Taste Like a Connoisseur

winetasteWine is one of the few drinks not sucked through a straw in our fast-food nation. Wine must be selected and savored. While we BEbabes may love our coffee in the mornings, we relish popping open a new bottle of wine to curl up with a good book, making Wine Wednesday one of our favorite days of the week! This week, we plucked a new wine card from the stack – this time on how to taste wine like a pro. Try this out at your next BEbabes or holiday party.

1. Look at the color and clarity of the wine in your glass.
2. Tilt the glass and look at the “edge” of the wine, where it meets the glass.
3. Swirl the wine gently to see how much “body” it has.
4. Inhale the scent of the wine.
5. Take a small sip.
6. After the first sip, swirl the wine in your mouth and notice how it feels and tastes.
7. Swallow the wine. Then notice any after-taste of the wine.
8. Pause to think about the wine’s impression on your senses.

As they say, practice makes perfect! :-)

Wine for Smarties

Family-Bottle-ShotFew things go better with evening reading than a great glass of wine, so we’re going to get smart about it. At first we were going to call these “lessons” Wine for Dummies, but no Book End Babe is dumb, so we’ll go with Wine for Smarties. Each week we’ll feature a wine fact so at your next soiree or book party, you can impress the crowd with your knowledge.

From here on out, Wednesdays are for Wine Tips. Let’s start with some common terms. Get these down because we’ll be using them in our wine & book chats once a month on Twitter.

Balance – wine in which no one characteristic is stronger than the others.
Complex – A wine with a number of flavors and qualities – all good.
Finish – the way the wine fades or leaves your mouth when it’s swallowed
Nose – the aroma of the wine
Palate – The way the wine feels in your mouth
Weight – The texture and “heft” of a wine. Wines can be thick or thin, heavy or light.

Mark your calendar! Our first BEbabes Wine & Book Chat will be on Twitter on THIS Thursday, September 17th at 7:30 pm EASTERN.
Wine: ANY Mad Housewife wine (I’ll be drinking the Merlot or Cab Sav) – you go here for a location near you that carries it. Or if you can’t get your hands on that, just drink whatever and share that with everyone. Our chat is with our Top Pick author Kristina Riggle as we discuss her real life as a debut author and learn more about her novel (of which many babes are reading this month!) REAL LIFE & LIARS. If you prefer another beverage, go for it. (Like we’ll ever know!)

Plus one lucky participant will win this cute Impulse Prize from our Contest Closet: a small notebook with attached pen for your handbag, sure to make you smile.
cocktail
About Tweet chats:
If you have a Twitter account, go to www.tweetchat.com to sign in. You’ll be following the hashtag #bebabes. It will put the hashtag at the end of your tweets for you so you don’t have to add it yourself! That way you can follow the stream more easily. It “blocks out” the rest of Twitter for you.