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173 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is Cannonau?
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Sardinian grape name for Grenache
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What is Cote Rotie primary grape?
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Syrah = red Vigonier = white
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Where is Cote Rotie?
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Far north of Northern Rhone
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What is Vinho Verde?
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Portugues wine made from Minho region in far north Green Wine => youthful freshness / Grapes: Alvarinho, Azal, Batoca, Trajadura
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Primary grapes of Loire
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Sauvignon Blanc, Cab Franc, Gamay, Melon de Bourgogne
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What is Vouvray?
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Appellation in Loire district / Most important white wine appellation in / Touraine district / Grape = Chenin Blanc (Pineau de la Loire) / Arbois allowed
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What is encepagement?
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French term for mix of cepages (vine varieties) planted on particular property
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Cepage?
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Vine variety
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What is Gavi?
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Primary grape = Cortese
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What is primary grape in Gavi?
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Cortese
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Where is Pouilly-Fuisse?
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Most notable appellation in Macconais / Primary grape = Chardonnay
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What is the primary grape in Pouilly-Fuisse
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Chardonnay
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What is must?
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Thick liquid that is neither grape juice or wine / Intermediate mixture from stem fragments, skins, seeds and pulp that come from crusher/de-stemmer
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What is Pradikat?
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In Germany, a wine distinction awarded on basis of increasing grape ripeness or must weight
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What does QMP stand for?
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Quality wine with distinction (Germany) / P= Pradikat
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Where does Orvieto come from?
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Umbria Italy / Most important DOC from region / Grapes = 50-65% Trebbiano w/verdello, grechetto, drupeggio, malvasia / some sweet wine produced
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What are the appellation levels in Burgundy in ascending order of quality?
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Regional AC = most basic Bourgogne / Village = Appellation carries the commune where they were made (ex. Volnay, Meursault) / Premier Cru / Grand Cru
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Name the Languedoc appellations
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Fitou / Corbrieres / Cotes de Malepere / Minervois / St. Chinian Faugeres / Coteaux du Languedoc / Pic-St-Loup / Cabardes Costieres de Nimes
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Where is Vacqueyras?
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Cote du Rhone / Primary grape = Grenache (50%) /Also Syrah, Mourvedre, Cinsault
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Where is Gigongas?
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Southern Rhone appellation similar to CNDP / Grapes = Grenache (no more than 80%) / Syrah, Mourvedre at least 15%
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Describe Touraine
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Most important Loire region centered around town of Tours / Most famous are reds from individual appellations of Bourgueil, Chinon, St. Nicolas de Bourgeil / Whites (still and sparkling) from Vouvray, Montlouis
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How many AVAs in CA?
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80
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What does AVA stand for?
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American Viticultural Area
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What does "cru" mean?
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"Growth"; a specified superior plot of land
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What does Grand Cru mean
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"Great Growth"; meaningless in St. Emilion
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What are 3 climates impacting vine growth cycle?
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Micro (within Canopy), Meso (Within Vineyard), Macro (within region)
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What is carbonic maceration?
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red wine making process which transforms a small amount of sugar in grapes to ethanol without intervention of yeast and without crushing the grapes. Typically used to produce fruity, light, brightly colored reds for early consumption. Famously used for Beaujolais
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Where is Fruili and primary grapes?
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NE Italy / 11 DOC / 3 DOCG / Known for white wines / Grapes: Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia
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What are the styles of Champagne?
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Non-vintage / Vintage / Prestige, deluxe or luxury cuvee / Blanc de Blancs / Rose/ Demi-sec or rich
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What is an appellation?
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geographical indicuation used to indentify where grapes for a wine are produced. / Rules depend on country / restrictions that may apply: grapes, maximum yields, alcohol level
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What is malolactic fermentation?
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Virtually all red wines and increasing proportion of white wines undergo second, softening fermentation which takes place with influence of heat and lactic bacteria after 1st fermentation. Makes wine more stable, taste softer, fuller, and more complex.Can add obvious buttery favor if overdone.
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What is Prosecco?
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Sparkling wine from Veneto. / Grape = Prosecco
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What is a Premier Cru?
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"First Growth" / Notch down from Grand Cru in Burgundy / In Medoc, one of top four Chateaux
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Name the communes in Cote de Nuits
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Gevry Chambertin (red) / Morey St. Denis (red/white) / Chambolle - Musigny (red/white) / Vougeot (red) / Flagey - Echezeaux (red) / Vosne - Romanee (red)
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What doe Villages mean
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Suffix denoting selected communes or parishes within an appellation
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What is Santenay
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Southern Burgundy / "Forgotten" Village in Cote de Beaune / Soils richer in MARL => Red wines more rustic than elegant / Not counted as Burgundy's finest
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What is Cote Chalonnaise
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Red and white producing region in the Saone et Loire departement of Burgundy between Cote d 'Or and Maconnais/ Takes name from town Chalon sur Saone/ 5 Village Appellations: Givry, Montagny, Ruilly, Bouzeron
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What are appellations in Chalonnaise
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Mercurey (stands apart in quality and price (mostly Pinot), Givry, Montagny: white / Ruilly (red/white)/ Bouzeron: aligote
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What are 3 zones of Loire and primary grapes
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Upper Loire: Sauvignon Blanc - Sancerre, Pouilly Fume, Reuilly, Quincy, Menetou-Salon / Middle Loire: Anjou region / Touraine / Muscadet: Mouth of Loire
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Name Northern Rhone Appellations
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Cote Rotie: Syrah / 20% Vigonier / Condrieu: 100% Vigonier / Chaleau Grillet: 100% Vigonier / St. Joseph: Syrah / Crozes-Hermitage: Syrah / Cornas: 100% Syrah / Saint Peray: Sparkling / still
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Southern Rhone Appellations
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Cote Du Vivarais / Cotes du Rhone / Cotes du Rhone Villages / Coteaux du Tricastin / CNDP / Vacqueyras / Gigondas / Beaumes du Venise /Tavel
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What does Recolte mean
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Vintage
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What is Cannonau?
