Valentine’s Day is around the corner, making us want to have some sweet talk with you! As you prep up to treat your partner to a delightful evening, we are here to help you end it on a sugary note. No date, on Valentine’s day or otherwise, is complete without the serving of a delectable dessert or a crisp wine by the side. While there are many points discussed about how to pair your dessert with a perfect wine, here is our guide to create some lovely dessert and wine combos for your love!

First and foremost, the primary rule to abide by, while pairing your dessert with wine is- darker the dessert, darker the wine!

Let’s begin with dividing desserts into three categories to ease our guide to a great pairing:

• Chocolates
• Caramel and Nuts
• Fruits, Custards, and Meringues

Chocolate

Chocolate, a classic favorite of all, is considered to be one of the most difficult ingredients to be paired with wine. Although many are of the opinion that it can’t be done, pairing chocolate with wine, choosing the right kind of wine to complement your chocolate can actually be a stellar pairing opportunity. Irrespective of the chocolate being white or dark, owing to its melty, buttery and mouth-coating texture, it’s very important for the wine to be strong enough to penetrate through its bitter-sweet taste. The key here is to make sure that the wine you have chosen is a little sweeter in taste than the chocolate. While a white chocolate, owing to its mellow, buttery flavor, goes well with the sweeter styles of Sherry or Italy’s Moscato d’Asti, a Zinfandel or Cabernet Sauvignon would do more justice to its darker counterpart.

Caramel and Nut

Are you a fan of a rich, thick and creamy sticky toffee pudding or a pumpkin pie or a buttery praline? These desserts, owing to their melty and sticky texture need to be paired with spicy, viscous and velvety, full-body dessert wines. While the ideal choices for such creamy desserts would be sweet Madeira or raisin-y Pedro Ximenez Sherry, Sauternes from Bordeaux or the Château Armajan des Ormes to prove to pair excellently with these thick decadent desserts.

Fruit, Custard, and Meringue

The key of balance a tangy, citrusy fruit-based dessert or a meringue tart is weight! The weight and density of the wine play a major role when paired with a fruit-based dessert. Either fresh fruit flan or custard is going well with a tangy-sweet wine. For example, a dessert like Pavlova, made with fresh fruits and cream, making an excellent pairing with a sweet, orangey Chapoutier’s Muscat de Beaumes de Venise. Another delicious wine that matches up well to the tanginess of a meringue or a fruit pastry is Riesling Pinot Blanc.

These were the top basic tricks for an excellent wine and dessert pairing. Although different desserts, based on their taste and texture, require to be paired with different wines, it is very important for the wine’s original flavor and aroma to be released well to tickle the taste buds. LUCARIS’s crystal wine glassware, equipped with the Aerlumer technology, helps the wine to oxygenize better, thus bringing out its authentic aroma

So irrespective of the dessert you choose for your date night, do not forget to pair it with a delicious wine served in LUCARIS glassware.

The holiday season is over but who says that you need a reason to sip on some fine wine? Although we all relish a glass of this refreshing elixir once a while, there are a very few who know the secrets to enjoy wine like a pro! Wine etiquette, a term that often haunts a large number of wine lovers, however, is only presumed to be difficult than it actually is. Here are 5 exciting tips from our guide to enjoy wine to the fullest.

Wine and Dine Pairing

Wine experts around the globe are known to create unusual food and wine pairings, however, for a wine amateur dealing with wine 101, here’s a simple deal- White with White Meat and Red with Red Meat. While a numerous factors ranging from flavor, weight, acidity and sweetness of the wine are taken into consideration while pairing, this is a great start for a beginner. So, while a chicken or fish based dish goes well with a Blanc, you would want to opt for a Rouge to enhance the taste of a mutton or beef delicacy.

Selecting the right glass

The shape and structure of a wine glass can have a significant impact on the tasting experience. The shape and size of the glass has a significant effect on the quantity of air that comes in contact with the drink, the whiff that reaches your nose and the point where the wine touches your tongue. Various factors like the shape of the bowl, size and thickness of the stem and the rim alter your wine tasting experience.

