Two Tails

Award Winning Wine

Wine etiquette

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Etiquette is a word that can often have negative associations. It can represent a common code that may feel akin to being constrained by rules, and who wants to live life by the rules?

While some rules are made to be broken, some are there to enhance life. Here at Two Tails whether you’re drinking our excellent Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris or Pinot Noir, we want you to enjoy your wine and to help you enhance every sip we’ve composed a list of four simple wine etiquette tips to observe.

  1. Temperature matters – Serving your wine at the optimum temperature will ensure you enjoy the aromas and flavours that are unique to that particular wine. With each of our wines, you’ll find we recommend the perfect temperature for serving on our website; from the menu select the varietal you’re drinking, then the vintage and you’ll be able to view the tasting notes that will give you this valuable information.
  2. Choose your glass wisely – One sized glass is not ideal for all styles of wine; a wine’s bouquet, taste, balance and finish are all affected by the shape of the glass from which it is consumed. A wine will display completely different characteristics when served in different glasses.
  3. And pour appropriately – Don’t be tempted to show your guests your generous side by overfilling their glass. There are a couple of reasons for this; if you’re serving white wine it will warm up in the glass as they drink, but you also want to allow your guest’s wine the opportunity to breathe in the glass, releasing the aromas and flavours. No matter what varietal your serving or what wine glass you’re using, never fill it more than half full.
  4. Hold your glass by the stem – Here at Two Tails, we’re not keen on those fancy schmancy tumblers that are used in a certain style of dining establishment. We like a wine glass with a stem to hold on to! It ensures that your white wine doesn’t get too warm as you hold it and prevents your glassware smudging with fingerprints, so you can observe the beautiful colour of the wine you’re drinking. Remember wine should be a feast for your senses!

Now buy your wine!

How to host a social wine tasting party…

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At Two Tails we love to share our wines, and have hosted many tastings for stockists, sommeliers and critics. If you’re looking for a fun way to explore new wines with your friends we can thoroughly recommend a social get together that incorporates wine tasting.

Now we really are talking a fun and casual wine tasting party, so we’re not going to get all stuffy about top notes and tannins, although you can if you prefer to. But this is all about fun and being the perfect wine tasting host or hostess. So with no further ado…

Here are 5 steps to hosting the perfect social wine tasting party:

  1. Choose your theme – There’s no right or wrong here, but we suggest different wines from Marlborough, at Two Tails we make that easy for you with our mixed case!
  2. Gather your supplies – Wine (that’s a given…!). Glasses, white napkins (so your guests can view the colour of the wine against a white background), bread or crackers as palate cleansers, pens and paper for each of your guests, water.
  3. Give your guests the knowledge – Go through the 5 simple S words to help your guests appreciate their wine, see, swirl, smell, sip and savour. Find out more about these here.
  4. Add food – At Two Tails our wines are made to be enjoyed with food, and those palate cleansers just won’t cut the mustard for the entire evening. You might find this article from our archives on wine and food matching useful.
  5. Don’t forget the play list – A party isn’t a party without a little music… Here are our top three tracks for wine tasting inspiration… Heard it through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye, Red Red Wine – UB40, Only the Wine – David Gray.

We’d recommend the Two Tails Mixed Case for your wine tasting party. Purchase one HERE and we’ll deliver anywhere in New Zealand FREE! Cheers!

Wine and Food Matching

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Here at Two Tails we believe great wines should be enjoyed with really great food! We love to share recipes from the Fairbourne/Two Tails kitchen that pair beautifully with the wines Sarah crafts.

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Of course, personal preference can also be a prevailing factor when it comes to the joys of putting together good food and wine; but there are a few basic rules of thumb that can be employed when choosing wines to go with your favourite foods, so we thought we’d list a three of them in this blog article.

Acid to acid – Aim to serve wines with high acidity with foods that exhibit similar traits. Those of you that know and love a crisp Sauvignon Blanc will be aware that the zestiness of this varietal comes from it’s acidity. Foods that can be considered acidic include tomatoes and citrus. Saltiness in food is a great contrast to acidity in wine. Salty foods include white cheeses, like goat’s cheese and feta. That’s why fresh steamed mussels with garlic and lemon zest, served with a side of a citrus dressed, fresh green salad with feta and olive, makes a perfect match for Two Tails Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Delicate to delicate – A delicate wine like a Pinot Gris can be overpowered if you serve it with a bold dish with strong flavours. That’s why we suggest that our Marlborough Pinot Gris is a perfect pairing with flash fried and succulent prawns or calamari, and milder cheeses like Haloumi and Gouda.