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Sardinian grape name for Grenache
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What is Cote Rotie primary grape?
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Syrah = red Vigonier = white
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Where is Cote Rotie?
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Far north of Northern Rhone
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What is Vinho Verde?
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Portugues wine made from Minho region in far north Green Wine => youthful freshness / Grapes: Alvarinho, Azal, Batoca, Trajadura
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Primary grapes of Loire
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Sauvignon Blanc, Cab Franc, Gamay, Melon de Bourgogne
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What is Vouvray?
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Appellation in Loire district / Most important white wine appellation in / Touraine district / Grape = Chenin Blanc (Pineau de la Loire) / Arbois allowed
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What is encepagement?
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French term for mix of cepages (vine varieties) planted on particular property
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Cepage?
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Vine variety
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What is Gavi?
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Primary grape = Cortese
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What is primary grape in Gavi?
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Cortese
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Where is Pouilly-Fuisse?
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Most notable appellation in Macconais / Primary grape = Chardonnay
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What is the primary grape in Pouilly-Fuisse
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Chardonnay
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What is must?
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Thick liquid that is neither grape juice or wine / Intermediate mixture from stem fragments, skins, seeds and pulp that come from crusher/de-stemmer
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What is Pradikat?
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In Germany, a wine distinction awarded on basis of increasing grape ripeness or must weight
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What does QMP stand for?
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Quality wine with distinction (Germany) / P= Pradikat
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Where does Orvieto come from?
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Umbria Italy / Most important DOC from region / Grapes = 50-65% Trebbiano w/verdello, grechetto, drupeggio, malvasia / some sweet wine produced
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What are the appellation levels in Burgundy in ascending order of quality?
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Regional AC = most basic Bourgogne / Village = Appellation carries the commune where they were made (ex. Volnay, Meursault) / Premier Cru / Grand Cru
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Name the Languedoc appellations
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Fitou / Corbrieres / Cotes de Malepere / Minervois / St. Chinian Faugeres / Coteaux du Languedoc / Pic-St-Loup / Cabardes Costieres de Nimes
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Where is Vacqueyras?
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Cote du Rhone / Primary grape = Grenache (50%) /Also Syrah, Mourvedre, Cinsault
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Where is Gigongas?
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Southern Rhone appellation similar to CNDP / Grapes = Grenache (no more than 80%) / Syrah, Mourvedre at least 15%
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Describe Touraine
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Most important Loire region centered around town of Tours / Most famous are reds from individual appellations of Bourgueil, Chinon, St. Nicolas de Bourgeil / Whites (still and sparkling) from Vouvray, Montlouis
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How many AVAs in CA?
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80
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What does AVA stand for?
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American Viticultural Area
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What does "cru" mean?
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"Growth"; a specified superior plot of land
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What does Grand Cru mean
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"Great Growth"; meaningless in St. Emilion
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What are 3 climates impacting vine growth cycle?
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Micro (within Canopy), Meso (Within Vineyard), Macro (within region)
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What is carbonic maceration?
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red wine making process which transforms a small amount of sugar in grapes to ethanol without intervention of yeast and without crushing the grapes. Typically used to produce fruity, light, brightly colored reds for early consumption. Famously used for Beaujolais
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Where is Fruili and primary grapes?
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NE Italy / 11 DOC / 3 DOCG / Known for white wines / Grapes: Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia
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What are the styles of Champagne?
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Non-vintage / Vintage / Prestige, deluxe or luxury cuvee / Blanc de Blancs / Rose/ Demi-sec or rich
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What is an appellation?
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geographical indicuation used to indentify where grapes for a wine are produced. / Rules depend on country / restrictions that may apply: grapes, maximum yields, alcohol level
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What is malolactic fermentation?
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Virtually all red wines and increasing proportion of white wines undergo second, softening fermentation which takes place with influence of heat and lactic bacteria after 1st fermentation. Makes wine more stable, taste softer, fuller, and more complex.Can add obvious buttery favor if overdone.
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What is Prosecco?
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Sparkling wine from Veneto. / Grape = Prosecco
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What is a Premier Cru?
