Wines

During my years in the US, I got hooked to an American sitcom, Frasier. There the main character, Frasier Crane, is shown a wine lover. What intrigued me was the number of adjectives he used to attach to some thing like wine. I had been taking wines now and then, but would go with whatever the bartender recommended, since I had had no clue. Then I thought that I should know better.

In this article I have tried to take away some of the mystery that surrounds the wines, for myself!

Simply, it is fermented grape juice.

Wines are either blended or single varietal. Blended wine can either be a blend of different variety of fermented grape juice or it could be blending of different vintages.

Single varietal is a wine made from single grape variety only. Actually, single varietal may contain a small amount of other variety as well. There are different rules in different regions. In Australia, for a wine to be called single varietal, 80% of the wine must come from one variety, in the US it is 75 percent.

Originally most of the New World (Australia, America, Latin America, South Africa, New Zealand) wines were single varietals where as those from the Old World (European wine producing regions) were blends. This difference is however blurring. Now all kind of wine is made at all kind of places. However, amongst the connoisseurs of wine there continues to be a world of difference between blended wines and the single varietals, with the former being associated with purity and intensity while the later being associated with subtlety and delicacy.

Wine ageing

Some wines are ready to drink as soon as they are made and deteriorate with time, if held longer. There are some that are undrinkable when young and are exquisite when allowed to age for a few years or even decades.

What determines if the wine will age well with time or not? A million dollar question, literally. The answer lies in two things – a) the basic ingredients of the grape juice which includes complex combination of the acids, the sugar, pigments, phenols and minerals and tennins. b) The whole process of how wine is matured; in what kind of climatic conditions, in what kind of barrels, how the barrels are stacked, what wood are the barrels made of, for how long does the wine stay in the barrels before it is bottled and so on. Just imaging, how complex it can get if one were to predict the quality of wine a few decades from now by tasting the ingredients in the present!

Over time, as the effect of temperature and oxygen works on the elements of the wine, the character of the wine forms.

Wine begins to age as soon as it reaches the barrel. The barrels are air tight but allow carbon dioxide to escape, which is the byproduct of grape juice fermentation. If the barrels are not properly sealed, instead of grape juice fermenting to become alcohol, it becomes vinegar. The oxygen that the wine needs for fermentation, it gets thru’ the barrel staves. Hence, the importance of the wood that the barrels are made off, the thickness of the staves etc.

One important ingredient that determines whether the wine will age well or not is called tennin. It is found in the skin, seeds and stem of the grapes. Tennin is crucial to the complexity of the wine. High tennin wines tend to age best over a long period of time, such as those made from the grape varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo and Syrah. Wines also take tannin from the wood of the barrels in which they age. Oak is rich in tennins. Barrels made of oak provide the extra tennin that the wine needs for ageing better. Wines also pick extra phenol from oaks that imparts stronger aroma to the wines. Younger the oak, more phenol the wine can pick and hence more aromatic it becomes.

As it is said, too much of everything is bad. Wine can not age forever. If it is allowed to age for too long, the wine loses its color, aroma and tastes flat. Once the wine has aged in the barrel just enough, the wine is bottled and is allowed to age in the bottle.

Corked bottle ageing is very different from barrel ageing. Though the wine does pick some oxygen from the air thru’ the cork, but mostly the ageing happens thru’ the oxygen that is there in the bottle, which steadily declines as the wine mature. This process is called reductive aging.

Bottle shapes and sizes

Standard size of wine bottle is 750 ml. Other sizes such as half bottles (375 ml), liter bottles are also made. One thing to remember, the larger the bottle, more slowly the wine in the bottle matures, this is because of the fact that the ratio of the oxygen to wine in the bottle becomes unfavorable as the bottle size increases.

Main shape of bottles – Three main types – a) Green with high shoulder b) green brown with sloping shoulders, and c) Port bottles made of back opaque glass, high shoulders and a long, think neck

Green bottles with high shoulders are common for the wines made in Bordeaux region of France. Green brown bottles with sloping shoulder are common for the wines made in Burgundy and the Rhone valley in France.

Wine types

Red, White (dry, semi-sweet and sweet), sparkling and fortified.

Red wines get their color from the color of the grape skin. The grape that is reddish, deep purple or blue, lends its color to the red wine. Red wine is not really the exact red across all wine varieties. The red wine can take any shade of red and maroon that you can think of, with purple and violet thrown in.

The body-type of red can vary from light-bodied to full-bodied. Light-bodied is less dense, feels light on the palate and has less tennins. Example is the wine derived from Gamay grape in the Burgundy region of France. The medium-bodied wine has more tennins examples are Merlot, Shiraz. The full-bodied ones are French Bordeaux wines.

Top red wine varietals are Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Cabernet Franc, Chianti, Barolo, Barberesco, Sirah, Syrah, Shiraz, Sangiovese, Malbec, Grenache, Bordeaux.

