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Wine & Food
The economy and other factors have turned more and more people towards dining at home or hosting parties. This cold Ohio winter hasn’t made me excited about going out and about either. At-home dinners and dinner parties are getting savvier as the food industry has continued to bring us new cooks, recipes, movies and products right to our TVs, email accounts, and supermarkets.

Our tastes in beverages are also branching out.Wine and beer tastings are more popular than ever and even the smallest groceries are working hard to bring variety to their shelves. While some view this as wonderful, others (like me) are slightly overwhelmed by the presentation of options. If I make it proudly home with a selection, I then become overwhelmed with figuring out the best way to serve my offerings. What is the perfect beverage to accompany the perfect meal? How do you serve the perfect beverage to bring out the flavors as the brewers and sommeliers intended?

Let’s start very basic. First, if there is a particular wine that you love no matter what the meal, by all means drink it! Wine tasting and pairings should be an enjoyable experience and what you end with should be based on your own tastes and preferences so experiment away! The following suggestions are just that: suggestions based on which wines will bring out the best in a given food and vice versa. Test them out for yourself to see what works with your palate. Also, as a general rule, in the same way you start a meal with lighter, more delicate tastes (in appetizers and salads) and work your way towards the hearty/heavier, you do the same with wine – working from light to dark. Reds go nicely with heavier foods and aren’t normally served with appetizers.

The Basics
White Wine
Most common white wines:
Chardonnay: most popular white wine variety, dry white wine in a range of flavors: buttered, oak, fresh fruit

Pinot Grigio: crisp, dry white wines with smooth overtones

Sauvignon Blanc: light- to medium-bodied white wine that is crisp and refreshing with a range of flavors

Riesling: dry to sweet, light to full-bodied, very fresh in taste and versatile in food pairings. Typically apple, peach, pear, and floral undertones

Paired best with: appetizers, soft cheeses, fish, seafood, chicken, pork, and pasta with white sauce

Red Wine
Most common red wines:
Cabernet Sauvignon: big, full bodied and tannic, one of the best varieties in California

Merlot: medium bodied – i.e. less tannins than the Cabernet Sauvignon, berry/plum/currant flavors

Pinot Noir: medium to light bodied with a soft tannic structure

Syrah/Shiraz: typically fruity flavors with a hint of pepper and spices

Zinfandel: wide range, from big and hearty to light and delicate

Paired best with: strong cheeses, red meat, pork, beef, pasta with red sauce, and chocolate

Cheese
Both wine and cheese are natural products aged to perfection, so maybe that is why they go so well together!! White wine tends to go better with softer cheeses and red wine can go with harder/stronger cheeses, but we can all be the judge of that.

If you are new to exploring wine, I highly recommend visiting wineries for wine tasting, or even hosting or attending a wine party – have each guest bring one or two bottles of their favorite wine for everyone to taste test. You can’t go wrong with good wine, good food, and great company!

Check out these helpful sites:
Food & Wine Pairing
Wine Web Central

Anchor Hocking has many products that are beautiful, yet versatile. Did you know that most of our Cake Dome Sets can be used as a Punch Bowl, or how about a salad bowl? These multi-function items save space in your cabinets and look beautiful on the table.

Trifle Bowls are multi use too! Try these great ideas; trifles, salads, centerpieces bowl, or add a candle and some marbles and you have a gorgeous centerpiece that you can change by the season or give as a gift.

Punch Bowls aren't just for punch any more. With the entertaining craze, we're all having large parties. Use your Anchor Hocking Punch bowl for tossed salads, potato salads and party snacks.

Storage Jars come out of the kitchen! Your Anchor Hocking storage jars are great in every room of the home.

• Sewing rooms-buttons, ribbons, thread
• Garage-nails, nuts & bolts
• Laundry room-detergent, softener sheets, pocket change
• Bedroom-jewelry, potpourri or change
• Bathroom-cotton balls, soaps or bath salts

We wanted to help you understand all of the terms we use to describe the shapes of our ware. Below, in alphabetical order, are some common shapes provided by anchor.

Anchor's Chief Information Officer "GP" created a small team chosen from within the company to develop the new look of our website. We also wanted to create a way for you to learn more about Anchor in a creative way. In this blog we’ll keep you posted on what’s next in the product line up for Anchor, what we're doing for inspiration, tradeshows we're attending and craft ideas for using our products.

We’ll also have a special category called “Anchorware everywhere,” in which we will post places and sites that we find our wares being used in ingenious ways.

The team is asked:

Click on the team's responses to go to their choice on the website.

We've created an illustration to describe our Lancaster facility.
Here we show a general description of what it takes to get our glass to you.

A Manufacturing
The manufacturing process involves several steps and talented individuals. Controlling the composition of the glass, the heat of the tanks and allocating the correct amount of outside materials is just the beginning.
There are operators, mechanics, specialists and other craftsmen which turn the molten glass into a piece of glassware. They do this with the use of press and blow molds. After the glass is formed it takes its journey down the lehr which cools the glass slowly and relieves stresses in the glass.
There are machinists who work in our plant making new parts and repairing old parts for our machines. There are also mold makers who make molds for the actual glass pieces, they also polish the molds so that the glass comes out shiny.

B Decorating
Screen printing and spraying are used to apply a decoration to the glassware in this department. Once the products are decorated they must pass through a decorating lehr to fire on the decoration. Once it is fired, the decoration becomes a permanent part of the product.

C Selection & Packing
Member of this department inspect the glassware for quality and appearance. They look at about 250,000 pieces of glassware each day, at speeds of 10-110 pieces per minute. They pack the glassware carefully in cartons, and transport it to storage.
Gauges and fitters are used to assure that the customer receives the proper dimensions and capacities.

D Shipping
Located approximately 3 miles west of our Lancaster plant, our distribution center is 900,000+ square feet. From here our wares ship all over the United States, into Canada and Europe.

*Not every project goes in this order, as not every piece of glass is decorated.
 Sometimes the order includes only A,C & D.

images courtesty of CR

We set out on a journey to Paris, France. Our goal was to explore trends, fashion, design and culture. During our visit we attended the Maison & Objet show, which is always sure to please. Flourishing color, vibrant patterns or cultural influences on design were everywhere we looked. Our exploration led us to new materials, textures and color palettes that aren't typical in the states.

On this trip we went outside of the box, allowing our minds and eyes to wander beyond just housewares. We found inspiration in just about everything, be it a window display of couture fashion or new ways to create furniture. No stone was left unturned as we treked the city visiting shops, cafes, eateries and historical sites.

This trip was something to remember. Paris is full of all the images you see in art history books, and seeing those things in person can bring a person to speachlessness.