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"First Growth" / Notch down from Grand Cru in Burgundy / In Medoc, one of top four Chateaux
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Name the communes in Cote de Nuits
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Gevry Chambertin (red) / Morey St. Denis (red/white) / Chambolle - Musigny (red/white) / Vougeot (red) / Flagey - Echezeaux (red) / Vosne - Romanee (red)
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What doe Villages mean
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Suffix denoting selected communes or parishes within an appellation
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What is Santenay
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Southern Burgundy / "Forgotten" Village in Cote de Beaune / Soils richer in MARL => Red wines more rustic than elegant / Not counted as Burgundy's finest
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What is Cote Chalonnaise
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Red and white producing region in the Saone et Loire departement of Burgundy between Cote d 'Or and Maconnais/ Takes name from town Chalon sur Saone/ 5 Village Appellations: Givry, Montagny, Ruilly, Bouzeron
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What are appellations in Chalonnaise
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Mercurey (stands apart in quality and price (mostly Pinot), Givry, Montagny: white / Ruilly (red/white)/ Bouzeron: aligote
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What are 3 zones of Loire and primary grapes
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Upper Loire: Sauvignon Blanc - Sancerre, Pouilly Fume, Reuilly, Quincy, Menetou-Salon / Middle Loire: Anjou region / Touraine / Muscadet: Mouth of Loire
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Name Northern Rhone Appellations
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Cote Rotie: Syrah / 20% Vigonier / Condrieu: 100% Vigonier / Chaleau Grillet: 100% Vigonier / St. Joseph: Syrah / Crozes-Hermitage: Syrah / Cornas: 100% Syrah / Saint Peray: Sparkling / still
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Southern Rhone Appellations
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Cote Du Vivarais / Cotes du Rhone / Cotes du Rhone Villages / Coteaux du Tricastin / CNDP / Vacqueyras / Gigondas / Beaumes du Venise /Tavel
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What does Recolte mean
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Vintage
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What is Hermitage?
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Most famous Northern Rhone appellation / Red = Syrah / White = Marsanne and Roussanne
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Name Cote Chalannaise Appellations
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Givry = Pinot / Mercurey = Pinot / Montagny = Chard / Rully = Pinot and Chard
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What are the Chablis quality levels
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Petit Chablis / Chablis Premier Cru / Chablis Grand Cru / Premier Cru
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Additions made to wine?
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Sulphur Dioxide, Sugar (Chaptalization), Acid (Tartaric) - common in warm climates, chalk (deacidifies), nutrients (helps make fermentation efficient
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Croz-Hermitage
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the northern rhône's biggest appellation, regularly producing about eight times as much wine as the much more distinguished vineyards of hermitage which it surrounds, and still considerably more than the similarly priced, and similarly extended, appellation of st-joseph across the river. Like both these appellations, Crozes-Hermitage is usually red and made exclusively of the syrah grape, although a certain proportion, just over a tenth, of full-bodied dry white wine is made from the marsanne grape supplemented by roussanne
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Cru Classe
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Medoc or Graves property listed in the 1855 classification
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Name canopy management techniques
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1. Winter pruning 2. Shoot trimming 3. Summer pruning 4. Shoot devigoration 5. Shoot positioning 6. Lead removal 7. Trellis system
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Describe Cote de Beaune
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The Côte de Beaune is the southern half of the escarpment of the côte d'or, named after the important town and wine centre of Beaune. The greatest white wines of Burgundy and some very fine reds are grown on this stretch. The principal appellations, from north to south, are Corton and Corton-Charlemagne (see aloxe-corton), beaune, pommard, volnay, meursault, puligny-montrachet, and chassagne-montrachet.
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Describe Beaujolais
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quantitatively extremely important wine region in east central France producing a unique style of fruity wine which is often relatively, nay unfashionably, light but is increasingly being made in a more concentrated, 'Burgundian' style. For administrative purposes, Beaujolais is often included as part of greater burgundy, but in terms of climate, topography, soil types, and even distribution of grape varieties, it is quite different
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Meaursault
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large and prosperous village in the Côte de Beaune district of Burgundy's Côte d'Or producing mostly white wines from the Chardonnay grape. Although Meursault contains no grand cru vineyards, the quality of white Burgundy from Meursault's best premiers crus is rarely surpassed.
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Pomerol
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"small but distinctive wine region in Bordeaux producing opulent and glamorous red wines dominated by the Merlot grape. Although they are now challenged by their counterparts in its much larger neighbour st-émilion, Pomerol's most successful wines are some of the world's most sought after, but the glamour attaches to the labels rather than the countryside.
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Medoc
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the most famous red wine district in Bordeaux, and possibly the world. Wines produced in the Bas-Médoc use the Médoc appellation, while those on the higher ground in the south eastern section are entitled to the Haut-Médoc appellation, although many of them qualify for the smarter individual village, or communal, appellations. From south to north, these are Margaux, Moulis, Listrac, St-Julien, Pauillac, and St-Estèphe.
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Anjou
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important, revitalized, and varied wine region in the western Loire centred on the town of Angers. Within the Anjou wine region are several Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC)s responsible for a broad spectrum of wines including still red, white and rosé produced with varying levels of sweetness. Extending across the Deux-Sèvres, Maine-et-Loire and Vienne départements, the generic Anjou AOC appellation and its various sub-appellations encompasses vineyards across more that 151 communes.
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Champagne Sweetness Levels
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Brut Natural or Brut Zéro (less than 3 grams of sugar per liter) / Extra Brut (less than 6 grams of sugar per liter) / Brut (less than 15 grams of sugar per liter) / Extra Sec or Extra Dry (12 to 20 grams of sugar per liter) / Sec (17 to 35 grams of sugar per liter) / Demi-sec (33 to 50 grams of sugar per liter) / Doux (more than 50 grams of sugar per liter)
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cave
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Co-op winery in France
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Condrieu
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distinctive and fashionable white wine made in minuscule quantities in the northern rhône. It is made exclusively from the viognier grape, whose successful wines manage the unusual combination of a pronounced yet elusive perfume with substantial body.
