Well, the grapes have been peeled and the answers revealed! Below are the correct responses to last week's quiz.

1. True or false? Always use the same wine in the sauce that you will serve with the meal.

a. True

b. False

If the dish incorporates wine as a tenderizer/marinade and or is incorporated early-on into the preparation of the dish, you need not be worried about keeping the beverage consistent in dish and in glass. Oftentimes, an inexpensive rustic, hearty red or high acid, non-oaked white will do the trick in the kitchen while a more noble offering will graciously accompany the meal.

However, if the wine is added last, as a finishing agent, then that wine is best served as an accompaniment at table because the flavors will echo.

2. What is the most widely planted grape variety in Champagne?

a. Pinot Noir

b. Chardonnay

c. Pinot Meunier

Pinot Noir leads the plantings with 38 percent; Pinot Meunier clocks in as second with 34 percent. Chardonnay ranks third with 28 percent.

3. How many appellations d'origine controllee (AOCs) does Burgundy possess?

a. 1

b. 10

c. 100

4. Which of the three Loire Valley roses is the driest (i.e. possesses the least amount of residual sugar)?

a. Rose de Loire

b. Rose d'Anjou

c. Cabernet d'Anjou

Rose de Loire is always dry. Rose d'Anjou is required to contain a minimum of 0.7 percent residual sugar; Cabernet d'Anjou must contain at least 1 percent residual sugar.

5. When Christopher Columbus inadvertently discovered America, he sailed from which Mediterranean port and carried which wine on board?

a. Sicily, Marsala

b. Monemvasia, Malvasia

c. Sanlucar de Barrameda, Sherry

6. True or false: Recent research indicates that potent components of red wine will mitigate certain conditions that are brought about by low estrogen levels, such as menopause, osteoporosis and breast cancer.

a. True

b. False

Resveratrol, a heart-healthy, anti-carcinogenic component in red wine, also turns out to be a phytoestrogen. Phytoestrogens are molecules that bind to estrogen-receptor sites within the body just like the real thing. Research is ongoing to see just how effective this compound is in alleviating the impact of menopause and in staving off the onset of osteoporosis and breast cancer.

7. True or false: Cooking wine, available in grocery stores, will substitute for red or white wine in any recipe.

a. True

b. False

Cooking wine is sold in grocery stores because it circumvents a grocery store's need for a liquor license. It is laced with 1 percent salt, so much salt as to make it undrinkable according to federal law. Imagine what this salt-laden, undrinkable product is doing to your recipe, especially if the recipe already calls for salt.

8. Fetzer Vineyards of Mendocino, Calif., made an eco-friendly decision to switch to light-weight glass bottles in 2009. Their decision to drop from a 20.3-oz. bottle to a 17-oz. bottle will reduce their production of greenhouse gases by what percent?

a. 7%

b. 10%

c. 14%

As we know, trees process carbon dioxide and release oxygen. The impact of Fetzer's decision within the span of one calendar year is the environmental equivalent of planting 70,000 trees and growing them for 10 years.

9. Who introduced muscat a petit grains to France?

a. No one. It is indigenous to France.

b. The Phoceans (ancient Greeks)

c. Romans

The Phoceans, Greeks from Asia Minor, settled in Marseille around 600 B.C. and brought muscat with them.

10. Which wine region bottled more "Pinot Noir" from 2005 to 2008 than it had acreage to produce it?

a. Sonoma

b. Languedoc

c. Burgundy

11. Biodynamics, a form of "homeopathic," ultra-organic viticulture was envisioned by...

a. Lucy Morton

b. Rudolf Steiner

c. Philip Wagner

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was a scientific, literary and philosophical scholar of German-Austrian parentage who founded a theory of anthroposophy, a school of thought that describes man and his instinctual understanding of the universe and its energies. Biodynamics was the offshoot of his theory as it applied to agriculture.

12. Statistics have shown that the first drink is consumed within how many minutes?

a. 5

b. 15

c. 25

13. Wine is mostly...

a. Water

b. Alcohol

c. Acid

Wine is mostly water (about 85 percent), anywhere from 9-16 percent alcohol, 0-10 percent sugar, 1 percent acid and .5 percent extract. Extract represents most of the flavor compounds in a glass of wine. The more extract a wine has, the more flavor it possesses. The more extract a wine has, the longer-lasting the finish. The more extract a wine has, the more adjectives you can ascribe to it. The more extract a wine has, the higher the quality.

14. What do the British call "sherry"?

a. Hock

b. Sack

c. Malmsey

15. True or false: It's the sauce, seasoning or preparation technique, not the principal ingredient, itself that makes the match.

a. True

b. False

In most cases, the protein in the dish is merely the conduit by which wine and sauce, seasoning and/or preparation technique meet on the palate.

How did you do?

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