LUCARIS stemware has been meticulously designed and crafted to the smallest details, to ensure the highest in functionality and aesthetic quality that evoke all senses, meeting the demands of wine lovers.
Its Aerlumer® technology encourages micro-oxidation and softens the wine while swirling as it allows diversified interaction between wine and air, intentionally subtle to avoid effects when discovering colors of wines.

Your wine needs to breathe too

Wines stay trapped in bottles for years before they are opened. Hence, it’s very necessary to let your wine get a whiff of some fresh air before you drink it. The process, known as aeration, exposes your wine to the air, helping it release its aromas, thus making your wine richer in taste.

LUCARIS decanters are precisely designed to aerate your wine and separate it from the sediment, thus enhancing its look, flavor, aroma and taste.

Let your wine ‘chill’

Holding the glass in your hand for a long time warms up the wine inside. So does leaving the bottle in open. Temperature of the wine impacts the taste to a great extent and can lead to a not-so-great experience. While the perfect temperature depends upon the type of wine you are drinking, it’s still recommended to refrigerate your bottle before opening, till it cools down to the right temperature. And if you are still bothered by your wine warming up a little as you sip it, here’s a pro tip for you. While ice-cubes are a clear no-no for the fear of watering up your wine, you might want to consider freezing a few grapes and placing them in your glass. Frozen grapes act as the nano-versions of wine-chiller sticks that have been gaining brownie points amongst wine-enthusiasts lately.

Just enjoy it

The foremost key having a good wining time is to sit back, relax and enjoy every sip of it. While you might get to pick up the right wine-dine pairs, glassware and other nitty-gritties for a perfect evening, it is important to have a relaxing frame of mind to truly and thoroughly relish the drink.

LUCARIS helps you by providing you the right wine glass in an exemplary quality of crystal, thereby assuring you a superior wine-tasting experience.

Here are five tips for you to enjoy your wine party to the fullest. Do try them all and let us know if you liked them in the comments section below!

The wine market in India, although in a nascent stage, is rapidly growing owing to the drink’s increasing popularity in the younger generations. Wine has been traditionally known to be a Ladies’ drink owing to men’s preference for stronger beverages like rum, whisky and vodka that get you high quicker. However, recently, wine has been witnessing an increase in its number of fans due to its sweeter taste as compared to other spirits.

Although wine has become a favorite drink for many for occasions like a business dinner or an intimate date with your loved ones, not many are well-versed with the trends dominating the wine-industry.

Here’s our guide on the top most wine-trends to look out in 2019

1. Wine Slushies

Who doesn’t like slurping on a delicious, chilled, fruity slush to beat the summer heat? Summers of 2019 are predicted to be dominated by some delicious and heady wine slushies. With a major fan base on Pinterest, wine slushies gained popularity in 2018 and are predicted to be consumed more in 2019. With wine blended with fruit and ice into a slurpee, frozen drink, these Instagram-worthy potent slushies are already a favorite in the western countries and are more-likely to gain popularity among Indian millennials this year.

2. Increase in demand for Bordeaux Wine

With a rich aroma and taste, Bordeaux wine has been the top most favorite among wine connoisseurs. Although a traditional classic, the Bordeaux, however was losing popularity due to a tough competition and high prices, primarily in younger wine drinkers. Nevertheless, owing to a thrust from the Bordeaux region, the traditional classic is predicted to make a comeback to the list of millennial favorites in 2019!

Lucaris tip – The Bordeaux glass from Lucaris’ Shanghai Soul collection is the perfect container that allows the full-bodied red wine to breathe and develop its aroma. Its thin rim lets the wine flow onto the tongue smoothly making it an ideal glass to enjoy this classic drink.

