WINE AND WINE APPRECIATION

1. WINE AND WINE APPRECIATION

2. Enology = WinemakingBritish version of the word is Oenology ~ stemming from the Greek origin oinos (wine) and logos

3. What Is Wine • "Wine is an alcoholic beverage obtained from the fermentation of juice from freshly gathered grapes, the fermentation taking place in the district of origin according to local tradition and practice". • Fermentation is the process by which sugar is converted to alcohol by yeasts. At its simplest, wine is made by crushing grapes and allowing the natural yeasts present on the skins to come in to contact with the natural sugars present in the juice. No other human intervention is needed: crushed and fermented like this, any grapes will make wine.  

4. Quality of wine produced • For good quality wine the best quality of fruit should be chosen • Hygine and cleanliness should be ensured. • The final product should be bright, clear and fit for consumption. • Different regions employ different techniques and different varieties of grapes but the principles are the same.

5. Fermentation • Fermentation is a natural process. • Left alone, a grape would ripen until the skin broke and the juice is fermented. • The intervention of man is only necessary to increase the clarity and the stability of the end product. • “Making wine” is mostly a matter of the choices and decisions of the winemaker during each phase of production, from growing the raw material grapes to bottling the finished product: wine. • These choices determine the wine’s style, flavors and aromas to a great extent.

6. Yeast • Yeast is the microscopic, single celled fungi which causes fermentation. • Yeast populations are present in the air, especially in and around vineyards. This indigeneous yeast population is known as “wild” oe “ambient” yeast. • Yeast cells are concentrated around the berry stem (peduncle) and much lower in concentration than thought, in the dozens rather than the thousands.

7. Fermentation contd. • When yeast comes in contact with the grape juice, it begins to feed on it, grow and reproduce. • There are approximately 6000 yeast cells per 16 grams actively fermenting must. • An enzyme (zymase) within the yeast converts sugar in the grape juice into0 roughly equal parts of alcohol and carbon dioxide and also releases energy in the form of heat.

8. Fermentation contd. • Theoretically, the process of fermentation could continue naturally until the sugar is used up, which is often the case. • Occasionally, fermentation continues only until the yeast cells are no longer able to tolerate the level of their waste products: alcohol, carbon dioxide and/or heat, thus leaving very small amounts of residual sugar.

9. The science Sugars and Sweetness Reducing sugars – wines fermented to “ absolute bone dryness” still contain between .001% and .002% of unfermented sugars. Most common reducing sugars are glucose and fructose, with traces of arabinose but the exact reasoning why they do not completely convert during fermentation remains unclear…

10. Levels of Acidity • Less than .500 g/100 mL are generally considered bland. • Exceeding .800 g/100 mL are usually sharp. Sweetness levels tend to mask total acidity and vice versa.

11. pH The measurement of the active acid “strength” in juice, must, or wine is expressed in terms of pH. Determination is made by measuring the hydrogen ion concentration in a given solution. A pH scale is from 0 – 14 • A 7 on the scale is as pure as water. • Each gradient from 7 toward 0 or 14 becomes more intense. • The lower the level, the higher the acidity. • The higher the level, the lower the acidity. .

12. Acids and Acidity Principal acids involved in wine making: • Tartaric • Malic • Lactic • Acetic The total of these and other minor acids determine the amount of tartness the palate will receive from the wine. Total acidity is a measurement made by analysis in winery labs in order to quantify tartness in juice, must, or wine.

13. Sulfur Dioxide • Sulfur Dioxide is a gas having a very prickly, sharp pungency in the nose. • Heavy doses of sulfur dioxide gas leave an unpleasant powdery residue on the palate. • The gaseous form of SO2is generally used by larger wineries, where greater quantities are required.

14. Malolactic Fermentation • The principle effect is a reduction in total acidity along with a buttery-like flavor development known as diacetyl. • As a rule, malolactic fermentation is desired in more complex table wines, and undesired in in lighter types, which express greater fruit flavor profiles.

15. 5 TIPS FOR BLENDING • Blending reduces the character of individual components • Blending increases the complexity of the resulting product • Blending a faulted wine (bad wine) with a good wine will still make a bad wine • Blending two stable wines can result in an unstable wine • Always make a lab blend first!

