Winemaking

Front 1

What are the maximum percentage variances on ABV levels in the EU and USA/Australia?

Back 1

The EU requires labels to identify alcohol levels within 0.5% and the level must be stated in terms of an 0.5% interval; US and AUS require accuracy only within 1.5% (so a wine labeled 12.5% could be anything between 11% and 14%).

Accuracy is further reduced by distortions resulting from the tax laws: tax on wine increases when the level goes over 14% alcohol in the US; some winemakers have resorted to reporting the ABVs on their wines as 13.9%, just squeezing into the lower tax bracket.

Front 2

During the winemaking process, what are some of the ways one can do in order to increase alcohol in the wine?

Back 2

Chaptalization - adding sugar to the must before fermentation (very traditional way)

Remove water - using a concentrator or reverse osmosis or employing evaporation under vacuum aka evaporation sous vide.

Front 3

What is the simplest and least expensive way to remove water from grapes?

Back 3

Reverse osmosis - when the direction of flow is reversed by applying pressure, so water can be extracted from the must.

Some producers prefer the method of evaporation sous vide (evaporation under vacuum). This uses the principle that water boils at lower temps as the pressure is reduced. In this machine, the pressure is brought low enough for water to evaporate at 20 deg Celcius (68F). In Bdx, where in spite of global warming the climate still does not produce really ripe grapes every year, where the rain is common around harvest time, reverse osmosis machines and vacuum evap appear to be used about equally.

Front 4

In a reverse osmosis system, what generally belongs in the permeate and in the retentate?

Back 4

The permeate is the material that crosses the reverse osmosis membrane, containing water, alcohol, and other small substances. It is distilled to remove the alcohol. Then it is added back to the retentate, which contains all the other components of the wine.

Front 5

Reverse osmosis is a versatile technique that can be used to adjust components other than alcohol. The size of a molecule determines whether is is included in the permeate. What molecules are small enough to be included?

Back 5

Acetic acid is small enough to be included, and also can be removed from the permeate by chemical means, which offers a way to treat wines that have volatile acidity (excess of acetic acid). But this is not legal in many jurisdictions.

Front 6

What are the 2 most important acids in grapes?

Back 6

Tartaric and malic. Most of the acidity is tartaric, which has no flavor as such, but malic acid has a distinct flavor of green apples.

Front 7

Volatile acidity = excessss of acetic acid.

Back 7

...

Front 8

Which natural acid in grapes are found more in cool-climate regions? Which in warm climate regions? And way?

Back 8

Malic acid is generally more prominent in cool-climate varieties because it is metabolized during the later stages of development in warm temps.

Red wines tend to have lower acidity than white wines partly because they tend to be produced in warmer climates, partly because maceration with the skins extracts potassium (which reduces acidity).

Front 9

What is the range of acidity for a 'balanced' wine?

Back 9

4-6 g/l of acidity (or 0.4%-0.6%). In France, acidity is given in equivalents of sulfuric acid, which must be multiplied by 1.5 to get the tartaric equivalent.

Higher levels of acidity are needed to balance the sugar in sweet wines. The level of acidity drops with each fermentation; a little is lost during alc ferm and there is a much larger drop if there is MLF.

Front 10

What is 'VA' and how is it produced?

Back 10

Volatile acidity. 'Volatile' means that you can smell it, and for practical purposes in wine, this means acetic acid, the smell of vinegar. It is produced by oxidation of alcohol.

At very low levels, it adds liveliness and piquancy, but if levels become high enough to notice directly on the nose, it's a problem. By contrast, you cannot smell the major acids in wine, tartaric and malic.

Front 11

What are 3 ways during the winemaking process to reduce acidity?

Back 11

(1) The most natural way is by MLF - usu considered most appropriate for most reds and for many non-aromatic whites. By replacing malic with lactic acid, the wine loses the sharp taste of green apples, and gains more creamy textures.

In low acid vintages, by contrast, blocking the malo may be a way to retain more natural acidity. Some producers did this in the very hot 2003 vintage in Burgundy.

Front 12

What are 3 ways during the winemaking process to reduce acidity?

Back 12

(2) Wine can be deacidified chemically, which is legal in the cooler climates of Europe.
Adding chalk (calcium carbonate) is an old method to remove tartaric acid, by precipitating out the calcium tartrate. More modern variations of this method use more complex chemicals.

