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Column: Drinking at home

Given the situation with COVID-19, people are understandably rather down. Even though restaurants aren’t open for dine-in services, you can stay positive and look for simple joys as a foodie and oenophile, a connoisseur of wines, at home.
drinking at home
Tony's recommendation involves opening a red, white and dessert wine and then drinking a bit of each wine over several days.

Given the situation with COVID-19, people are understandably rather down.  Even though restaurants aren’t open for dine-in services, you can stay positive and look for simple joys as a foodie and oenophile, a connoisseur of wines, at home.

Instead of dining out, you can order food for delivery or takeout. The Italian Tomato (8380 Bridgeport Road, Richmond) is one of my favourite restaurants for take out, especially since its location is convenient for people living in Richmond and Vancouver. Their pasta is delicious and their portions are huge. My favourites are the Linguini Vongole (baby clams in cream sauce) and Penne Funghi (mushrooms in cream sauce). The sauces are rich so they’re great for pairing with wines.

Drinking at home is different than drinking at restaurants. In restaurants, you only have a limited time so I normally order wines that drink well young. At home, you have the luxury of being able to aerate a wine for much longer. My suggestion is to open a few wines (perhaps a white, red and sweet wine), and drink a glass or two of each wine each night. 

Some wines need more aeration. So the benefit of drinking at home is that you can open a bottle and try a bit of the wine each night – you’ll be surprised at how it changes by the second or third evening.  If possible, buy a vacuum stopper which pumps the air from the bottle and seals the bottle for storage in the fridge overnight. 

Enjoying the same wine over a few nights also allows you to discover unique food pairings. I love to see how wines evolve over time and pair with different foods, and drinking a wine over several hours or days gives you a glimpse of how that wine will perform over the next few years. You really get to know a wine by drinking it this way. Some wines don’t change much but some wines evolve magnificently.

Current vintage U.S. Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux red wines are great for drinking at home. Bordeaux wines are meant for extended aging, especially the great 2015 and 2016 vintages. These wines actually get softer and easier to drink over a few hours or days.

For white wines, I suggest Chardonnay based wines like Chablis or other white Burgundies. For sweet wines, try a bottle of Tawny Port, perfect to drink over several nights. Your reaction to a wine will change with your mood and the food you eat, so experiment! Have fun and explore whether a wine tastes better after several days, at different temperatures, with different stemware or different foods.

Here are my recommendations for wines to drink at home:

Red: Chateau Lanessan 2016 (SKU  126340, $40). This is a good introduction to Bordeaux wines. It’s tannic so you’ll see a marked change in the wine if you drink it over a few days.

White: William Fevre 2017 Petit Chablis (SKU 811232, $31.99).  This is a great producer of Chablis. Chablis is a region in Burgundy, so the grape variety is Chardonnay. Wines from the Chablis region show crisp acidity and some minerality.

Dessert: Fonseca 10 Year Old Tawny Port (SKU 625038, $39.99). If you like sweeter wines, you will love Tawny Port.  It’s a perfect wine when you’re at home, reading a book or watching Netflix.  Just sip it and relax. 

Until next time, happy drinking!

Tony Kwan is the Richmond News' new columnist. Lawyer by day, food and wine lover by night, Kwan is an epicurean who writes about wine, food and enjoying all that life has to offer.