16. Fining of Wines • Fining is the process of removing suspended particles from wines and will sometimes be used for softening of wines of phenolic compounds • Common types of fining agents are Bentonite, egg whites, kieselsol and sparkoloid

17. Barrels • Barrels are constructed from Oak staves from many diverse countries around the world. Primarily French and American oak barrels are used in the California wine industry • Common components from barrel aging wine are: • Nutty Clove Coffee Leather • Smoke Cedar Cigar Box Dusty

18. Barrels (cont.) • French barrels average $700 each • American barrels average $300 each • Prior to 1970’s, toasting of Oak barrels was a phenomena of the Bourbon industry not the wine industry • Oak species (commonly used) • Allier Limousin • American Nevers

19. Filtration • Two important points of filtration are; • The degree of clarity desired • The amount of coloring and flavor lost • Red wines that are unfiltered are considered higher in quality • Pressure and flow rate are key to the filtration process

20. Packaging (cont) • Tip: Don’t get to caught up making your bottle to complicated that a customer gets lost. • Tip: Don’t put Cabernet Sauvignon in a Pinot Noir bottle or Chardonnay in a Merlot bottle. Customers do not like it. Use a Burgundy style bottle with the “dead leaf green” color for Chard. • Tip: Bottle quality is the most important part. Make sure the glass you use meets your standards

21. HISTORY OF WINE • Nobody knows from which particular part of the world the grape-bearing vine originally came, but man has been drinking wine with his food for at least 5,000 years and the antiquity of the custom goes back far beyond the days of ancient Greece to Egypt and the early civilizations of the East. • The sacrificial wine which was offered as a tribute to pagan gods became the sacramental wine of the early Christian church.

22. Origins • Vitis Vinifera, the species of vine which grows wine grapes, is apparently a native of Persia. • Certainly wine was drunk in ancient Persia, Egypt and in ancient Greece. • It spread, as our civilization spread, from the East to West first by Phonecians to Spain, Greeks to Italy and Provence, the Romans through Gaoul and Germany

23. Ancient Greece • Of all the districts of Ancient Greece, it was probably Thrace which had the oldest reputation for its wine and also kept it the longest. Homer mentions from here the wine of Maronea, which Ulysses used in order make Polyphemus drunk. Macedonia had its chief vineyards on the penins of Chalcidice, the most famous being the wines of Acanthus on the Pierian Gulf and those of Mendae and Scione which were towns situated between the Thermaic and Poromaic Gulfs. • Greatly appreciated in all the regions of Ancient Greece, wine was throughout antiquity an important commercial commodity, even though its price was always very high. At all times there was a big difference in price according to the quality offered

24. Wine trading • It was the Greeks who first established trading stations on the barbaric shores of Provence and of Languedoc and here they offered for sale the wines of their country. • The international currency at that time was the slave ,and both Diodorus of Sicily and the Roman Justin tell us that the tariff was one young boy for an amphora of wine. • These Greek traders even introduced the cultivated vine into Provence and planted several cuttings, but they were never interested in its development on a large scale for fear, no doubt, of setting up dangerous competition for their own products.  

25. Egypt • The earliest evidence was found in Egypt, in one of the graves of a certain Phoorah some figures were discovered showing a servant stoppering a wine jar. This, together with a few surviving amphorae, is the earliest evidence in the history of wine. • So it seems that civilisation and wine were born at one and the same time. The Egyptian religion attributed the gift to the most noble of their gods, Osiris, the son of Heaven and of Earth, 'Lord of the vine in flower', as he is called in a hieroglyphic inscription.

26. Closures • Corks; both synthetic and natural. • Natural cork has risk of contamination with mold and other problems i.e. over sulfured. • Red wine usually has longer corks. • Key to cork selection is size i.e. diameter of cork. • Can be used to market wine. • Screwcaps • Proven to be a better seal for wine bottles than corks. • Not generally found on “high end” wine due to poor perceived opinion by consumer. One exception: Plumpjack Winery. • Box Wine—(Nuff Said!!)

27. The Romans • From the earliest times in Rome wine enjoyed a vogue certainly as great as in Egypt and in Greece.  The Romans derived most of their civilisation from their conquest of Greece and it is, therefore, not surprising that Roman vines were of Hellenic origin; the wines produced by the Romans were more strong and more robust, but less delicate and less perfumed than those of Greece.  By far the most famous growth was the Falernian. Most of the poets have sung its praises, Horace especially. The Imperial Palace adopted it, but the Empress Livia, who did not find it to her liking, preferred the wine of Pucinum.  

28. Romans contd. • Imported Wine • But apart from these local wines, much imported wine was drunk at Rome: the Omphacite of Lesbos, the Phanaean of Chios, the Saprian of Arvila, the wines of Spain - Barcino of Barcelona and Tarragona - and the wines of the Balearics, of Provence and of Narbonensis, which were greatly despised by the poet Martial and were often treated with herbs and various aromatics. These were without doubt the ancestors of our present day aperitifs and of contemporary Greek resinated wine.  

