Wine is often a great gift option, and luckily, Natalie MacLean, author of the award-winning Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass has shared some clever tips for figuring out just what wine to buy for those tricky gift recipients. Natalie, also the winner of four James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards and many others, writes the website NatDecants, an incredible go-to for wine lovers and the place for food and wine pairing tips. Looking for a wine to go with your holiday feasts?

When you are done reading Natalie’s gift-buying tips, go straight to my favorite part of Natalie’s site, Wine & Food, and enjoy!

Pairing wines with personalities for gift shoppers—there’s an app for that (and a web site)

New York, November 18, 2010 — “Wine is one of the few presents that makes both the giver and the receiver look good,” says Natalie MacLean, the red-nosed e-sommelier behind www.nataliemaclean.com, one of the largest wine web sites. “You look like you spent a bundle on the gift (even if you didn’t) and the recipients are happy that you think they know something about wine (even if they don’t).”

This holiday season, anyone can tap into MacLean’s expertise via her free web site and mobile apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid and other smartphones. They help consumers with a whole new type of pairing: wine with the people on your Christmas shopping list. The app and site also pair wines to thousands of dishes, including holiday favorites, such as turkey, goose, duck, and even partridge in a pear tree.

“When you give wine, doubles are fine, there are no wrong sizes and you can always find something good in stock,” MacLean adds. “Vintage gifts will get anyone into the holiday spirits.”

Natalie’s Top Ten Gift Wines for Your …

1. Hairdresser: For the person who combines humor and optimism every time she styles your mop. Go for a light, gulpable wine like a dry rosé. It’s versatile and fuss-free—a great quaff for your coif.

2. Psychiatrist: Of course, he’ll analyze whatever you give him so choose a wine that’s all about balance. Easy-drinking pinot noir is medium-bodied yet packed with flavor. Surprise him with a large-format bottle, like a magnum. Big thinking means big progress for you. This wine also works for psychologists, marriage counselors and bartenders.

3. The Boss: Pick too pricey a wine and your boss will think your last raise was too much; go cheap, and she’ll think you lack judgment. Focus on a label with a lot of white space since that makes the bottle look more expensive. A castle in the distance also works, but avoid fluffy animals.

4. Personal Trainer: Think a muscular, robust red would work? Hold that position. Instead, try Riesling: this light white wine pairs well with a health-nut diet of salad and seafood, plus it’s low in alcohol. You can also give it to Pilates instructors, yoga masters and Tai Chi coaches.

5. Financial Planner: You and he both know it’s going to take decades before your portfolio recovers after the crash of 2008. With that long-term view, vintage port makes the perfect gift. This fortified wine from northern Portugal, with its long aging potential, will be around for both of you into your retirements.

6. Travel Agent: She’s been everywhere and seen everything, so go local with your choice of wine. Even better, if you live close to the winery, get the bottle signed by the winemaker.

7. Teacher: If you can’t find a suitably obscure wine with a Latin name, there’s always cream sherry. It’s the tipple of Oxford dons, not to mention the centerpiece of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story The Case of the Amontillado.

8. Mail Deliverer: Go for a winery that’s consistent year after year in producing a wine that can be enjoyed in snow, rain, sleet or hail. Try an Australian shiraz or Argentine Malbec.

9. Mechanic: Yes, there’s a wine called Red Truck, but try to be more imaginative. Why not give a wine made by Mario Andretti in California or Ferrari in Italy?

10. Online Date: So you’re on your second or third rendezvous with the person you met on eHarmony or Dating.com. If you’re not sure yet whether marriage is a possibility, try something middle-of-the-road, like merlot. Yes, it’s the soft jazz of wine, but until you know, play it safe.

And after all that shopping, don’t forget yourself: even Santa’s little helpers need more than milk and cookies. Try something with high-alcohol like Italian Amarone or Rhone Syrah: these big reds easily drown out tone-deaf caroling and pair beautifully with tired feet.

For Natalie’s favorite wineries, tasting notes and recipe matches for all the wine types mentioned above, please visit:

http://bit.ly/GiftWines

Live in the Boston area? Check out the Red White Boston app to help you find your closest wine stores and the wines they recommend this time of year!