3. Rosé Lovers

The once belittled Rosé gained supremacy among other competing wines in 2018. An Instagram favorite that gained popularity in the millennials as their favorite selfie accessory has however become one of their most loved drinks for its sweet, fruity favor. With the coming year, the Rosé is predicted to carve a larger fan-base in the younger generation looking for a milder drink to pair with their meals.

Lucaris tip – The Cabernet glass from Lucaris’ Hong Kong Hip Collection is perfect for sipping this delicious fruity wine. Its tall, medium glass bowl allows the wine to breathe well and develop its aroma.

4. Biodynamic Wines

“Let the wine make itself” is the way to win this year! Organic biodynamic wines made with minimum intervention are predicted to be on a rise in 2019. Made with organically cultivated grapes, these biodynamic wines are made with a holistic method, without leaving any impact on the Earth. More and more wineries are adapting this sustainable method of vinification, thus contributing to this upcoming trend of New Year!

5. Saké

A Japanese rice wine, made by fermenting polished rice, the Saké, for a long time, has been served only at exclusively traditional Japanese restaurants. However, with an increase in demand for this Japanese specialty, the Saké is predicted to be served more than wine and cocktail lists outside of Japanese restaurants. With low alcohol content, the Saké is sure to be one of your favorite wines in 2019.

Here are the top 5 trends to watch out for being enjoy a winelicious 2019! Tell us your favorite one in the comment section.

There are few mysteries and missions as pleasurable and rewarding in their pursuit as seeking out greats wines and here’s some ways how! If it is a secret at all, there certainly isn’t one but several that lead to the holy grail of great wine. And like the discovery of great wine, the journey that leads up to tasting the ferment is worth savoring almost as much. The secrets range from scouring the world’s hundreds of wine regions teeming with estates for their finest bottles to reading hardback tomes authored by the foremost professionals or waiting years on a bottle stored away in the basement cellar to age towards its finest expression. Sometimes it can be as lucky and simple as being floored by a friend whose lugged back a bottle from his travels. None of these routes to great wine can amount to anything without that single pervasive element – the wine glass. The crystal wine glass  to be specific and much like wine, there are many styles, specific to varietal and region. In this regard, LUCARIS, Asia’s First Crystal Wine Glassware , delivers crystal stemware of world-class quality that allows for the best expression of the wine to emerge. A combination of a laser cut rim, colourless glass, an oversize bowl, seamless stem and the stability of flat base translate into a sublime wine tasting experience – the LUCARIS crystal wine glass is perhaps the finest means to finding great wine. So, the secret to finding great wine rolls from an effort to fortune to fine glassware and more so the journey itself is as enticing as the moment that one tastes the sublime ferment.

It all begins with knowing your palate – the varietals and styles of wine you prefer. Sure, there are certain standards of quality that all fine wine has to adhere to but beyond that, it falls to personal tastes. Sublime wines have been coaxed out of a few notable varietals as well as by using a particular approach to wine making. The greatness of wine is relative to and subject to your palate. One’s notion of great wine could be the opposite for another. Case in point are aged Bordeaux red wines that some consider the finest epitome of red wine and yet others consider too heavy and tannic and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for instance is loved by many for its ripe fruit forward palate but those who prefer an austere white wine style find this fruity turn a bit overwhelming. Gaining clarity about then type and styles of wine one prefers while still keeping an open mind to tasting new wines, is perhaps one of the important foundations of finding and enjoying great wine. So taste away at every opportunity to the heart’s content not just for the sheer pleasure of it but to discover the sort of wines you might grow to love.

Now, while it in fact is mostly about tasting, reading up as a compliment to the vigorous tasting can only help and cast the light in perhaps the right direction. Reading up on wine styles written up in a less technical, casual, style connects with one’s palate preferences. For instance, this hack personally stumbled upon the very underrated South Australian region of Connawarra which produces bold, ripe and tannic cabernets which are one of his most preferred styles. Tasting the wines subsequently was a moment of instant connect and the pre-reading did help. Additionally, reading up on expert wine tasters who sip and spit their way through thousands of wine and publish tasting notes and marks is another reliable guide. This particular exercise is riddled with pleasant surprises because every so often, one can stumble upon a sterling wine at attractive prices. Do however keep in mind the fact that much like us all, experts have personal preferences too.