White wines are actually, pale yellow, golden or straw-like in color. Like the way red wines drive there colors from the color of the grape skins, the white wine also drives its color from green, yellow or gold color skin of the grapes. Best white wine varietals are – Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Gris

Sparkling wines have considerable carbon dioxide in them giving them the fizz. The mechanism of putting carbon dioxide in wine is much more involved then the soda making mechanism. The idea is to have very tiny carbon dioxide bubbles in the wine, so that the fizz does not go away as soon as the wine is poured in the glass. Sparkling wines must contain more than 2.5 atmospheres of Carbon dioxide at the sea level and 20 degree centigrade. The most famous sparkling wine is Champagne, produced in the Champagne region of France. Sparkling wines made in France outside of Champagne region are called Cremant. Sparkling wines of Germany are called Sekt, that of Italy are called Spumante, in Italy its called Asti and that from Spain are called Cava.

Fortified wines are the ones where fermentation of the wine is stopped by adding some additional alcohol. Mostly, the additional alcohol used is brandy. The whole reason for doing this was to preserve the wine over longer period, when no other preservation method existed. Alcohol is added just before the fermentation finishes, leaving some sugar in the wine. Additional alcohol kills the yeast and the residual sugar stays in the wine. Although various other preservation methods now exist but fortified wines continue to be produced as people have developed a taste for them. The most popular being Sherry produced in Spain. Other examples of fortified wines are Port and Maderia from Portugal, Marsala from Italy etc.

Dry and sweet wines

Wines are made thru’ the fermentation process in which the sugar content of grape juice is converted into alcohol. In dry wines the residual sugar left in the wine is less than 0.5%-0.7%. There is no taste of sweetness. A wine may give the aroma of sweetness without being sweet. That is the sign of a great wine. Dry wine goes with food while sweet wines are dessert wines.

Where does it grow?

Wine world is divided in the Old World and the New World. Old world refers to all the wine producing regions that spawn the mainland Europe, covering France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. New world is everything that is not Old World, primarily – Argentina, Australia, America, Latin America, South Africa, New Zealand.

Best region to grow grapes for wines is between 30 degree and 50 degree latitude on either side of the equator.

Largest producers of wine in the world are France, Spain, Italy, the Unites States and Argentina.

Most famous wine regions of the world -

Bordeaux - Bordeaux is an Atlantic port city of France on the South west of France. Total of 700 million bottles are produced annually. Besides the everyday wines, it produces some of the most expensive wines in the world. Red Bordeaux is called claret in the United Kingdom.

Burgundy - Burgundy is a region that spans France and Switzerland border. Burgundy is known for some of the finest Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines in the world. White burgundy is made of Chardonnay grape while the red Burgundy is made of Pinot Noir. Burgundy wines command high price, so much so that some consumers buy wines of this region from purely speculative purpose.

Champagne – Champagne region is in northeaster France and this is home to production of sparkling wines in France. Three grape varieties are used to produce champagne – Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Munier. Champagne goes thru’ fermentation in tanks that form very acidic still wine. There after the wine goes thru’ fermentation in the bottle, where the carbon dioxide is released as a result of fermentation is mixed with the wine itself giving it the sparkling nature.

Sparkling wines are produced in other parts of the world as well, but none of them can call themselves Champagne.

Loire and Rhone river valleys – Loire is the longest river in France, flows east to west and drains in the Atlantic. The Loire valley is famous for white wines. The grape used is Chennin Blanc, towards the coast, and Sauvignon Blanc, upstream. The Rhone river valley, in southeast France is known for Red wines. The two grape varieties that make the most of the wines produced in this region are Syrah and Grenache.

Italy is the second largest producer of wines, accounting for 20% of wine production. Italy is home to many grape veritals including Nebbiolo, Barbera, Sangiovese, Dolcetto, Corvina, Garganega and Trebbiano. The three key wine regions in Italy are Piedmont in the northwest, Veneto in the northeast and central Tuscany. Key varietals are Nebbiolo in Piedmont, Sangiovese in Tuscany and Garganega, Trebbiano and Corvina in Veneto.

Spain is the third largest wine producing nation in the world after France and Italy. Spain has been known for producing best fortified wines. The best of the best fortified that Spain produces is called Sherry. Fortified wines are the ones where fermentation of the wine is stopped by adding some brandy. Other examples of fortified wines are Port and Maderia from Portugal, Marsala from Italy etc.

United states is the fourth largest producer of wine. The main regions in the US are California, Washington state and Oregon. Main grape variety in California being Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot noir, Sauvignon blanc, Syrah, Zinfandel. The main grape of Oregon is Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Merlot and Riesling. In Washington the grape varieties are Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay

Next time you drink wine, spend some time reading the label and remember the taste, fullness and aroma. Experiment, read and remember. But most of all Enjoy!!