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 grape’s 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.

• Cork’s flexibility enables it to be

compressed.

• It is light, moisture resistant and doesn’t

deteriorate, even under extreme

temperatures.

Corks

• In today’s 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 don’t have to be stored on

their sides.

• They don’t 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.