With Valentine’s Day comes gifts, chocolate and—you guessed it!—wine. This romantic season, take the guessing out of the gifting game as Sarina Garibović, certified sommelier and owner of Ženska Glava, answers a few burning wine questions.
Are rosés still a thing? Yes. It’s a thing and somms want to make rosé popular all year round because the idea that you can only drink it in the summer and only crisp varieties from southern France isn’t really true. There are beautiful examples from Germany, Austria and California. It also has the ability to age, so a rosé that is not from [this year] is totally fine. In fact, seek out a rosé with a couple of years of age and see how it goes. It’s basically a very light red wine, so its strength is in pairing, like a white wine, but with some structure of red wine.
What makes a good cooking wine? I usually have a couple of unfinished bottles of wine in the fridge that I use for cooking. If you cook so much that you need specific cooking wine, go for something in the middle because the problem with low quality wines is the addition of so many things that they’re not worth using …. If you care about the ingredients you put in your food, you should care about the sourcing of your wine for cooking. So, also consider responsibly produced wine.
What’s the best bottle to give as a gift? ... If you want a high impact, fancy gift, Champagne. Though there are sparkling wines that can be just as good and at a lower price point. [Garibović also recommends gifting magnums (larger bottles that hold as much wine as two standard bottles) because they have a celebratory impact.] —Angela Johnson