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Rhone Grapes
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Syrah, Grenache, Marsanne, Rousanne, Vigonier
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Controlled Appellation
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a method of labelling wine and designating quality that is modelled on France's appellation contrôlée system. It embraces geographical delimitation and is the principle on which quality wine schemes such as the doc of Italy and Portugal, the do of Spain, and the ava system of the United States are based. France has more than 400, Italy more than 300, Greece about 60, Spain over 60, and Portugal an ever-lengthening and much-revised list.
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Lees
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old English word for the dregs or sediment that settles at the bottom of a container such as a fermentation vessel. Wine lees are made up of dead yeast cells, grape seeds, pulp, stem and skin fragments, and insoluble tartrates that are deposited during the making and ageing of wine.
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Sur Lie
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French term meaning 'on the lees' customarily applied to white wines whose principal deviation from everyday white wine-making techniques was some form of lees contact. The term has been used most commonly for the French dry white muscadet to differentiate those wines which remained on their lees after fermentation, usually in tank, in an effort to increase flavour and texture. The practice, and term, has since spread south to the languedoc and even outside France and has proved a useful way of adding flavour and value to the produce of relatively neutral grapes such as Chenin Blanc in South Africa.
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Malic Acid
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sharp, appley, acid notable in grapes from cool years
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Mercaptins
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wine fault popular with Australians. Skunky smell from yeast reacting with Lees. Cured by careful racking.
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Racking
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the wine-making operation of removing clear wine from the settled sediment or lees in the bottom of a container.
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Reduction
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opposite of oxidation. Wines, especially red wines held in the absence of oxygen, may suffer from excess reduction, resulting in the slow polymerization of tannins and pigmented tannins
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Suplhur Dioxide
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chemical compound most widely used by the winemaker, principally as a preservative and a disinfectant. The disadvantage of using sulfur dioxide (which all but a fraction of 1 per cent of winemakers do) is that its aroma can be quite unpleasant even at fairly low concentrations, especially to some particularly sensitive tasters (who are likely to find it most noticeably on sweet Loire wines, sweet bordeaux, and German wines).
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Stabilization
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group of wine-processing operations undertaken to ensure that the wine, once bottled, will not form hazes, clouds, or unwanted deposits; become gassy; or undergo rapid deterioration of flavour after bottling. A quick recovery from bottle sickness and subtle changes in flavour that occur with lengthy ageing are considered normal in a stable wine.
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Tartaric Acid
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the most important of the acids found in grapes and wine. Of all the natural organic acids found in plants, this is one of the rarer. The grape is the only fruit of significance that is a tartrate accumulator, and yet it is of critical importance to the winemaker because of the major part it plays in the taste of the wine. Furthermore, because tartaric acid exists in wine partially as the intact acid and partially as the acid tartrate, or bitartrate ion, it is the principal component of the mixture of acids and salts that constitutes wine's all-important buffer system and maintains the stability of its acidity and colour.
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pH
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a scale of measurement of the concentration of the effective, active acidity in a solution and an important statistic, of relevance to how vines grow, how grapes ripen, and how wine tastes, looks, and lasts. pH is also important in wine-making because the pigmented tannins that colour red wines exist (like the monomeric anthocyanins from which they are formed) in several forms of different colours. At low pH values, the high concentration of hydrogen ions forces the pigment molecule into a form with a positive charge and a bright red colour. As pH increases (and hydrogen ion concentration decreases), the pigment molecules tend more and more to change through dull purple to blue, and ultimately greyish forms.
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Baume
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scale of measuring total dissolved compounds in grape juice, and therefore its approximate concentration of grape sugars
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Botrytized
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are those made from white grapes affected by the benevolent form of botrytis bunch rot, known in English as noble rot. Distinctively scented in youth, and with considerably more extract than most wines, they are the most complex and longest lived of all the sweet, white table wines. The noble rot smell is often described as honeyed, but it can also have an (attractive) overtone of boiled cabbage.
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Brettanomyces
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sometimes called Brett, one of the yeast genera found occasionally on grapes and in wines. Brettanomyces in its perfect or sporulating form is known as dekkera. While it is usually considered a spoilage yeast since it can produce off-flavours in wines, there is some evidence to indicate that at low levels some of the flavours produced by Brettanomyces can improve red wine complexity. (In some beers, for example Belgium's spontaneously fermented lambic and gueuze beers, Brettanomyces and its effects are essential.)
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Cap
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the layer of grape solids that floats on the liquid surface during red wine fermentation and requiring careful cap management. The cap usefully limits the amount of oxygen available to the yeast, thereby encouraging the formation of alcohol, but has to be broken up and submerged in order to encourage the extraction of the desirable phenolics which add colour, flavour, and longevity to a wine.
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Carbonic Maceration
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red wine-making process which transforms a small amount of sugar in grapes which are uncrushed to ethanol, without the intervention of yeasts. It is used typically to produce light-bodied, brightly coloured, fruity red wines for early consumption, most famously but by no means exclusively in the Beaujolais region of France.
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Clarification
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wine-making operation which removes suspended and insoluble material from grape juice, or new wine, in which these solids are known as lees.