There’s something about the space of creation that sets wine apart from its fermented parallels because there’s some much about the environment and the wine makers that play a role in the how potentially good the wine turns out to be. And it’s not just about tasting great wine but the different elements that make up the whole grand experience such as wandering the vast, manicured vineyards and being let into dark, old cellars containing rare vintage wines. And if one is lucky enough, having the wine-maker uncork a bottle from his or her personal collection for a generous tasting session. There are also many cases of certain labels and vintages being available only at the winery cellar. Some veteran wine enthusiasts veritably brim with stories of fortuitous discoveries made at wineries so yes, these certainly are a reliable choice of venue to search out great wines.

What makes the discovery of wine such a tantalizing prospect is that this can happen by having to taste through hundreds of wines or make continental journeys to several vineyards or by exercising patience in a quite, dark corner of one’s own home. Not every wine, when bottled, is destined for greatness but when aged properly and many years, can achieve a sublime expression. Wine unlike spirit can age in the bottle and while not every wine gets better with age, some wines are deliberately produced in a manner that requires them to be put down in a cellar for a few years before these are best to drink. While this holds true for a large number of red wines, some white wines, especially Chardonnay , also have great ageing potential. Over time, the critical balance between fruit, tannins, alcohol and oak eases out and the character of the wine evolves. Patience is a virtue and in this case, perhaps the root the immaculate delights.

Most people sort of know that wine glasses  are primarily meant for drinking wine from, but few wonder about why that it is. Well, the importance of the wine glass extends beyond just drinking wine to perhaps also seeking out and enjoying the great stuff. Simple exercises have stirringly shown how great wine poured into rock glasses or thick, non-crystal glasses taste mediocre to poor which is a tragedy for the maker and taster alike.  The architecture and material of the wine glass is inarguably crucial to tasting wine well. Unleaded crystal wine glasses  are indispensable to the exercise of discerning and tasting wines. It’s important to point out in that context that all of LUCARIS is lead-free crystal glass.

When it comes to discovering great wine, the role of specific red and white wine varietal glasses or even region specific glasses are important for the wine to show near perfectly. For instance, a bulbous crystal red burgundy glass  is the best choice to mine for the French region’s best Pinot Noir. In fact LUCARIS has fine, dedicated Red Burgundy glasses as part of the Tokyo Temptation and Hong Kong Hip collections. These glasses, with their contemporary design of oversized glass bowl and fine rim, the glass is best for serving Pinot Noir. In another similar case, it takes a specific compact tulip shape to discern the delicate fruity and honeyed notes of Germanic Riesling. For the Riesling too, LUCARIS has an exclusive glass in the ranges mentioned earlier, with the bowl and stem designed to allow the white wine to develop its aroma and maintain its cool temperature. And that’s a couple of instances. There are many more wine glass variants and decanters and nosing and tasting tips and plenty more advice about finding great wine. The objective of none of it is to intimidate or deter the wine enthusiast in us all but rather to spur us on this sumptuous mission. This was all but a small taste of it. Cheers! To know more about the award-winning Lucaris collections, visit http://bit.ly/2PbZXCS

The key to cooking sumptuous dinner is the balance of tastes; sweet, sour, oily, spicy, salty and etc., and just the same way to choose the right wine with the right food. The challenge is that the individual’s perception and palate vary from one person to another and from time to time. There is no right or wrong yet the fundamental stays the same below.

1. Salty

It is said that salty tasting food is a playing safe type of food to pair with wine because the saltiness reduces the alcohol pungency, tannin and oaky aroma while it enhances the body of the wine. Moreover, a salty food adds more taste dimension when paired with high acidity wine.

