We would like to begin this new issue of DiWineTaste by wishing a happy 2004 to
our readers, continuously increasing from the day when, in the now distant
September 9th, 2002, we decided to publish the first issue of our e-magazine.
To you all, dear readers, old and new, we wish a happy, rich, prosperous and
profitable 2004 with the hope that DiWineTaste and its services will be always
of your satisfaction and enjoyment. We would also like to send our best wishes
for a happy and profitable 2004 to all the producers that honored us with their
trust and that allowed us to express our opinion about their wines. The year
which has just passed, the 2003, has been for us a rather significant period,
it has been the year in which we published our new WEB site, consolidated what
we did in the past and started new services.
We tried to make DiWineTaste a more versatile publication and service, more
efficient than it was in the past, as always, another little but significant
step forward, in the hope it will be appreciated to the ones that inevitably
give a sense to what we do: our readers. Even for the 2004, the new year which
has just begun, we have new ideas and new ambitions: we plan to consolidate
what we did in the 2003 and to increase the quantity and the quality of the
services we are currently offering. As always, your help, your support and your
comments are always welcome: your opinions, either positive or negative, are
valuable helps that allow us to understand what we did and what we need to do.
To all of you who in the past have expressed their opinion about our
publication and our services go our best and sincere thanks. We wish to
continue to receive your comments and your opinions about DiWineTaste and for
this we thank you in advance.
We imagine that most of the people reading this editorial will have ended the
2003 and celebrated the arrival of 2004 with the usual celebrations common in
our cultures: we mainly like to think you said goodbye to the old year and
welcomed the new one holding a glass of good wine. After all the cold season
invites, like to say, to have a higher interest in the richer and bodied
beverage of Bacchus, well matchable to the foods, rich and tasty as well, of
winter. Sparkling wines, uncorked at the midnight of new year's eve, will have
certainly accompanied you towards the new year together with your dears,
together with your families. It is a known fact, in this period, wines with
bubbles are very fashionable and everywhere there is a repetition of joyous
pops.
Moreover winter is also the period in which one goes downstairs to the cellar
and take those bottles of important wines, the wines that could be
magnified with a succulent and tasty food, in short, those wines that as soon
as they are poured in a glass, they make winter to seem warmer and, apparently,
they help standing to the cold. Winter is also the period in which sparkling
wines have a dramatic increase in selling, the repetition of the holidays
between the end of December and the beginning of January, seem to be more
cheerful and carefree when in our glasses we find a festival of bubbles neatly
run after one another in a joyous golden wine.
What about white wines? Are they really missing our glasses in this period?
Probably not. Indeed, for the rich banquets prepared in occasions of the days
preceding the two main holidays of this period, of course main in some
countries of the world, Christmas and New Year's Day, tradition suggests that
foods are to be sumptuously and richly made of fish, an ingredient recalling
that famous saying white wine goes with fish. This dogma, slavishly
obeyed in order not to disappoint the companions of the banquets, leaves little
space to the exploration of new enogastronomical experiences, and only the most
brave and curious ones are prone to some glasses of red wine while being
perplexedly watched by the less braved ones. Perhaps it is in this period that
many could take advantage of the richness of the tables and consider a glass of
good sparkling wine matched to the many foods, instead of seeing it solely as
an aperitif or the companion to be matched to desserts.
This aspect inevitably makes one think about the old polemic about the matching
of sparkling wines with desserts, a polemic that does not take into
consideration the indisputable personal preferences, of course. Nevertheless
the consumption of dry sparkling wines, or using a more appropriate term for
these wines, brut sparkling wines, matched with desserts is rather and
inexplicably common. We would like to know the name of the first one who
launched the fashion of matching a dry wine, as well as sparkling, with a sweet
food. Nevertheless it seems very obvious that for a dessert would be chosen a
sweet wine, sparkling wines included. Of course the choice in these occasions
is not limited, including the most renowned of sweet sparkling wines, Asti
Spumante, which is well matchable with desserts, in particular with the ones
made of creams, and which is certainly more appropriate of a dry sparkling
wine, no matter what it is.
Winter is also that period which generally makes us more enterprising and more
prone to the pleasure of the table, and with that the pleasures of wine as
well, and it is the period when people is more prone to stay in their houses in
company of friends and of their families. In short, the good occasion to
celebrate the good time spent together with a glass of good wine. Either white
or red, or any other style, it does not matter, maybe it is just in wintertime
we recognize to wine the socializing role that also ancient people recognized
to it. Therefore let's make a toast to 2004 in the hope it will bring in every
place and in every person peace, serenity and the improvement of the conditions
of life for every human being and in every place of the world, in particular in
the most forgotten places. Let's make a toast to 2004 because it may finally
see the end of arrogance of men, of hypocrisy and poverty of the ones who think
they are better and superior than others. Let's make a toast to 2004, raising
our glasses, in the hope it will give us a better world for everyone. It would
be truly wonderful if a modest glass of wine could make all that. A happy
and good 2004, to everyone.
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