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Concentration
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umbrella term for any wine-making operation which serves to remove volatile substances, mainly water, from grape juice or wine. Its most common application has been in the production of grape concentrate but a range of more sophisticated concentration techniques is increasingly used on grapes and musts, often only on a certain portion of the total must, in order to produce more concentrated wines, notably in some of bordeaux's grandest cellars.
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Elevage
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Wine maturing process involved between fermentation and bottling. Élevage means literally ‛rearing‚, ‛breeding‚, or ‛raising‚ and is commonly applied to livestock, or humans as in bien élevé for ‛well brought up‚. When applied to wines, it means the series of cellar operations that take place between fermentation and bottling, suggesting that the winemaker‚s role is rather like that of a loving parent who guides, disciplines, and civilizes the raw young wine that emerges from the fermentation vessel.
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Filtration
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fundamental but controversial wine-making process whereby solid particles are strained out of the wine with various sorts of filter.
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Fining
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wine-making process with the aim of clarification and stabilization of a wine whereby a fining agent, one of a range of special materials, is added to coagulate or adsorb and precipitate quickly the colloids suspended in it. Fining is most effective in removing molecules of colloidal size, which include polymerized tannins, pigmented tannins, other phenolics, and heat-unstable proteins.
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Free-run
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is the name used by winemakers for the juice or wine that will drain without pressing from a mass of freshly crushed grapes or from a fermentation vessel. Depending on the type of vessel used for draining, it constitutes between 60 and 70 per cent of the total juice available and is generally superior to, and much lower in tannins than, juice or wine whose extraction depends on pressing.
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Flavor Compounds
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inert gas
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a gas used to protect wine from oxidation by the air, such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide .
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ascorbic acid
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Vitamin C- In a wine context, ascorbic acid is of chief importance not to the wine drinker but to the winemaker as a permitted additive, within limits, for its ability to prevent oxidation by reacting directly with oxygen.
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Batonnage
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French term for the wine-making operation of lees stirring .
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Sforzato
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all names for a dried grape wine made in the valtellina zone in the far north of Italy.
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Predicato
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name selected in the 1980s by a group of quality-minded producers in Toscana in central Italy for their new range of wines made substantially or exclusively from international varieties in an...
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invecchiato
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Italian for aged.
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passito
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Italian term for dried grape wine .
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IGT
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stands for Indicazione Geografica Tipica , a category of wines created in italy by law 164 in 1992 as an approximate equivalent of the French vin de pays . EU law compelled Italy to bring its...
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novello
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Italian for new, and therefore a name applied to Italian nouveau wine.
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metodo classico
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and metodo tradizionale , Italian terms for sparkling wines made by the traditional method.
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vino
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Italian for wine and, colloquially and unfairly, English for basic quaffing wine, or plonk .
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Ronco
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north east Italian term derived from the verb roncare (to clear land, particularly land which is either wooded or overgrown with underbrush), which has been used for over a century in a wide...
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casa vinicola
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on the label of an Italian wine indicates a producer who buys in grapes or wine, like a French négociant .
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table wine
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term used internationally to distinguish wines of average alcoholic strength from fortified wines , which have been strengthened by the addition of alcohol. In this context, 'table wines' rely...
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EU table wine
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is wine at its most basically European, a blend of table wines from more than one country in the European Union . The constituents of an EU table wine tend to vary with the vagaries of the...
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espumoso
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Spanish for sparkling. traditional method Spanish sparkling wine that is exported is labelled cava .
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Rosso di
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signifies a red wine from the Italian zone whose name it precedes, often a declassified version of a long-lived, more serious wine such as brunello di montalcino or vino nobile di montepulciano .
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DOCG wines of Italy
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barolo, barbaresco, chianti, brunello di montalcino, and vino nobile di montepulciano, torgiano Riserva, carmignano, gattinara, sagrantino di Montefalco, taurasi, vernaccia di san gimignano, asti and moscato d'asti, franciacorta, brachetto d'Acqui, vermentino di Gallura, ghemme, gavi, valtellina, Greco di Tufo, fiano di Avellino, recioto di Soave, and montepulciano d'Abruzzo Colline Teramane
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DOCG stand for?
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Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita
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Bardolino
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cheerful and uncomplicated light red wine from the south eastern shores of lake Garda in the veneto region of north east Italy. It is produced from corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara grapes. As in the other two important Veneto docs soave and valpolicella, the original production zone is that known as classico (Bardolino, Garda, Lazise, Affa, Costermano, and Cavaion).
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soave
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dry white wine from the veneto region of north east Italy. The classico zone, first defined and delimited in 1927 and currently comprising about 1,100 ha/2,720 acres of mostly hillside vineyards, is the source of superior Soave. new law has seen Trebbiano Toscano excluded from the blend for DOCG. This interloper was introduced to the area in the 1960s, when high yields were more important, and it soon displaced the local Trebbiano di Soave (which is, in fact, Verdicchio). The new law allows for a minimum of 70 per cent Garganega and up to 30 per cent of Trebbiano di Soave, Chardonnay, or Pinot Bianco, although Trebbiano Toscano remains a mainstay in the bulk of Soave from the plain. As a result, there are about four bottles of very basic Soave produced for every bottle of Soave Classico.