Do you ever give wine as a gift? Do you have a standard favorite that you prefer?

Technorati Tags: holidays, Natalie MacLean, wine, wine and food pairing

Earlier this week I took some inspiration from The O2 Diet and made
salmon salad stuffed cucumber boats. Now, the actual recipe called for a chicken, in addition to a bunch of other ingredients, but I improvised. I wanted to use salmon because of my informative afternoon at For the Health of it on Friday, and luckily we had some high quality canned salmon in the house.
Little secret. . . I actually buy this as a treat for my cats, and I decided to try some last week. Its tasty!  And it is nice to keep on hand. Sometimes its nice to have some non perishable items. With our crazy schedules, food, especially fish, sometimes goes bad before we can eat it!

I started out by draining all of the liquid and giving it to the kitties.
They were very happy I mixed the salmon with a good shake of curry powder, 2 chopped apples, and 3 spoonfuls of 0% Greek yogurt.

I stirred everything together, then put it in the fridge to chill while I worked on the other components of the meal, roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes.
When we were ready to eat, I cut a cucumber lengthwise, scooped out the seeds, and stuffed the halves with the salmon salad.

With Brussels roasted to perfection. this quick dinner provided enough fruit, veggies, and protein, along with a mix of flavors and textures. The cucumbers were SO crunchy!

I originally planned on pairing this with Sauvignon Blanc, which I think would have gone really well with this dinner. However, you might recall that earlier this week we had a never ending monsoon, and long, cold, gray days. As a result, we decided on a lighter bodied red, the first Pinot Noir produced by our favorite local winery, Travessia Urban Winery. You may have seen write ups on Travessia’s wine in earlier posts, one about their wine club event and the Coastal Wine Trail kickoff.

Light in color and body, this wine differs from Travessia’s other wines in that it is not made with Massachusetts grapes. Rather, it is made from Russian River Valley grapes. It is a very easy to drink wine, smooth, silky with a delicious hint of cherry. It went very well with our dinner despite the fact that it was a fish dish, and I can see it pairing well with many different meals. Its a good food wine that I would drink well into the summer because of its lightness.

If you live in New England and haven’t tried Travessia wine yet, you should!

And because she’s so cute and can open cabinets herself, a photo of Smuckers

I hope its a beautiful day wherever you are today. Enjoy it!

P.S. If you live in the Boston/Cambridge, MA area, there is a great event going on this Tuesday, March 25, at the Seaport World Trade Center. Cooking for a Cause benefits East End House . According to the press release I received:

“East End House has been offering vital programs and services to children, families, and individuals in East Cambridge, Cambridge and the surrounding communities for one hundred and thirty-five years. Currently, they  offer affordable, nationally accredited childcare and after school care, a middle school out-of-school-time program, a one-on-one mentoring program for at-risk youth, an innovative youth science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program, emergency food assistance, senior support services, and volunteer and community outreach programs. With your help, we will continue to offer high quality programs that meet growing community needs.”

Cooking for a Cause features a long list of amazing local chefs like Jody Adams from Rialto, where I dined this week, along with other favorites of mine including Dante DeMagistris from Dante, Andy Husbands of Tremont 647, Will Gilson from Garden at the Cellar, and the amazing Tony Maws from Craigie on Main in addition to many others. Help a great cause while eating food from Boston’s best!

Also, just a reminder that my ALLY Foundation raffle ends THIS WEEKEND. To encourage entries, I have changed the raffle pricing. $10 gets you 2 entries, $15 gets you 4 entries, and $20 gets you 6 entries.

The prizes?

$100 gift card to Williams Sonoma

A mixed case of wine from Wine Cellar of Stoneham

A custom granola blend from me & goji

One month membership to all Healthworks Fitness Centers

A private tour and tasting for 10 at Westport Rivers winery

Visit htttp://firstgiving.com/meghanmalloyteamally  for information on The ALLY Foundation and on my Boston Marathon fundraising!

Technorati Tags: Food, Pinot Noir, salmon, wine, wine and food pairing

This week’s wine and food pairing is actually from last Friday. I worked from home which is one of my favorite things ever. Without having to waste the time of a commute, I got SO much done and was able to throw together an easy spinach lasagna.