If you want to pair high acidity wine with food, try using a wine glass with tall body like Lucaris Desire Crisp White or Lucaris Riesling to enhance the refreshing and vibrant tastes of the wine.

2. Sweet

A wine having a distinctive fruity taste is not a good choice to pair with sweet dishes. The sweet food taste will overwhelm the wine details and it will also draw out sour, bitter and pungent alcohol tastes. For those who would like to insist, pairing sweet wine with sour-tasting food, or the other way around, is also good to try.

In pairing with sweet wines, choose the food with comparable levels of sweetness so it matches or compliments the whole taste pairing. We recommend Lucaris Desire Universal which can serve both red wine and white wine and even rose wine or Lucaris Shanghai Soul Grappa to serve dessert wines with a level of sweetness.

3. Umami

The word umami may refer to “MSG” (monosodium glutamate) in some Asian countries. Well, it is actually a Japanese word which means delicious food, which is not easily explained in text on how it actually is. The umami taste is different from the sweet, salty and sour tastes but it is a delicious taste that you get from pork broth, chicken soup or Chinese-style mushroom soup.

The challenge is not from the difficulty of defining umami but it is to that unwanted domination of alcohol pungency, bitterness and sour acidity while the refreshing fruity taste and body of the wine are diminished. For example, the umami tasting foods that are easy to pair with are menus containing asparagus, eggs, mushrooms and Sot cheese, while those with smoked fish, meat and hard cheese are difficult to pair with wine.

Pair umami foods with wine of low tannin level and high fruity taste. If you are choosing white wine, serve it in Lucaris Desire Rich White which will enhance the aroma but if you are going for red wine, try Lucaris Desire Robust Red or Shanghai Soul Burgundy Grande with shorter body as it will help soften the wine taste and its tulip-shaped mouth enables to spread the fruity sense all over your palate.

4. Sour

Sour foods have an advantage in pairing with wine since it compliments to the sweetness and fruitiness of the wine while it reduces the acidity creating a balance to the overall taste of wine. However, do not choose a wine that contains lower acidity than that of the food as it dominates all the details in a wine.

Wines with refreshing acidity are white wines like Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling or Pinot Grigio and enhance its taste by serving with Lucaris Desire Crisp White or Lucaris Riesling.

5. Bitter

Foods with bitter taste are a favorite dish to some certain groups of people. In pairing a menu with a character of bitterness, tannin and oaky tastes will be focused as well as the bitter taste. However, those who do not like bitter taste, we do not recommend you to try this pairing since it is not your palate type.

To alleviate the bitter wine taste, use the glass with Aerlumer innovation like our Lucaris Desire Robust Red for your red wine and Lucaris Desire Rich White for your choice of white wine. The innovation enhances the micro-oxidation of wine.

6. Spicy

Most Asian people are used to eat spicy foods but their level of toleration on spiciness differs from one person to another. The spicy taste heightens alcohol pungency, bitterness, and sourness, while it decreases the body, aroma and fruitiness of wine.

Do not choose a wine with high level of alcohol and tannin to go along with spicy dishes. The choice should be a wine with sweet and refreshing fruity flavors. If you want to go for red, choose Merlot, Grenache or Malbec served in Lucaris Desire Robust Red, Lucaris Burgundy Grande or Lucaris Burgundy. But if you are going for white, look for Moscato or Gewürztraminer and serve them in Lucaris Desire Rich White and Lucaris Chardonnay.

These are the basic knowledge in choosing the perfect choice of wines to pair with your favorite dishes like a pro. But there is another thing which you cannot neglect about and that is on choosing your wine glass. When done right, it improves the overall taste and details of wine while it reduces some undesired elements, giving you a remarkable food and wine pairing experience. If you are interested in any of our Lucaris Wine Glass, you may place your order online from Wine-Now, Central and Lazada.