Front 13

What are 3 ways during the winemaking process to reduce acidity?

Back 13

(3)
(Reduction of acidity can also result from cold stabilization to remove potential tartrate crystals).

Front 14

True of False? Most people cannot taste sugar below 4g/l.

Back 14

True.

Front 15

True or False? A 'dry' wine has residual sugar.

Back 15

True. All wine has a little sugar. Even when a wine is fermented to completion, there will be a tiny residual amount that did not get converted to alcohol. Most ppl can taste sugar in wine at a level above 4g/l (0.4%).

Most dry red wines have less than 1g/l of resid sugar, most whites are a little higher at 2-3g/l.

Front 16

What is the legal definition of a 'dry' wine?

Back 16

Must have less than 4g/l of residual sugar.

But in recognition of the interplay with acidity, wines with sufficient acidity are allowed up to 9g/l and still be described as 'dry'. This is most often used for the Trocken classicfication in Germany. This can make 'trocken' a somewhat misleading description. When the acidity is at the low limit, and the sugar is at the high limit for the category, there will be a perceptible taste of sweetness.

Front 17

True or False? Alcohol can give a perception of sweetness.

Back 17

True. A wine with a high alcohol can appear misleadingly sweet. Glycerol also gives an impression of sweetness.

Front 18

True or False? Residual sugar can make a wine seem richer.

Back 18

True. It's a winemaker's trick to leave just a little residual sugar, right at the level of detection or maybe just a fraction above it, to give a bit of kick to the body and a superficial but misleading impression of richness.

Front 19

What components can you add to a wine after fermentation to result in sweet wine?

Back 19

(1) Add sugar - most widespread technique, although not legal in Europe.
(2) Sussreserve (concentrated grape juice)
(3) RCGM (concentrated and purified grape must) - unfermented grape juice by a process of filtration and rectification in which the solution is passed through decoloring resins and ion exchange columns. In reality, RCGM is a concentrated solution of glucose and fructose sugars. Its only difference from a solution made by dissolving purified sugars (more easily extracted from beets) in water is that it was made by partial dehydration of the must of cheap grapes.

Front 20

What is Rubired?

Back 20

It is a hybrid with 1/8th parentage from Vitis rupestris. It is not a very distinguished variety. It produces a dark red blending wine, with little character or body and is used to increase the color of generic or varietal table and dessert wines.

Front 21

What is 'Mega Purple'?

Back 21

An extract made from grapes of Rubired, a hybrid variety deveoped in 1958 by Dr. Harold Olmo of UC Davis by crossing Alicante Ganzin and Tinta Cao. Tinta Cao is one of the quality black varietals used to make Port, but Alicante Gazin is a French hybrid. It is a teinturier, meaning that its juice is colored red and it's mostly used for breeding other teinturiers.

The Rubired extract is very deeply colored, very high in sugar and because of its hybrid origin, has a slightly foxy aroma. It's most commonly used as an additive to give red wines a bit more color, but it also gives them a touch of residual sugar and hint of that nasty foxy quality, known pejoratively to winemakers who use it as 'Central Valley Red.'
It's used to overcome deficiencies in a wine, because it adds enough flavoring to hide vegetal notes or even a touch of the animal aromas introduced by Bret infection.
It's been described as having 'a sort of jammy taste, but with no fruit to it' or giving the wine 'a tutti frutti aroma.'

Front 22

What is oxidative and reductive winemaking?

Back 22

How much oxygen a wine encounters en route from grape juice to the bottle has a major effect on its style.
At one extreme, the new technique of micro-oxygentation increases exposure by bubbling oxygen through the must during or after fermentation.
At the other extreme, reductive winemaking (reduction is the opposite of oxidation) uses closed stainless fermentation vats with a blanket of inert gas to completely exclude oxygen.

Front 23

True or False? Oxidative and reductive winemaking are good determinants of wine styles. True.

Back 23

Oxidation and reduction are key determinants of wine styles. The properties of many components of wine depend on whether they are in oxidized or reduced states.

The most dramatic effects are displayed by sulfur-containing compounds.

Front 24

What are olfactory effects from reductive winemaking?

