"Open That Bottle Night" 2017 - #OTBN

Photo taken from The New England Scholar under CCL

It's that most wonderful time of year again... No, not FA Cup 5th round weekend; not the qualifying rounds for the Eurovision Song Contest. But, Open That Bottle Night! 

Every year on the last Saturday in February, wine lovers from around the world gather their friends and families around them and celebrate that fact that you don't need a "special occasion" as an excuse for opening that particular bottle you've been holding, instead the opening of that bottle makes the occasion special - and it is always better to enjoy that wine with great company.

What are the origins of "Open That Bottle Night"?

A fair few years ago two journalists who worked for the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, were reflecting on an issue that they and others that they had spoken to had when it came to wine. They found that many people possess "special" bottles of wine: they could be from an auspicious year, perhaps one from a year that has some significance, or from a favourite producer or region. The bottle(s) sit proudly on the wine rack and await their moment of glory. The trouble is that the wine lover wants to celebrate a truly special occasion with this wine and nothing quite seems to hit the mark. The wine waits and waits, as the time passes the requirement for just how special the event is to merit opening the wine becomes greater and greater, and consequently the chances of the wine being opened get lesser and lesser. By the time the wine is eventually opened, it is invariably too late and the wine has spoiled, or else the poor wine lover finds that the wine was corked anyway... 

Gaiter and Brecher felt that rather than looking for a special occasion to open the special bottle of wine, the opening of the special bottle of wine should be an occasion in its own right. After all, what could be better for any wine lover then gathering around friends and family and enjoying that wine that we love so much? To aid this they decided that every year the last Saturday of February should be set aside as the date that wine lovers all around the world come together and open that bottle (or bottles) that they've been saving and spend an evening enjoying them. What a truly wonderful idea.

What am I opening for #OTBN 2017?

Once more I am fortunate in that I am able to celebrate OTBN with my brother and my sister-in-law as they are coming to visit for the weekend. On the Saturday, we have a lovely lunch planned at one of my favourite restaurants, Pollen Street Social; later on in the evening we will head back to my flat and I am planning for us to have a nice, rich Tuscan stew designed to showcase the prodigious wine for the evening, a 2012 Tignanello (Tuscany, Italy). I bought a bottle of Tignanello, one of the famed Super Tuscans, when I was visiting Tuscany last October. In truth, I'd love to hang on to this bottle of wine for a few more years to let it develop a bit further, but conditions in my flat are not perfect for ageing wines so I'd rather drink it now and avoid any chances of it spoiling.

What are you going to open for #OTBN 2017?

I hope that some of you will take this opportunity to open something special for OTBN. Please let us know what you are doing, tag us in photos on Twitter (@vinspireuk), tag me on instagram (@tjmilford) or tag us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/VinspireUK/). It will be great to see how everyone is celebrating...! 

  
  

Alcoholic tips to make Valentine's Day run smoothly

Yuck.

It's Valentine's Day on Tuesday, did you know?

If you have a partner, it's probably pretty awkward at the moment because one of you is trying to keep your plans a secret, and the other one is thinking, "What a dick, they've not even got anything sorted for Tuesday." Classic predicament.

Because I'm pretty much Cupid, just worse to look at and crap with a bow and arrow, I thought my wisdom might come in handy to those of you who are perhaps taking someone out for your first Valentine's evening together. It can be nerve-racking, but if you have ever read any of my other "advice" (I use the term loosely) pieces, you will already know that I speak utter shite good sense.

You've obviously sorted flowers and bowls with floating candles and covering the entire dining room with rose-petals, that's a given. Hell, you probably have the food sorted too right? Something romantic like Oysters, Caviar or a Pot Noodle, but the question still remains: what do you drink?

Laura has already written a great guide of actual, real life, good wines to drink for Valentine's, with names like Passion Has Red Lips, Sexy Beast Cabernet and Love Pole Semillon (I made up Love Pole Semillon, but the others exist), so now she has covered the good ideas, I thought I would quickly go over the not so good ideas.

