The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

wet. I think Jimmy Durante started this tradition.)

. Pierre swore on his mother’s grave that if you sucked a warm Sauterne

through a straw (Sauterne is the sweet white dessert wine from Bordeaux) you could

cure your hiccups. True or false?

Absolutely false. (But if you suck enough wine this way you won’t care if you

have the hiccups or not!) And, Pierre’s mother is still alive, too!

. Are dry wines with a sugar count of “0" really dry?

No wine is completely dry. There will always be some unfermented sugar in it.

0. True or false. Alsace is a German wine region.

Well, this question started Pierre and I reminiscing about “The Rocky and

Bullwinkle Show”, (thereby disclosing our ages), the episode where our heroes

attempted to save the French wine growing region of “Applesauce Lorraine”, so it took

a while to come back to the question. (Boris: “I hate moose!” Natasha: “I know you do,

dollink!”)

In any event, for those of you who are still with us, the answer is false. Alsace is

a wine region in Northeastern France, bordering on Germany’s Baden region. It’s

distinctive green, long-necked bottles resemble those of the German Mosel wines.

11. True or false. Champagne glasses should be placed wet into the freezer,

to frost them so that the wine will remain as cold as possible.

Oh, oh, again. Another champagne question. Sure enough, out came another

bottle, accompanied by frosted glasses. What happened? The wetness kills the

bubbles and makes the champagne go flat.

Which brought us to the discussion of the shape a champagne glass should be.

Pierre asserted that, Hollywood movies aside, champagne should always be served

in a tall slim fluted glass, in order to preserve the bubbles. Mon Dieu, whoever started

serving champagne in those flat-bowled stem glasses should be flogged, he tells me.

The flat bowl lets the bubbles come out faster, which explains why the champagne

served at most wedding receptions is flat by the time it’s served to you.

(The tipsiest I remember ever being happened one New Year’s Eve, drinking

champagne floats, champagne with vanilla ice cream. If you think cola fizzes when it

hits ice cream, wait until you see champagne fizz!)

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