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Amarone
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The most famous of Italy's dry dried grape wines has recently been revitalized with total volume produced increasing from 46,500 hl/1.23 million gal in 1990 to 148,000 hl in 2003. Historically Amarone was produced from some of the same grape varieties and in the same production zone as valpolicella, with the same distinction between the classical zone, where Amarone Classico is produced, and an enlarged zone where simple Amarone is produced. Amarone applied for DOCG status in February 2005 to ensure that it is made solely from Corvina and Corvinone, which together can comprise between 40 and 80 per cent of the blend, together with 5–30 per cent of the lesser Rondinella.
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Recioto
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distinctive category of north east Italian dried grape wines, a historic speciality of veneto. The word derives from the Italian for ear, orecchio, because the wine was originally produced only from the ripest grapes in the bunch, from the upper lobes, or ears, although selected whole bunches have long been substituted. The most common forms of Recioto are sweet red Recioto della valpolicella and the much rarer sweet white Recioto di soave.
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Valpolicella
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red wine from the veneto region in north east Italy. Corvina has historically been regarded as the best grape of Valpolicella. The ripasso technique, once employed for boosting the strength, body, and durability of standard Valpolicella, is now becoming more widely used. The increase in production of Amarone has, not surprisingly, been accompanied by an increase in the production of Ripasso wines, a development that has made Valpolicella more appealing to a wider market, for the Ripasso wines are fuller and softer than traditional Valpolicella.
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Ripasso
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Italian term meaning literally 'repassed', for the technique of adding extra flavour, and alcohol, to valpolicella by re-fermenting the young wine on the unpressed skins of amarone wines after these dried grape wines have finished their fermentation in the spring. While this undoubtedly adds body and character to a ripasso Valpolicella, the fact is that all the goodness has been extracted from the grapes during their first fermentation, so only bitter tannins are leached from the skins. Some producers, notably Allegrini, are therefore substituting grapes that have been dried (though not to the extent required for Amarone) for the fermented Amarone skins, although this technique is necessarily expensive. The technique is also used in South America.
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Colli Orientali
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del Friuli, literally the eastern hills of the friuli region in north east Italy, is the region's second largest doc. Its 2,300 ha/5,750 acres of vineyard give it 40 per cent more land dedicated to the vine than the collio DOC between it and the Slovenian border, but the Colli Orientali have only a third as much vineyard acreage as grave del friuli on the plain. It is the most versatile of the three, however, producing interesting white wines, high-quality dessert wines, and what are indisputably the finest, longest-lived red wines of Friuli. In a region known principally for its white wines, the Colli Orientali has 35 per cent of its vineyards planted to such red varieties as the international cabernet and merlot as well as the renascent native varieties refosco, schioppettino, and pignolo. Current production is dominated by tocai Friulano among the white wine grapes, with 457 of the 1,480 acres planted to white varieties in 1996, followed by sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio, Verduzzo, and Pinot Bianco. Small quantities of the sweet white picolit are also made. Merlot is by far the most significant red variety, representing more than half of all red grape plantings, with Cabernet, Refosco, and minor quantities of pinot noir and Schioppettino making up the rest. If the potential for fine wine is at least as high as in Collio, the wines themselves have been less consistent and significant quality fluctuations have not been uncommon even at the leading estates, partly perhaps because of their insistence on producing such a wide range of wine styles and grape varieties.
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Collio
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more properly Collio Goriziano, is a qualitatively important, predominantly white wine, doc zone on the north eastern border of Italy with Slovenia. The grape variety mix is very similar to that in the Colli Orientali to the immediate west. Since the mid 1990s, Pinot Grigio has overtaken tocai Friulano as the dominant variety of the DOC with 339 of the total 1,390 ha/3,475 acres planted in 2003. Tocai Friulano has also been surpassed by sauvignon Blanc (252 ha), but is still more common than Chardonnay (129 ha) and pinot bianco (89 ha). Merlot accounts for 121 of the 245 ha of red grapes planted, with Cabernet Franc more common than Cabernet Sauvignon. The red wines from this zone seldom convince, as few of the vineyards are able to reach sufficient ripeness before the autumn rains set in.
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Traditional method (champagne method)
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This method, once known as the champagne method and now known variously as traditional method, classic method, méthode traditionnelle, and méthode classique, is the most meticulous way of making wine sparkle; the raw ingredients vary considerably but the basic techniques do not.
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Pressing and yield
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Pressing is the first operation defined in detail by the traditional method, which understandably differentiates rigorously between the fractions of juice from each press load, for the first juice to emerge from the press is highest in sugar and acidity and lowest in phenolics, including pigments. A maximum extraction rate is usually defined in any regulations concerning sparkling wine production (such as those for France's crémants). Those who produce traditional method sparkling wine acknowledge that the first juice to emerge from the press is generally the best, even if there is a certain amount of vintage variation. From 1992, the permitted extraction rate for champagne was reduced so that 160 kg (350 lb) of grapes rather than 150 kg of grapes were required to produce 100 l (26.4 gal) of wine, about the same extraction rate as that used by producers of top-quality sparkling wine anywhere in the world. (This compares with an approximate average extraction rate of 100 l of wine from about 130 kg of grapes for still red wines; see yield.)
