A toast to better health in the New Year
I haven't made any New Year resolutions for 2003: I've decided it's enough to feel guilty about all the 'bad for me' things I do. Consequently, there's no need to increase the guilt by habitually breaking naive resolutions by the second Saturday night of every January.
However, those pre-Christmas parties, the festive gluttony and accompanying vinous excess do have me contemplating a slightly healthier regime - at least for the next 10 days or so. A few salads, some fresh fruit and a little less alcohol are definitely the way to go. Luckily this does not have to mean putting the wine glasses away. It just means temporarily shunning the wines with high alcohol content and trying some delicious wines that have alcohol levels of only five to 10 per cent.
A crisp, steely, elegant German riesling is a great start. Whether you prefer a dry or slightly sweeter drop, the cold northern European climate will seldom allow high alcoholic levels in this wine. The lack of warmth will just not allow the grapes to fully ripen. As a result, fermentation will quickly turn the small amount of sugar in the grape juice to alcohol. A dry German riesling will rarely achieve an alcohol level in excess of eight per cent. Some of the delectably sweet Trockenbeerenauslese dessert wines made from dried shrivelled grapes may only reach 5.5 per cent. However, the enormous calorific content provided by the high sugar level would be a little self-defeating this week.
If you plan to meet friends today for lunch, choose a Portuguese restaurant. Order some grilled sardines and a couple of bottles of vinho verde. Typically between eight and 10 per cent alcohol, this is a light, fresh, fruity and slightly acidic wine. Indeed, with one obscure exception, the wine is not allowed to be termed vinho verde if the alcoholic barometer passes 11.5 per cent.
The Italians also have their share of low-alcohol wines. Probably the most famous and also the most scorned is the sweet, sparkling Asti Spumante. Those who have not purchased this recently will be interested to learn the term Asti Spumante no longer exists. In 1994, Asti Spumante was elevated to Denominazione d'Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) status and renamed simply Asti. This light, slightly sweet sparkling wine is made from moscato bianco grapes grown in the Piedmontese provinces of Asti, Cuneo and Alessandria. The majority of the grapes are bought up by negociants (wine merchants) such as Cinzano, Martini & Rossi and Riccadonna, turned into 75 million bottles of sparkling wine each year and exported to the United States, Britain and Germany.
In terms of sparkling wine production, the Asti method is unique. Initially, sweet grape juice is fermented to about six per cent. At this stage the still wine is quickly chilled and filtered to cease further fermentation. The second step is to add sugar and selected yeasts and enclose the fermenting wine in a sealed tank. Because the tank is sealed, the carbon dioxide created during fermentation is absorbed into the wine and forms the bubbles. When the correct alcoholic strength is achieved (DOCG law states this must be between seven and 9.5 per cent) the now sparkling wine is filtered, chilled and bottled under pressure.
Most people agree the 'methode champenoise', in which the wines receive the second fermentation in the bottles, produces the greatest sparkling wines with the finest bubbles; however, it is an expensive process. The large-scale production of Asti and its sealed-tank fermentation keep costs low and it retails here in Hong Kong for about $90.
Asti is currently undergoing a renaissance in Italy and enjoys an increasingly sophisticated image with connoisseurs who know when and how to drink it. The secret is to serve it chilled with fruit-based desserts. Summer pudding or a plate of exotic sliced fruits come alive when accompanied by a flute of Asti.
There, I'm feeling healthier already.