29. Gaul (France) • Since time immemorial the wild vine has grown in the temperate climate of the Mediterranean and prehistoric man must certainly have refreshed himself with the little, acid grapes, just as we do today with myrtle berries or wild blackberries.  

30. Importing Wine • Wine was one of the principal products exported by Rome into Languedoc. It was carried by sea in large merchantmen navigated by sail (corbitae) in which the amphorae were stored. • A shipwreck was discovered. The perfect state of preservation of the wreck, buried in the mud at a depth of over 130 feet, in 240 B.C. She had been commissioned by a rich merchant by the name of Marcus Sestius and left the Greek port of Delos with a cargo of Cycladic wines, supplemented en route by some wine from Latium which she took on board in the Gulf of Gaeta. • Her cargo was about a thousand amphorae and some eight hundred vases, mostly intact. Some of the stoppered amphorae still contained wine, if the pale liquid found in them, more than 2200 years old, deserves such a name.  

31. Blending of Wine • Primarily bottled wines of France (especially Bordeaux) are blends of different varietals • Champagne is a blend of Pinot noir, Pinot menuier and Chardonnay • California Sparkling wine can be a blend of varietals that the winemaker deems sufficient • There is no magic formula to be found in blending of wine

32. Science of Viticulture is Developed • Roman agriculturists, with the experience of the Greeks and Carthaginians behind them, had greatly developed the science of viticulture; little by little they improved methods of growing and found strains capable of growing beyond the olive zone and Languedoc; the vine reached Aquitaine, the Rhone Valley and Burgundy.  At Bordeaux, a Spanish vine seems to have been used. It was called the VitisBiturica from the name of the Bituriges, a tribe living in this region, the original inhabitants of the country round Bourges.  

33. The CHURCH • The decline and fall of the Roman Empire in continental Europe left the church in power.. • Church kept alive the vital skills of civilization (agriculture, letters and law) The knowledge of wine making became almost a monopoly of the Church for at least one thousand years. • All of the vineyards in Europe the traces remain to this day. • This monopoly continued until the French Revolution in France which deprived the Church from this and the lands were sold.

34. The evolution of Modern Wine • Wine was the only stable beverege in the 17th century. • Water was not safe • Wine is storable, carries no harmful microorganisms and tasty

35. The Evolution of Modern Wine • Wine has been a very successful transplantation from the Old World to the New World. • The first of the European settlements to have the vine were South America and South Africa. • In the second quarter of the 19th Century the new world started their vineyards.

36. Table 31. Top countries ranked by total grape production, 2005CountryGrape production million tonnes% of world • Italy 8,553 12.7 • USA 7,088 10.5 • France 6,790 10.1 • China (includes Taiwan) 6,5209.7 • Spain 6,072 9.0 • Turkey 3,303 4.9 • Iran 2,963 4.4 • Argentina 2,829 4.2 • Chile 2,319 3.4 • Australia 2,026 3.0 • World 67,396

37. Table 32. Top producers of wine in the world, 2005CountryWine production(ML)1% of THE WORLD • Country WINE %Italy5,402 19.1 • France 5,210 18.5 • Spain 3,615 12.8 • USA 2,288 8.1 • Argentina 1,522 5.4 • Australia 1,430 5.1 • China 1,200 4.3 • Germany 915 3.2 • South Africa 840 3.0 • Chile 788 2.8 • Portugal 726 2.6

38. The Vine • Vine is the plant that bears the grapes. • The first 2 years of its life the plant creates roots and builds a strong woody stalk to bear and carry the grapes • Like most plants, vines will reproduce from seed but the seeds rarely turn out like their parents • Viticulturists propagate vines asexually instead so that they can be sure that the offspring are the same as the mother vine.

39. Vine contd. • For planting a new vineyard, every vine originates as a cutting, either planted to take root of its own or grafted onto a rootstock a rroted cutting of another species especially selected for the soil type or resistence to draught or nematodes. • Only healthy cuttings are used. • As the vine greows older the principal roots penetrate deeper in the ground. • Yields decline after 25 to 30 years.

40. The vine stages • Stage 1 As early as March, in Northern Europe and September in the Southern hemisphere, the buds left after winter pruning start to swell and the first signs of green can be seen emerging from the gnarled wood. • The temperature is important. 10C, although different grape varieties vary.

41. The Vine stages • Stage 2. • Within 10 days of budbreak, leaves start to seperate from the bud and embryonic tendrils begin to be visible and are too vulnerable to frost which can strike as mid-May or mid-November. • Late pruning can delay budbreak.