Wine appreciation

Wine Appreciation

Hbar

M.Aldana

Assignment

What are the different types of wine?

What are sparkling wines?

How are wines named?

Briefly discuss how wines are made.

Define:

Varietal

Vintage (wine terminology)

Wines

Wine History

Making wine is as ancient as history itself:

Referred to in the Bible

In hieroglyphics

In Greek and Roman literature

History

When Europeans first came to the New

World, they did their best to grow grapes

from cuttings they brought with them.

The grapevines did not flourish in the cold

northeastern climate, however, so most

alcoholic fruit concoctions were made from

berries and apples.

History

1n 1769, a priest named Padre Junipero

Serra traveled to California from Mexico,

bringing with him some European

grapevine cuttings.

By the late 1800s, some California wines

were winning medals in international

winemaking competitions.

History

Prohibition slowed things down

significantly. Grape growers could only

make small quatities of home-produced

wines, sell table grapes, or make

sacramental wines for churches.

Winemaking

Is the process of fermenting the juices of

ripe grapes.

The chemical reactions in this process are

as follows:

Yeast converts sugar found naturally in the

fruit into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide escapes into the air (in

certain instances, is trapped in bottles to

produce sparkling wines and Champagne)

leaving the juice and alcohol behind.

Terms

Producer the winery, or many different

small vineyards.

Vintage the year in which the grapes

were picked and the winemaking process

began.

Varietal type of grape used

3 Types of Table Wines

Red

White

Rose

Red Wines

Red Wines

Tend to be hearty, full-bodied and nearly

always dry.

Color can range from deep crimson to purple

to reddish-orange or rust depending on the

type of grape used and the age of the wine.

Dry lack of sweetness

Dryness is one of the qualities that makes red

wines suitable for steak, game and lasagna

White Wines

White Wines

White wines range in color from pale straw

to bright yellow to gold.

Generally more delicate in flavor than

reds, they range in flavor from very dry to

very sweet.

Complement fish, veal, and pasta dishes

in light (butter or cream) based sauces.

Rose Wines

Rose Wines

Comes in attractive shades of pale red,

pink or salmon, and they are sometimes

referred to as blush wines.

Made from red grapes, but the juice is

removed from the grape skins earlier,

leaving less color in the liquid.

Usually not fermented as long, leaving

some residual sugar.

Sparkling Wines

Sparkling Wines

Still wines wines that do not contain

bubbles.

Sparkling wines come in red, white and

blush.

Sparkling wines can also be called

champagne but the French say that only

wines made in Champagne can truly be

called Champagne.

Champagne

Is the classic wine of celebration.

Served chilled

Complement almost any food and are

good to drink by themselves

Fortified Wines

Wine that has extra alcohol or brandy

added to it.

This process is known as fortifying.

Two categories:

Aperitif

Dessert Wines

Fortified Wines

Aperitif

Aromatized meaning that they are flavored

with aromatic herbs and spices.

Traditionally sipped before dinner to

stimulate the appetite or aid digestion of

the upcoming meal.

Dessert Wines

Designed to end the meal.

They are rich, sweet and heavy, and

imbibed in small quantities like liqueurs.

They are also late harvest wines, usually

white, made from grapes that have been

allowed to over-ripen on the vines, almost

to spoilage, for maximum sugar content.

Sake and Shochu

These are Asian products known as

wines.

Sake from Japan (SAH-kay) is a beverage

made from rice.

Referred to as Drink of gods

Sake and Shochu

Shochu (Japan) Soju (Korea) Shaojiu

(China) means burned liquor.

Can be made from rice, barley, soba, or

buckwheat and even from sweet potatoes,

tapioca or chestnuts.

Sake

Soju

The Grapes

From the grapes skin comes the color of

the wine.

Different types of grapes exhibit different

characteristics and therefore, become

different tasting wines.

There are red grapes and white grapes.

The Grapes

Red grapes can be actually red or blackish

or purple.

Red wines are made when red grapes are

crushed and fermented along with the

skins and stems.

During the fermentation process, the red

wine gets its tannin.

Tannin comes from the skins and stems of

grapes and acts as preservative.

The Grapes

Tannins impart some of this bitterness to

the wine and can taste unpleasant when

the wine is young.

White grapes are fermented without their

skins. White wines can also be made from

red grapes since the juice is separated

from the skin.

Because tannins are missing, white wines

generally do not last as long as reds.

Wine Making Process

Wine Making

Corks

One of the on-going issues in the wine

world is how to seal the bottles.

Over the years, bottles have been sealed

with pitch, gypsum, or plugs (called

stoppels) made of ground up glass.

Bottles have been stuffed with leather or

cloth and coated with wax.

Corks

Sealing bottles was an inexact process

because the bottles, and therefore, their

openings were not uniformly made until

the last 100 years or so.

Corks

Cork is a successful closure because it

can fit snugly into the neck of almost any

type of bottle.

Corks flexibility enables it to be

compressed.

It is light, moisture resistant and doesnt

deteriorate, even under extreme

temperatures.

Corks

In todays wine bottling process, a

capsule, a cap of foil or plastic is placed

over the cork for additional protection.

Cork

Are pieces of bark of the suberin oak tree

that grows primarily in Portugal and Spain.

Issues

Each tree requires almost a decade of

growth to replace its stripped outer bark.

Oak forests are regenerating at a rate of

4% yearly.

In the mid 1900s the wine world began

searching for synthetic alternatives

because of climate and environmental

activism.

Issues

There were also complains about the

overall quality of wine corks had

deteriorated.

Studies suggest that 1 to 12 percent of

wines were contaminated with 6-

Trichloroanisole (TCA) a harmless but

smelly combination of mold, chlorine and

moisture permeating inside the wine and

tainting it with an off-putting musty odor.

Issues

In response to the problem, some

supermarket chains decided to boycott

wines with corks.

NZ was the first to adopt a policy

promoting the use of screwtops or

screwcaps

Pro-Cork

Question the safety and longevity of

plastic stoppers.

Corks are recyclable and biodegradable.

Synthetic stoppers are harder to get out of

bottles.

Pro-Alternative Closure

Wine stoppers dont have to be stored on

their sides.

They dont break or crumble.

Can be removed without adding any

flavors or odors to wine.

Cost less than what corks costs

How Wines are Named

Predominant variety of grapes used

(Varietal)

Broad Generic Type (Generic)

Brand Name

Place of Origin

Varietal

One of which single grape variety

predominates.

The name of the grape is the name of the

wine.

Ex. Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay,

Zinfandel

Generic Names

A generic wine is a US wine of a broad

general style or type such as Burgundy or

Chablis.

Their names are borrowed from European

wines that come from well-known districts,

but their resemblance is slight to

nonexistent.

Today terms like Red Table Wine or White

Table Wine are used.

Brand Names

A brand name wine may be anything from

an inexpensive blend to a very fine wine

with a prestigious pedigree.

A brand name also called a proprietary

name is one that belongs exclusively to a

vineyard or shipper who produces and/or

bottles the wine.

Place-of-Origin Name

Many imported wines use their place of

origin as the name on their label.