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Base wines
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After the making of the base wines (described above), which usually takes place over the winter following the harvest, the final blend is made after extensive tasting, assessment, and bench blending. There is extreme flexibility in blending a non-dated wine and a high proportion of 'reserve wine' made in previous years may be used. Some champagne houses include up to 45 per cent of reserve wines in their non-vintage blend. (krug indulge in the luxury of using base wines from up to six different vintages being held in reserve.) The ingredients in a vintage-dated sparkling wine are more limited (often by necessity for those new to sparkling wine-making, by law in Champagne). Many of the base wines made from dark-berried grapes, however lightly pressed, may have a light pink tinge at this stage, although the pigments are precipitated during tirage, the crucial next stage during which the blended wine rests on the lees of a second fermentation in bottle. As soon as the new blend has been made in bulk blending tanks, it usually undergoes cold stabilization in order to prevent subsequent formation of tartrates in bottle.
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Second fermentation
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This new blend then has a mixture of sugar and yeast added to it before bottling in particularly strong, dark bottles, usually stoppered with a crown cap, so that a second fermentation will occur in bottle, creating the all-important fizz. Conventionally, an addition or tirage of about 24 g/l of sugar is made. This creates an additional 1.2 to 1.3 per cent alcoholic strength and sufficient carbon dioxide to create a pressure inside the bottle of five to six atmospheres after disgorgement (see below), which is roughly the fizziness expected of a sparkling wine, and one which can safely be contained by a wired champagne cork. During this second fermentation, known as prise de mousse in French, the bottles are normally stored horizontally at about 12 °C/54 °F until the fermentation has produced the required pressure and bubbles, usually for four to eight weeks.
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Special types of yeast culture which help sparkling winemakers have been developed (and are much used for still wines too). Such yeasts are particularly good at flocculating, and produce a granular deposit that is easy to riddle, or shake, to the neck of the bottle for extraction.
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At this stage, riddling agents are increasingly added with the yeast and sugar. Made of some combination of tannins, bentonites, gelatines, or alginates, they help to produce a uniform skin-like yeast deposit that does not stick to the glass but slips easily down it during the riddling process. The development of smoother glass bottles has also helped.
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Ageing on lees
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Timing of the riddling process after the second fermentation is a key element in quality and style of a traditional method sparkling wine, the second most important factor affecting quality after blending the base wine. The longer a wine rests on the lees of the second fermentation in bottle, the more chance it has of picking up flavour from the dead yeast cells, a process known as yeast autolysis.
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Most regulations for traditional method sparkling wines specify at least nine months ageing on lees, and the minimum period for non-vintage champagne was increased to 15 months in the early 1990s (vintage champagnes are usually aged for several years). During the bottle ageing process, the yeast cells autolyse, releasing increasingly complex flavour compounds. The chemistry of autolysis is not fully understood, but it seems that autolysis has significant effects only after about 18 months on the lees, and that the most obvious changes occur after five to ten years of lees contact, which inevitably increases production costs considerably. It may be that compulsory periods of lees contact in bottle of only a few months have less effect on quality than has been imagined.
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Riddling
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The riddling process, known as remuage (or shaking) in French, is one of the most cumbersome (and most publicized) parts of the traditional method, but it is undertaken for cosmetic rather than oenological reasons: to remove the deposit that would otherwise make the wine cloudy (as it does in the méthode ancestrale described below).
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Traditionally, bottles were gradually moved from the horizontal to an inverted vertical by hand, by human remueurs or riddlers who would shake them and the deposit every time they moved them towards the inverted vertical position in special pupitres or riddling racks. This was a slow and extremely labour-intensive way of moving the deposit from the belly of the bottle to its neck. The cava industry based in Cataluña developed an automatic alternative in the 1970s, the girasol or gyropalette, which has since been widely adopted for traditional method sparkling wine-making the world over. The bottles are stacked, 504 at a time, in large metal crates, and their orientation changed at regular intervals (including night time, unlike the manual method), with accompanying shake, from the horizontal to inverted vertical by remote control. Using riddling agents, well-adapted yeasts, and gyropalettes, bottles may now be riddled in as little as three days, as opposed to the six weeks or more needed for hand remuage without riddling agents.
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Disgorgement and dosage
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The final stage in a sometimes short (but inevitably complicated) production process compared, say, with a fine oak-aged red is to remove the deposit now in the neck of an inverted bottle. The conventional way of achieving this is to freeze the bottle neck and deposit by plunging the necks of the inverted bottles into a tray of freezing solution. The bottles are then upended, opened, and the deposit flies out as a solid pellet of ice. Bottles are then topped up with a mixture of wine and sugar syrup, the so-called dosage, stoppered with a proper champagne cork held on with a wire muzzle, and prepared for labelling. Most dry sparkling wine is sweetened so that it contains between 5 and 12 g/l residual sugar, and the further from the equator the grapes are grown, the more dosage is generally required to counterbalance high natural acidity, although the longer a wine is aged on lees, the less dosage it needs.
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Alternative methods
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Riddling and disgorgement are unwieldy processes which contribute nothing to the innate quality of the sparkling wine. It is not surprising therefore that, in the 1980s, as labour costs spiralled, there was considerable research into alternative methods of expelling the sediment.
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One of the most successful has been the development of encapsulated yeast. Yeast can be trapped in a 'bead' made of calcium alginate. Such beads are about a few millimetres in diameter and are able to hold the yeast trapped in their interior while having big enough pores to admit sugar and nutrients into the bead so that a full second fermentation can proceed as normal. The great advantage is that the riddling stage takes seconds as the beads simply drop into the neck of the inverted bottle. The only brake on the adoption of encapsulated yeasts has been the development of reliable machinery which will dispense beads into bottles without shearing them. Although Moët & Chandon successfully trialled the use of such beads, the company decided it was more practical and economical to continue to use gyropalettes to move the sediment to the neck of the bottle.