1. Avoid serving Ron Jeremy's Rum, at all costs. It might give the wrong impression, or the intended impression, which is still the WRONG impression. You don't want to give your partner anything with a long finish that tickles the back of the throat just yet. Come on people, behave.
Hugo wrote about Ron Jeremy's Rum a while back, and it's worth reading.

2. Probably don't drink too much in order to calm your nerves. It's maybe a good idea to knock back a quick shot of whisky, but no more than a shot! Slurring your words and not being able to walk in a straight line is not a good thing. Plus, saying to your date "'ere youuu know what...? I bloody love yooou, I do," could potentially ruin everything for everyone.

3. Sabrage is a no-no at an intimate meal for two. You won't look funny or clever whipping your sword out at the dinner-table. It might come across as a little 'forward', and if the bottle is a little shaken up, you risk soaking your date. NO, that's not good. Stop it.

You see, they do exist...

4. Please don't serve any wines from the Playboy Wine Club range. Giving the impression you wished your lady-date looked more like the girl off the bottle of Zinfandel is a bad thing, and it won't go down well. And yes, there is a range of Playboy wines... Hugh Helfensteiner is up to his old tricks again (if you click the link you will realise that is an outstanding wine joke, feedback on postcards please).

5. Carlsberg do not do Valentine's dates so don't bother drinking Carlsberg until you can't feel the pain of being single on Tuesday 14th, because it won't help. If they did do Valentine's dates though, they would be amazing. Drink craft lager instead if you are on your own, it's tasty.

With a combination of Laura's what to drink piece and these five things to remember, you should be on target for the best Valentine's Day ever. Whether you are an avid fan of the soppiest day of the year, or you just think it's the soppiest day of the year, do something fun.

We would like invitations to the weddings please. Best Man speeches are available upon request...

What have you got planned for Valentine's Day? Let us know by commenting below, or on our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Images taken from JanviSharma, Vinspire & Dracula&stuff's photostreams respectively, under the creative commons license.

The Liquor of Love - Is wine truly a Valentine's Day aphrodisiac?

Liebe. L'Amour. Kjaerlighet.

All words to describe the indescribable feeling of love in different languages (even though the last one in Norwegian sounds a bit like the first word I utter when I'm woken up in the morning...).

Yes, the day that either sends people running to the nearest '3 courses for a tenner' restaurant clutching a garage forecourt-bought bunch of pansies, or battening down the hatches and hunkering down until all the loved-up madness passes by for another year. Valentine's Day has crash landed once again and whether you are a lover or a fighter of it, many glasses and bottles of beer and wine will be consumed over the 24 hours that covers the 14th February.

However, just before you get out the corkscrew and get ready for the hedonistic delights of your favourite bottle of Rouge or Blanc, have you ever thought why wine is considered such an integral part of the courting ritual? Does having a sip of something stronger than strawberry milkshake stir up the passion in the loins? Or could you achieve the pinnacle of romance without sipping the 'Devil's Brew'?

Wine has always been used as the lubricant that oils the pistons of love, ever since the Romans used to fill their amphorae to the brims and ring the bells on their day long 'sexy parties'. The Ancient Greeks had their tipsy God of Wine Dionysus, who was characterised as not only as an over-the-top type of God, but also a charming, playful and (some would say) very erotic kinda guy. Then you also have the famous wine quote 'In Vino Veritas' (or 'In Wine, there's Truth') by the guy who really needed Deed Poll to change his name, way back in 'Before Christ' Greece. Pliny the Elder. It was used then as an explanation as to the spirituality and enlightenment that wine brings, where as we'd interpret it to be be declaring that you fancy the pants off him/her after 2 glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon.

But enough now about 'the good old days', lets crack on with the science behind the statement. Back in 2009, a group of Italian researchers conducted a spot of research into the consumption of red wine and women's sexual libido. and found out that women who consumed on average 2 glasses of red wine a day had a higher sex drive than those who consumed less than 1 glass a day and those who didn't drink at all. What also startled them was that the average age of the women who did drink 2 glasses a day were older than the other 2 groups, when it is commonly assumed that the older a woman gets, the lower her sex drive becomes.