Choose a flexible red – If you want to easily match a red wine to food it’s best to choose a flexible wine. These exhibit good acidity, or very fruity characteristics, Pinot Noir is one such wine; and Two Tails Marlborough Pinot Noir is no exception. It’s packed with raspberry and cherry flavours, these pair beautifully with lamb, duck, cured meats, it’s also a great partner to mild blue and wash rind cheeses.

Now buy your wine!

3 New Years resolutions to enhance your wine experience

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Happy New Year to you from Two Tails and Fairbourne Estate.

It’s the season to adopt those pesky New Year resolutions, and too many of us set ourselves a challenge by convincing ourselves we have to give something up, be that the drinks we enjoy or the food we love… So for 2016 we want you to embrace the things you love and ask that your New Year resolutions simply make your lives fuller and better.

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We thought we’d get you started with three New Year resolutions that will enhance your wine experience.

  1. Try something new – Always been a Sauvignon Blanc sort of a person? Never drink red? Give it a go! Here at Two Tails we produce three varietals, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough Pinot Gris and Marlborough Pinot Noir. What’s more, we sell a mixed case that includes two bottles of each, so you can explore a varietal you might not have tried before. Buy yours HERE.
  2. Taste your wine – Don’t just drink your wine, take the time to truly enjoy it using all your senses… Follow these 5 simple steps beginning with “S”.
    SEE: Observe the wine’s colour. The best way to do this is to hold your glass up to the light and tilt it.
    SWIRL: This allows some oxygen into the wine, which will help its aromas open up and release its bouquet.
    SMELL: One of the most important steps in the wine tasting process! Take a quick sniff for an initial impression. Then really get your nose in there, smell deeply and slowly.
    SIP: Take a sip of wine, and let it roll around your tongue allowing the wine to reach all of your taste buds.
    SAVOUR: Swallow the wine and evaluate its finish.
  3. Enjoy with food – Two Tails wines are not only terroir inspired, (made to reflect where and how they have been grown), but their affinity with food is important; it’s the reason that they are keenly sought by professionals for restaurant wine lists. Our blog is chock full of recipes. If you’re stuck for a simple supper idea or a five course feast a look through our back catalogue of blog archives is sure to deliver the inspiration you need to get your Nigella on!

 

How to talk about wine…

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Russell HooperI know many of you reading this post will be adept in the practice of tasting and talking about wine. However, I also know that some of you reading this may feel a little intimidated when you’re with a group of people that sniff, sip and swirl and then wax lyrical about top notes and tannins… So this one’s for you.

This blog post doesn’t so much explore how to taste wine, (although if you’re looking for some direction in that department, you might find this article from our blog archives on the Fairbourne website useful). Today we focus on some of the terms used when tasting wine.

So let’s start with an “A”…

Acidity – If you take a sip of lemon juice, the sides of your tounge and your mouth will pucker. The more a wine makes your mouth do this, the more acidic it is. A Sauvignon Blanc will generally exhibit more acidity than a Pinot Gris.

Body – When determining the body of a wine, think about the feel of trim milk and full cream milk in your mouth. If a wine is light bodied, it would feel more like the trim in your mouth, thin and delicate. If it was full bodied, it would feel more like the full cream, thicker and creamier.

Oak – The characteristics of oak differ from red wines to white wines. In a white wine, they might be described as spicy or smokey. In a red wine like our Two Tails Marlborough Pinot Noir the oak brings out characteristics of toast and vanilla.

Fruit – The fruit characteristics of a wine vary from red to white, from varietal to varietal and vintage to vintage. As a general rule of thumb in white wines the fruit characteristics usually fall in a spectrum from citrus, tropical and a range of stone or orchard fruits; in a red wine we’re talking berries and currants all the way, both red and black.

Length and Finish – This term describes how long the flavours from your wine linger in your mouth. If the taste stays with you for a short time you’ll generally find that the juice has been extracted with a greater level of pressing. Here at Two Tails we use only free run juice, there’s no extra pressing, the juice is extracted using gravity alone; this ensures all our wines have a persistent fruity finish.

TT_3So there you have it…. Some of the terms that will help you with your vino vocabulary, now you just need to practice some tasting.

We’d recommend the Two Tails Mixed Case to exercise your new found knowledge. Purchase one HERE and we’ll deliver anywhere in New Zealand FREE! Cheers!

 

 

Sauvignon Blanc

Here at Two Tails we make premium Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The word Sauvignon is a derivative from the French word Sauvage meaning wild or savage and of course the word blanc is the French word for white. The wild or savage white wine grape … Read More

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