Drinking our wines at the correct temperatures

 Here's a good article on proper wine temps for drinking.

The old saw "drink your white wines cold and your reds at room temperature" was mostly correct before we had air conditioning and refrigerators and efficient home furnaces. Now, that old advice causes most of us to drink white wines too cold, when they're still asleep. Let them warm to about 50-55F or so, and they open up with their best bouquets and flavors. Similarly, when a red's drunk too warm, you may lose its nuances and only notice the alcohol. Best temp for a red is 60-68F, with maybe the sweet spot around 64 or so.

Here in the PacNW, with the outside weather cool on most days, it's not too difficult to reach good drinking temps. Just notice the weather and set a plan. And get the most from your wine!

(photo credit: istock)

Limoncello! The right way I hope.

 WARNING re the online Limoncello recipes:

I'm going to make Limoncello, as the $30 version from Total Wine was so bad we couldn't drink it, and I can make it for about $10/bottle. As usual, I spent hours reading dozens of recipes and testing the recipes' conversions and calculations. About 80% of the online recipes are fatally flawed because the author doesn't understand alcohol calculation (and ends up far too high or far too low in the desired ABV), or is otherwise not in possession of basic facts. One describes Everclear (PGA) as "120 proof" whereas it is 190--if you plug 120 into the calculator, you're ruined). Others vary so wildly on the alcohol-syrup ratio that many of those recipes are flawed--there is a little margin depending on the style you want, but not that much margin. Traditional LCs are 28-32% ABV, and you need that much alcohol if you want to store the LC in your freezer and not have it freeze solid.

So I've made up a recipe and will try it this week. Ask in about 3 months how it went! PS-Don't even start unless you use organic lemons (inorganic lemons are waxed and have pesticides, both of which will be in your drink once the alcohol infusion is done).