Now, there is no actual nailed on, carved in stone, definitive reason why this was the case, but many experts have pointed to the fact that alcohol stimulates a part of your brain called the horrendously unpronounceable Hypothalamus, which controls the most basic of human functions, such as hunger, body temperature, hormone levels and your sex drive. Other explanations focus more on the fact that red wine contains loads of a compound called Resveratrol (see this article for the benefits of Resveratrol), which help to widen the blood vessels leading to both men's and women's naughty bits, which in turn could lead to a bit of Midnight Athletics.

However, remember the fact that moderation is key. If two glasses of beautiful wine can get you in the mood for a bit of 'slap and tickle', three glasses could lead to you being passed out, snoring by 9pm. Beware!

Looking at different cultures, alcohol has been heralded for many a century as a instigator of passion. In countries such as China and the Korean countries, the mysticism behind potions classed under the label of 'wine' has lead some to be complete devotees of the art, regardless of the murky way they are produced. In the media recently, two Chinese nationals were stopped from taking an 'aphrodisiac wine' through customs, so decided to chug it at the gate before they went through. This 'Tiger Bone Wine', supposedly made from ground up tiger bone gives the imbiber sexual powers. China banned the the sale of any tiger-based products many years ago, but unfortunately its still big business and many people in the Far East still believe in its properties. Adding to this, there is also such things as Snake Wine, where venomous snakes are steeped in rice wine and left to 'mature' for a few months and consumed in shot-type glasses. It is believed to be brilliant for the health and virility, but I don't think we'll be seeing this prescribed on the NHS, thankfully.

Whatever you are doing to celebrate/commiserate this most passionate of days, I truly hope whatever you put in your mouth, makes you happy...

Stop the sniggering at the back there...

Top 10 Romantically-Named Wines for Valentine's Day

EDITED: FEBRUARY 2017 (to update prices and availability)

The big V-Day is just around the corner, and you may be stressing about what to buy your squeeze, but if there's one thing you can easily get right it's the wine. If they like wine, then you probably know the sorts of styles they enjoy, so buying a bottle of vino should be a piece of cake. If you're struggling, however, then you can rest assured they'll probably love a soppy Valentine's wine (well, let's face it, I would) and there are some seriously good options out there.

Here are my top ten romantically-named Valentine's wines:

1. D'Arenberg The Lovegrass Shiraz (£11.65, The Drink Shop)

There's something quite sexy about the name of this wine, and d'Arenberg will always deliver in taste and quality too. Dark, spicy and savoury - a bit of a sensuous one.

2. Little Beauty Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc (£14.95, Davy Wine)

For a lovely, half-arsed, you-could-be-my-girlfriend-or-you-could-be-a-winning-racehorse vibe.

3. Kiss Chasey Shiraz Merlot Nebbiolo Sangiovese (£10.99, Laithwaites)

Although it's a bit of a daft, childish name, the additional Italian grapes in this blend will make an impact, and it's a red that packs a punch with hearty meat dishes.

4. Some Young Punks 'Passion Has Red Lips' (£12.75, Nd John)

We've crushed on Some Young Punks wines before, but there's something seriously sexy about this label, as well as the name. It's also a bloody decent drop of wine from an award-winning team, with generous fruit and an exotic bouquet. Perfect if you're planning a V-Day bolognese.

5. Pretty Gorgeous rose (£8.98, The Drink Shop)

Yeah, not the most commitment-filled statement you could come up with on Valentine's Day, but it's cheap and quite cute.

6. Saint-Amour, Domaine de la Porte du Paradis (£11.50, The Bottle Bank)

This is always popular on the day of lurve, but it's great if you want a genuinely good wine as well as a sweet name. This Beaujolais is light enough to be sippable but sappy enough to stand up to a (romantic) plate of steak and chips.

