Blended Wines and Other Such Faux Pas

About author / Sarah Christine Bolton

Coffee addict; professional food writer; food fusion. Her slow cooker recipes go above and beyond your normal crockpot fare.

Growing up, I never saw my parents drink wine or even beer. My dad would drink an ice cold non-alcoholic O’Doul’s; occasionally, he let me have a sip but I wasn’t impressed by the taste. Even after we moved to San Luis Obispo, which is smack-dab in the middle of the California Central Coast wine region, we never tried wine.

I don’t even remember my first glass of red wine. It was probably at my friend’s house. She used to make a huge pot of spaghetti on Sunday nights when we were in college. It was a great way to kick-off the week: hot spaghetti, crisp salad, all sprinkled with creamy parmesan cheese, and washed down with a nice glass of red wine. She always bought the good stuff, too. No cheap $7 bottles of wine for her. She is Italian, after all.

These days, I drink red wine occasionally, but it’s more of a special occasion beverage. I’m also kind of a wimp…I like the blended wines that are a bit mild. A straight Merlot is usually more than I can handle.

At an upscale and pretentious restaurant in Aruba (the island in the Caribbean), I made the mistake of ordering a blended wine from our very French waiter. His disgust at my faux pas was evidenced on his face.

“I don’t prefer the blended wines,” he said, taking the wine menu from me with a grimace. He grudgingly brought the bottle to the table, and meanwhile, I wanted to slither underneath the table and hide my burning red face. The blended wine was actually pretty tasty, so I soon forgot about his attitude.

Viniculture, the use of grapes to make wine, is recorded in the Bible. Noah, the same guy that built the ark, planted a vineyard and made wine. In the Persian culture, there is a fable about the beginnings of wine. A princess lost favor with the king, and in despair, she attempted to poison herself by eating some “spoiled” table grapes. She became giddy, fell asleep, and when she woke up, found that she was no longer stressed. The king was so impressed by her chilled out attitude that he forgave her and shared her discovery with all his subjects.

While the story is probably not completely factual, wine was most likely discovered by accident, just as the princess discovered it.

In Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, he included descriptions of wine, and it was an important part of Greek life. Even doctors, like Hippocrates, used it medicinally. Grape cultivation for wine making started around 4,000 BC, near the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia. There are texts on Egyptian tomb walls that show priests and kings drinking wine.

However, the true foundation of viniculture was started by the Romans, who classified grape varieties and colors, observed ripening techniques, and discovered the best soils for grape-growing. And from what wine experts have told me, the reason California is such great wine country is that it’s on the same latitude as part of Italy and Southern France.

Now that it’s cold, wine is still tasty, but anything warm is always a better choice than something room temperature or below. Try this mulled red wine. And don’t worry--technically, it’s not blended, so you won’t be accused of a wine faux pas.

Serves/Makes: 12

• 2 bottles dry red wine
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 1 cup water
• 1 orange, peel only
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken into 2 or 3 pieces
• 8 whole cloves
• 1 whole nutmeg