A friend once asked me about wining, thus this idea of placing a page about wines, their classes, how each kind is made. Also included in this page is your guide to wine and spirits.
CLASSES OF WINES
Table Wines
As the name suggests, they are usually served with meals. They vary from semi-sweet to dry and typically have an alcohol content raging from 11% to 13%.
Special Nature Wines
A relatively new category of beverage and cocktail wines featuring fruit flavors. These represent an "entry point" for many new wine consumers. This category also includes bottled wine "coolers."
Dessert Wines
They are characteristically sweet and usually have a higher alcoholic content of 17% or 18%.
Sparkling Wines
This class includes champagne, and the wines are characterized by their "bubbliness."
Vermouth
A flavored wine used as an appetizer or with mixed drinks, this includes aperitifs.
HOW WINE IS MADE
Crushing
A machine called a crusher/stemmer merely breaks the skins of the grapes releasing the juice. This "free run" juice is transferred to our fermenters. The naturally occurring wild yeast cells - found on the skin of all grapes - are inhibited by a controlled addition of sulfur dioxide to the grape juice.
Fermentation
Grape sugar is converted by an interaction with yeast into alcohol. The selection of the proper kind of yeast is important since it determines not only the yield of the alcohol from sugar, but also hundred of fermentation by-products that contribute to wine flavor.
The fermentation process generated heat and if the heat is not controlled, high temperatures will either abort or kill the yeast fermentation - producing wine which does not have the pleasantly fruity flavors characteristic of premium wines.
The final color of any wine depends on how long the grape juice is allowed to remain in contact with the skins. The juice of a wine grape is white. Since white wines are fermented with little, if any, contact with skins, the resulting wine will be light or straw-colored.
Red wine - The juice is fermented for a longer period of time in contact with the skins.
Pink Hue of a Rose - Must be very exacting in determining when the juice should be drawn from the skins.
Aging
After fermentation, the new wine goes into vats to begin settling and aging - in a cool, controlled environment. Age alone is not a total guide to quality - proper and carefully controlled aging is.
Oak casks - size, shape and care of the casks; the time of exposure; the temperature.
Vintage
Time of the Harvest. The grapes were picked and fermented to become wine. Vintage dated wine is made from at least 95% grapes from a single harvest. 5% is replaced with a different vintage year because some wines are lost by evaporation during the aging process. Vintage dating has an indescribably high image.
Blending
Blending is the mixing of wines made from different grapes. The most important purpose of blending is to provide quality, taste, appeal and uniformity.
Filtering
"Mico-filtration" filers impurities from the wine without harming it. To be sure that each wine will remain bright and will not cloud while standing on store shelves.
Bottling
Metals could affect the wine's flavor. Wine bottles are sealed with corks or plastic stoppers.
Rhine or Hoc Bottle ( Blue Non Libraumilch) Bordeaux Bottle (Alexis Lichine) Bugundy Bottle ( Pasquier Desvignes)
VARIETAL AND GENERIC WINE
Varietal Wine - A wine blend in which one kind (variety) of grape predominates the taste and scent of that grape will characterize that wine. Varietal wines bear the name of the predominant grape on the label. Exampels are Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and Chardonnay.
Generic Wine - Is generally named after famous old-world wine regions (Chablis, Chianti, Rhine). These wines are also made from a blend of grapes and the label will not name any one variety. To create product differentiation, may wineries have developed proprietary label such as Pasquier Desvignes, Alexis Lichine and Carlos Rossi.
WINE JUDGING
Sight
Color - Red, white (shades of golden straw to faint, pale yellow), pink
Clear - If the wine is not cloudy and reflects light brilliant (completely clear)
Full-bodied - If the wine runs down the glass in sheets
Medium-bodied - Break into "legs"
Light-bodied - Does not cling to the glass
Smell
Fresh - A pleasant, not stale scent
Flowery - A scent similar in a field of flowers
Fruity - A pleasantly ripe aroma of fruit but not necessarily of grapes
Fragrant - Attractively and naturally scented
Spicy - Reminiscent of spices, such as vanilla
Herb-like - Reminiscent of freshly cut grass
Taste
Very sweet/ sweet/ semi-sweet/ semi dry/ dry/ very dry/ very tart/ tart/ slightly tart/ mellow
Tart - Degree of acidity
Sweet - Dry - Degree of sweetness
Flavor
Fruity, Nutty ( Sherries), herb-like
SEE:
QUICK GUIDE TO WINES AND SPIRITS