7. Cloof 'The Very Sexy Shiraz' (£16.00, Amazon)

This South African beauty has a red-writing-on-black label that screams 'erotic fiction' but should actually be a fairly decent drop of spicy, smooth shiraz.

8. Quirky Bird Chenin Semillon Muscat (£4.75, Tesco)

Because sometimes your choice of loved one is a bit mental for all the right reasons.

9. Stormhoek 'Love' Sparkling Moscato (£6.00, Morrisons)

Romantic occasions like this are made for a drop of frothy pink bubbles, and this is just that. Moscato is very hot right now, and this is a low-alcohol, sweet example from South Africa, which will be gorgeous with a light fruit pudding. Or in bed...

10. Sexy Beast Cabernet (£19.99 or £17.99 if you buy six, Majestic)

With a label straight off the Mills and Boon catalogue, this is a 'voluptuous' and 'alluring' wine, which basically couldn't be any more of an innuendo. But it's gorgeous to drink, too.

What will you be drinking on February 14th? Tell us in the comments!

Bollocks to Valentine's Day: Surviving the 14th February one (strong) cocktail at a time

Heart-shaped balloons, teddy bears, overpriced roses and chocolates all point to one, unavoidable fact: it’s Valentine's Day! If you're looking for something special to do with a loved one, see our previous posts, (Valentine's Wines, Bargain Spirits For Your Valentine or Alcoholic Tips To Make Valentine's Day Run Smoothly), but if you are one of the many who hate the mass-produced and (arguably) pointless nature of the V day, read on...

These are simple, last-minute cocktails perfect for toasting your alone-ness. You will either already have the ingredients, or they will be readily available in a local shop, so it won't be tricky to drown your sorrows or raise a glass to being a 'strong, independent human'.

Something Angry

Firstly, if you’re on the war path, and need something red and spicy, it has to be The Ultimate Bloody Mary (feel free to change the person's name to suit):

Ingredients:

• Vodka - a good glug of between 25-35ml (I prefer the crisper styles, like Chase)
• Worcestershire sauce (a lot)
• Tomato Juice (100ml ish)
• Horseradish (a small teaspoon, but add more if you like it hot)
• Tabasco (if you need a little more heat)
• Half a lemon, and celery to finish

Shake it!

1. It’s best to mix the vodka, Worcestershire and horseradish together at the start, then top up with the tomato juice.

2. Make sure you give it a good shake or stir to combine everything, and then pop a little black pepper, a touch of lemon and celery to garnish. 

3. Add the Tabasco to taste, as the horseradish will already give it some warmth.

                           Something Bitter

Feeling bitter about it? Try this classic combination of gin with bitter lemon, for a delicious, easy twist on the classic G&T. The wonderful thing about this is you don’t need to use a great gin; any cupboard staple will do (although I personally try to go for the best quality I can afford). Make it nice and strong, and serve with ice.

Gin in first (as strong as you like), top up with Bitter Lemon (Schweppes do one, and Fever Tree do a bettter one). 

If you’re feeling particularly lonely/bored/have time, you could make your own Bitter Lemon, using this recipe.

Garnish with Lemon; not lime or cucumber. If you did want a little twist, try a lime or orange infused vodka. Tradition is that you drink it without a straw, either in a long glass or in a cheeky martini glass. Bottoms up.

The Ex-Boyfriend (or Girlfriend) cocktail recipe

Ingredients:

• 50ml Orange or Vanilla vodka (normal is fine if you don’t have this)
• 40ml Orange juice
• 40ml Pineapple juice
• 40ml Cranberry Juice 

This is a pretty simple, pretty cheap, but delicious cocktail. The addition of vanilla is a perfect one; if you are unable to get this through the vodka, you can pop a teeny bit of food flavouring in. 

Serve over lots of ice. If you’re having a "Galentine's" get-together, or a party, this works perfectly for a fruity punch with a bold kick of Vodka for good measure.


How are you avoiding Valentine's this year?

Images taken from T Young, Mighty June, LUPEC Phoenix, and willrichard87's photostreams respectively, under the creative commons license.