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Another possible method is to insert a membrane cartridge into the neck of the bottle. Yeast is dispensed into it and it is then plugged before the bottle is stoppered with the usual crown cap. Like the beads, the cartridge allows ingress of sugar and nutrients for fermentation to take place there, as well as allowing the carbon dioxide gas out. In this case there is no need at all for riddling, and disgorgement simply entails taking off the crown cap and allowing the pressure inside the bottle to expel the cartridge. This alternative could be particularly useful to small wineries for whom the investment in riddling and disgorgement equipment has been prohibitive.
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Transversage
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Transversage is an occasional twist on the traditional method whereby, immediately after disgorgement, the contents of bottles of sparkling wine made by the traditional method are transferred into a pressure tank to which the dosage is added before the wine is bottled, typically in another (often small) size of bottle, under pressure. This is how many half-bottles, all airline 'splits' or quarter-bottles, and virtually all bottle sizes above a jeroboam of champagne are filled.
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Transfer method
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The transfer method, known as méthode transfert in French and Carstens in the United States, also depends on inducing a second fermentation by adding sugar and yeast to a blend of base wines and then bottling the result. It differs from the traditional method, however, in that riddling and disgorgement are dispensed with and, after a period of lees contact, the bottles are chilled, and their contents transferred to a bulk pressure tank where the sediment is removed by clarification, usually filtration. A suitable dosage is then added and the result is once again bottled, using a counter pressure filler, before being corked and wired. The transfer method is likely to be abandoned in the long term because it has all the disadvantages of the traditional method but does not produce all its qualities in the wine.
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Continuous method
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This process was developed in the USSR for soviet sparkling wine and is now used in Germany and Portugal. The method involves a series of usually five reticulated tanks under five atmospheres of pressure, the same fizziness as in most sparkling wines. At one end, base wine together with sugar and yeast (usually rehydrated dried yeast) is pumped in and the second fermentation crucial to virtually all methods of sparkling wine-making begins. This creates carbon dioxide, which increases the pressure in the tank, but the yeast cannot grow under this pressure and so further yeast has to be added continuously. The second and third tanks are partly filled with some material such as wood shavings, which offer a substantial total surface area on which the dead yeast cells accumulate and a certain amount of autolysis, or at least reaction between the dead yeast cells and the wine, takes place. In the fourth and fifth tanks there are no yeast cells and the wine eventually emerges relatively clear, having spent an average of perhaps three or four weeks in the system. See also lancers.
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Charmat process or tank method
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This very common method, also called cuve close (French for sealed tank), tank, or bulk method, granvas in Spanish, autoclave in Italian, was developed by Eugene Charmat in the early years of the 20th century in Bordeaux. Its advantages are that it is very much cheaper, faster, and less labour intensive than the above processes, and is better suited to base wines which lack much capacity for ageing. A second fermentation is provoked by yeast and sugar added to base wine held in bulk in a pressure tank and, after a rapid fermentation, the fermentation is typically arrested by cooling the wine to −5 °C when a pressure of about five atmospheres has been reached. The result is clarified, a dosage is added and the resulting sparkling wine is bottled using a counter pressure filler. This style of sparkling wine is the most likely to taste like still wine with bubbles in it, rather than to have any of the additional attributes which can result from fermentation in bottle.
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Carbonation
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Also known as the injection, or simply the 'bicycle pump', method, carbonation of wine is achieved in much the same way as carbonation of fizzy, soft drinks: carbon dioxide gas is pumped from cylinders into a tank of wine which is then bottled under pressure, or very occasionally it is pumped into bottles. Fizziness must by law be at least three atmospheres in Europe. The result is a wine which has many, and large, bubbles when the bottle is first opened, but whose mousse rapidly fades. This is the cheapest, least critical, and least durable way of making wine sparkle and is used for perhaps the cheapest 10 per cent of all sparkling wines.
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Méthode ancestrale or méthode rurale
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This method is rarely used and results in a lightly sparkling, medium sweet wine, often with some deposit, but it most closely parallels how wines were originally made sparkling. It involves bottling young wines before all the residual sugar has been fermented into alcohol. Fermentation continues in bottle and gives off carbon dioxide. Variants on this theme are still made in Gaillac, where the method is sometimes known as the méthode gaillacoise, from the Blanquette grape in limoux, and may still occasionally be found in savoie.
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The wine is designed to be sweeter and less fizzy than a traditional method sparkling wine and no dosage is allowed. The wine may in some cases be decanted off the deposit and rebottled under pressure in a form of transfer method.
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Méthode dioise
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This is an unusual variation on the méthode ancestrale above and the transfer method, producing wines similar to asti. It is used for the sweet wine clairette de die, most of which is made by the local co-operative. The base wines are fermented in stainless steel tanks at very low temperatures over several months. The wine is then filtered, bottled, and fermentation continues in bottle until an alcoholic strength of about 7.5 per cent has been reached. The wine is disgorged six to 12 months after bottling (by inserting a pipe through the crown cap and sucking out the clear wine under pressure) before being filtered again and immediately transferred to new bottles.
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