Wine pairing can seem complex, especially if you are looking to fine-tune and add a spectacular match between your food and wine. However, if you are armed with the right information, you can achieve a great dining experience. Consider these basic elements of food and wine matching.

Some of the basic elements to consider when pairing food and wine are:

• Weight
• Intensity of the flavor of the wine and its characteristics
• Acidity of the wine/food
• Salt in food
• Sweetness
• Tannin

Weight

This simply means that you have to strike a balance between the richness of both the food and the wine. None should overwhelm the other regarding flavor. Successful pairings ensure that the richness of the flavor of the food and the wine are at par is the secret behind common great wine-food pairings.

Hearty meals go well with hearty wines. In practice, rich foods such as red meat casseroles will call for full-bodied, rich wines. Most people will want to combine red wines with red meat, but what matters is the weight of the wine and not its color. Same applies to lightweight foods such as poultry and fish which should be paired with lightweight, delicate wines.

Flavor Intensity and Characteristics

It is important to understand the most dominant characteristics and elements in wine and food before pairing them. This will be key in fine-tuning the wine to food. Most often, you might realize that the main ingredient in the food might not be what constitutes its dominant flavor. Sometimes it’s the sauce that carries the flavor, and hence you will have to match the wine with the sauce.

Acidity

Fatty foods will go well with acidic wines, having the same effect that lemon has on the greasiness of smoked salmon. Foods can as well be acidic, such as tomatoes, green apples or citrus, including some varieties of grapes.

In this case, you might consider using high-acid wines when vinegar or lemon juice is used as a condiment. Champagne is a good choice for cutting through the oiliness of fish. In short, when considering pairing food with a given wine subscription, you need to first consider the acid in both the wine and the food.

Salt

Pair salty foods with sweet wine. For instance, you could serve some salty nibbles with champagne just before a major meal. Dry wine with some tannins and acidity is a great bet when served with salty foods.

Sweetness

The wine you have chosen should always be sweeter than the food. Always serve wine that is as sweet as the food or sweeter than the food. The sweetness strikes a great balance in the saltiness of the food and the acidity of the wine.

Tannins

This refers to the bitterness that is found mostly in red wines, and are attributed to the skins and stalks that are added to red winemaking. In this case, when food has more texture (fatty and chewy), going for wines with more tannins is excellent. You will realize that when you drink this wine, your gums tend to pucker and dry because your saliva has protein molecules and tannins are attracted to fatty proteins.

Finally, remember that the more the wine matures, the more its tannins subsides, leaving it graceful and delicate. Go for foods with low richness in flavor for this choice of old wines. Try a wine subscription so you can experience different flavors your normally wouldn’t buy as well.

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Why You Should Own A Bidet

Bidets are quite popular Europe, Middle East and Latin America, but are found across the world. They are becoming increasingly popular in the modern market and more people are going for the option of a bidet toilet over conventional bathroom toilets. The reasons are quite obvious and straightforward if you consider why they are designed in the first place.

Essentially, bidet toilets like the Toto S350e combine the conventional design with a basin/sink near the toilet to provide cleanup for the genital areas. It was initially designed for patients of bowel syndrome, hemorrhoids and other conditions, but later adopted for general post-toilet personal hygiene. Bidets include a water stream fixture and appear in almost all modern hotel bathrooms in countries like Japan where bathing is highly revered. So why should you own a Bidet toilet in your home?

The benefits

Having a bidet has several obvious advantages for anyone who wants to establish a germ-free lifestyle. If you take personal hygiene seriously, then adding a bidet to your bathroom can go a long way in ensuring you remain cleansed after visiting the toilet. The two top benefits that call for having a bidet toilet include the following;

• Health advantages

As aforementioned, bidet toilets can provide the necessity needed by those suffering hemorrhoids and inflammatory bowel disease. Unlike toilet paper that can be ineffective and discomforting, a supply of running water can provide the needed cleanup required by such patients without any discomfort. Pregnant women and others with mobility problems like arthritis may also reduce the need for stretching and bending by simply installing a bidet with electronic keypad.

• Green advantages

Eco-conscious societies have always advocated for bidets arguing that they can help conserve more tress as they reduce the need for toilet paper which is often wasted in the toilet. Running water is also obviously a better and safer way to clean up than toilet paper.

There may be other benefits of having a bidet toilet, but most of them fall within the above categories as these fixtures mainly help you achieve improved personal hygiene after visiting the toilet.

The types

When looking for bidet toilets, you will come across various types in the market. A bathroom remodeling may be required as it involves installing extra bidet seat. There are toilets that come with integrated bidets and such options are the best as you will need nothing extra once installed. If that is not an option, you can still use bidet seats that have self-cleaning retracting nozzles to spray warm aerated water once you are done. Other options include a bidet attachments mounted under the toilet seats or even handheld bidets that resemble handheld (spray) showers.

Regardless of the type, you should go for top quality designs that allow easy use, cleaning and maintenance. The best way is to review existing designs to find out how they work and if they suite you unique needs.

Summary

It may just be the right time to rethink your bathroom traditions and add a bidet to help you achieve better hygiene. Water is very efficient in taking baths, washing hands and cloths. Using it to clean your private areas after using the toilet can be a perfect way to keep off infections and germs away from your body while conserving the environment at the same time. So why should you own a bidet toilet? Well, if the benefits are not enough reason, then perhaps adapting to the ongoing trend should be.…