I started out with about 4 cups of fresh baby spinach.

And a 14 ounce can of Trader Joe’s marinara sauce, which I doctored up with extra garlic, basil, oregano, and a teeny glug of olive oil.

The filling was a large container of part-skim ricotta, one whole egg, a handful of nutty, salty parmesan, and a cup of part-skim mozzarella.

I used the “no boil” lasagna noodles. Starting with a layer of sauce in the bottom of a glass baking dish, I layered sauce and spinach, noodles, cheese filling, sauce, etc. The recipe I was roughly following called for another cup of mozzarella sprinkled on top, but we really didn’t need it.

Cover tightly with foil and bake at 375 for about 40 minutes. For the last 4 minutes, I put the broiler on which resulted in bubbly brown deliciousness.

For the wine pairing, I broke into the latest wine that we bought at the Bin Ends fine wine flea market. We tasted a few Sicilian wines there and decided to add a few bottles to our rack.

On this particular evening, we opened a Cossentin Nero d’Avola. This Sicilian wine was a perfect match. Dark red and tasting of dark berries and a little bit of anise, this wine worked well with the richness of the cheese as well as the acidity of the tomato sauce. We have another bottle of this Nero d’Avola left as well as a bottle of Francesco Nicosia Nero d’Avola waiting for us at Bin Ends. I love trying new grapes! The Nicosia wine that we ordered has the perfect blend of fruit with a hint of black pepper which I LOVE in a wine, so I will definitely be giving that its own post once we go pick it up!

Are you ready for the weekend?! I am so happy its almost here and more than looking forward to getting my 21 mile run. . . and my longest pre-Boston Marathon run over and done with!

What are you doing this weekend? Does it involve wine?

Technorati Tags: Food, lasagna, Sicily, wine, wine and food pairing

The white Bordeaux is a lovely pale straw color as you can see here on a sunny spring-like day

The nose was slightly floral and woodsy with a very mild citrus fruit taste. Its a very easy wine to drink, not a white that makes you pucker because its too acidic, and not at all buttery or oaky like a Chardonnay. It was perfect chilled for just about an hour as it was cold but still warm enough to really let all of those flavors come out. I am very grateful to the Life Goes Better with Bordeaux campaign for introducing me to another white wine that I like. With warmer days upon us, I have been looking at our wine rack and thinking we may have too much red I had never tried white Bordeaux before, and I love that I had the opportunity to try this bottle. Life Goes better with Bordeaux is hosting an event in Boston this May, and I am looking forward to trying more Bordeaux wine, both at the event and before then! If you haven’t checked out their website, do, as it provides helpful suggestions for Bordeaux wine based on the wines you already know you like.

Since it was such a lovely day, and I was feeling super fit and healthy after my run, I decided on simple salads with lots of yummy ingredients to go with the wine.

Its funny how I pretty much never get sick of salads, because I am constantly buying new ingredients to add to them. Its a great way to fit in many servings of fruits and veggies at the end of the day. Plus its a nice way to get out of cooking if you just worked a whole day and had a big workout

Our Monday night salad was a base of baby spinach (about 3 cups for each of us) topped with shredded cabbage, avocado, beets, pickled vegetables, olives, jalapenos, carrots, and Trader Joe’s mango chicken sausage. With all of those yummy flavors, you don’t even need dressing! The zing and the crunch of the pickled veggies especially bring a lot of deliciousness to the salad without adding any fat. The salad went great with the wine, and I suspect the wine would go great with any light meal or mild cheese. As the representative that sent me the wine noted, it would be great for a picnic! Ahhh dreaming of wine country picnics

What are your favorite salad toppings? Is a salad enough to fill you up as a meal, or do you like to eat something else with it?

Have you enter my Secrets of a Skinny Chef giveaway? It ends on Friday, and my charity raffle for The ALLY Foundation and the chance to win a $100 Williams Sonoma gift card, in addition to a bunch of other great prizes, ends on my birthday, March 20! Since its charity Tuesday on Twitter, might you consider helping me spread the word today? I’d appreciate it!

Technorati Tags: Bordeaux, Food, giveaway, salad, wine, wine and food pairing