drink it straight, without adding anything. Only in this way can we enjoy its delicious and mellow taste. Many TV dramas will have whiskey and cigars to drink. However, this can only be regarded as a fashion experience, which is not a good thing for the tasters. Therefore, the strong tobacco smell of cigars will directly affect the aroma of whisky, so this needs attention.

Tannin in wine is good for health and helps to metabolize the fat accumulated when eating meat. The 94-year-old Queen of England insists on drinking one glass four times a day.

Before we know how to taste, let's have a general understanding of several common foreign wines, hoping to help you.

There are many kinds of foreign wines, and we can also know the brand and classification characteristics of foreign wines on the market through wine magazines or the Internet. But in fact, it is difficult to understand the taste of every wine without really tasting it. Today, I will tell you how to taste foreign wine.

First of all, brandy

Brandy is a transliteration of brandy, which is a wine made from fruit fermentation and distillation. Usually, brandy refers to wine made from grapes through fermentation and distillation. Wine made from other fruits in the same way will often be preceded by the name of the fruit raw material to distinguish its types. For example, brandy made of cherries is called cherry brandy, and calvados made of apples is called calvados. The word "brandy" is a technical term, which is equivalent to "shochu".

Second, whisky.

Whisky Whisky is an alcoholic beverage made from barley, rye, oats, wheat, corn and other grains by fermentation, distillation, aging and blending in oak barrels. Whisky can be classified in many ways. According to the different raw materials used in whisky, whisky can be divided into single malt whisky, grain whisky and rye whisky. According to the storage time of whisky in oak barrels, it can be divided into varieties of different years, such as several years to decades. According to the alcohol content, whisky can be divided into whiskies with different alcohol contents such as 40-60 degrees.

Three glasses of rum

Rum, also known as sugar liquor, is a by-product of sugar industry. It is made of sucrose, first made into molasses, then fermented, distilled and stored in oak barrels for more than 3 years. According to different raw materials and different brewing methods, rum can be divided into: rum, rum, light rum, rum, Luzhou-flavor rum ... containing 42%~50% alcohol, amber, brown and colorless. According to the flavor characteristics, rum can be divided into strong flavor and light flavor.

Fourth, gin.

Dutch gin is made from barley malt and rye. After fermentation, the grain wine was obtained by distillation for three times, and then the juniper spice was added and distilled. Later, the distilled liquor was stored in a glass jar until it matured, and it was diluted to about 40 degrees when packaged. The Dutch gin was transparent and clear in color. Outstanding aroma, unique style, suitable for single drink, not suitable for cocktail base wine.

Five, tequila

Tequila is also called tequila, and its English name is tequila. Tequila comes from Mexico, which is a local specialty. Tequila needs to be fermented in oak barrels. The length of fermentation depends on the degree and color of wine, and the taste is also very different. White tequila is a kind of wine that has not been aged for a long time, while silver-white tequila is aged for three years, golden tequila is less than four years, and premium tequila takes longer.

Six glasses of vodka

Vodka comes from the word "water" in Russian and is a representative white wine in Russia. It was originally brewed from wheat, rye and barley. /kloc-After the 0/8th century, potatoes and corn were used as raw materials. After more than 8 hours of slow filtration, the original vodka liquor was adsorbed by activated carbon.

Flando cognac