Lorie Loves Wine

I love it when I find the perfect pairing.  Last night I had smoked chicken from Beretta Organic Farms located in King City, Ontario.  With that, I made parmesan risotto and grilled zucchini (courtesy of my husband). All day I had been craving Pinot Noir and I was hoping the smokiness in the chicken would really bring out the fruit in the wine I chose. I picked the 2000 Artesa Pinot Noir (made with grapes from Santa Barbara County , winery is actually in Napa) that I purchased on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Niagara Falls, NY on the way home from one of many cross-border trips.  It¹s a great store with a ton of hidden gems, once you get past the bounty of “jug wine” at the front.  I had been cellaring this Pinot for some time and I truly felt the food was deserving of the wine.  The wine was made from two different vineyards in Santa Barbara then aged in French oak barrels for 14 months.   It must have been a hot year in Santa Barbara as the alcohol was big at 14.2%. Jack from Sideways would have approved whole heartedly (and probably not shared any, either).  After 8 years of aging, this wine has evolved on to its own with strawberry pie, cloves, and vanilla on the nose.  In the mouth, the ripe fruit coated your mid-palate with lots of baked strawberries and the finish was very long.  It paired perfectly with the smoked chicken as I wanted, really extenuating the fruit flavours of the wine in your mouth. Even my 9 year old son thought our meal was enhanced by the wine & food pairing but, alas, his parents weren¹t sharing!

We all know how the song goes but why do some people get headaches from red wine and others do not?   Some say it’s from the tannins in the wine.  Tannins come from the skins and the seeds and are included in the fermentation process when making red wine.  The skins are need in the fermentation process to give red wine its great colour.  Tannin also gives you the dry feeling in your mouth (think of sucking on a tea bag…uggh!).  Tannins can also come from the oak barrel the wine was aged in too.  But recently I’ve heard and read that it is also caused from the histamines in the wine.  Histamines are contained in grape skins and as I mentioned early, the skins are fermented with the juice therefore adding histamines to the wine.  Therefore, taking an anti-histamine before having a glass of red wine may prevent that red wine headache and flushed face.  To read more on the subject go to: http://www.wineintro.com/glossary/h/histamines.html 

 
They also have a great article on tannins, wine and migraine headaches: http://www.wineintro.com/glossary/t/tannins.html