Back 24

When they are in a reduced state (in the absence of oxgyen, or anaerobically), they produce pungent smells of cabbage, garlic, burned rubber, or rotten eggs.
They are known as thiols (more colloquially) or mercaptans (more formally). Hydrogen sulfide, the smell of rotten eggs, is a pungent example of a sulfurous compound.

Front 25

What varieties are more prone to have been made with reductive winemaking?

Back 25

Reductive winemaking occurs in an oxygen-free environment, eliminating the reactions that occur when must or wine is exposed to oxygen in traditional winemaking. It produces wine with bright fruits, typically suited for earlier consumption.
It has become especially well established for aromatic varieties such as Riesling and Sauv Blanc, where the aromatics are easily lost on exposure to oxygen. (Some of the characteristic features of Sauv Blanc are due to thiols, which react with oxygen but are preserved under reductive conditions.)

Front 26

How do you treat a wine flaw during winemaking, to fix excessive sulfur?

Back 26

Excessive thiol concentrations resulting from flaws in winemaking can be removed by treatment with copper (an oxidizing agent); in fact, an old trick for dealing with a slight sulfur problem is to drop a copper penny into a glass of wine. The aromas clear almost instantly.
While excess thiols are a problem in any wine, some varietals rely for their characteristic aromas on the production of certain thiols at low levels, so the balance between oxidation and reduction is especially important in their winemaking.

Front 27

Where did reductive winemaking become popular?

Back 27

Reductive winemaking became popular in Australia and NZ under the influence of Brian Croser, a leading Australian winemaker, and the reductive style is associated with the New World, although no longer exclusively practiced there.
Fermentation occurs in stainless steel, oxygent may be excluded by using inert gas, and there is no exposure to wood. Dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) is used in the press to generate CO2, which both avoids oxidizing the grapes and maintains the low temp of the fruit. After pressing, the juice is transferred to stainless steel tanks where it is fermented at cool temps. The style of NZ SB, bright, steely, and full of sharp fruits, owes more to this treatment than to terroir.

Front 28

Where did micro-oxygenation derive from?

Back 28

Micro-oxygenation is the extreme form of oxidative exposure. It may be used during fermentation, it is usually avoided during MLF, and its main use is during maturation.
It was invented in Madiran in SW France in 1991 to help reduce the violent tannins of the Tannat grape, and the technique is most suitable for producing wines for short to medium term consumption from tannic grape varieties.

Front 29

How does micro-oxygenation work?

Back 29

Oxygen is bubbled through the wine by using a sparger that distributes the gas in the form of tiny bubbles. By oxidizing the tannins, it advances the state of maturation, with a generally softening effect on the wine, and is most often used as a (cheaper) alternative to maturation in barrel.
It's effective because the oxygen is distributed evenly throughout the wine, instead of being restricted to the surface area of the barrel. There's no detailed theoretical understanding of how it works, and it needs to be used carefully to avoid spoiling the wine.

Front 30

What is hyperoxidation and where is it used?

Back 30

Hyperoxidation is the antithesis of reductive winemaking, and is sometimes used for white wines. Oxygen is bubbled through the must before fermentation, destroying anything that reacts with it. By removing compounds that are susceptible with oxygen (esp tannins, which are undesirable in white wine b/c of their bitterness), this results in a wine that is more stable when it encounters oxygen later.
In principle this can make a stable fruity wine, but the practical problem is stopping the process before the fruit is destroyed. It's useful only for neutral grape varieties, and cannot be used for those whose aromas depend on sulfur-containing compounds (which would be destroyed by the treatment).

Front 31

True or False? True.

Back 31

The transmission of flavors of is by far the strongest with new oak; the effect is smaller after 1 year, and by 3-4 years, a barrel has become a relatively inert storage medium.
However, exposure to oxygen is the same irrespective of the age of the barrel.

Front 32

Explain the making of a typical oak wine barrel.

Back 32

Barrels come in all shapes and sizes, but the most common is the 225-L barrique of Bordeaux. For the best quality, planks of oak are seasoned outside for at least 2 years, and then cut into staves that are bent into barrels. The staves are heated for about 20 min to make them pliable. Once the staves have been secured with metal hoops, the barrel is 'toasted.'
Traditionally this was done with an open flame, but today the process is often more precisely controlled by using a specified period of infrared radiation. Toasting is described as light, medium or heavy, depending on the duration and temperature.

Front 33

What are the aromas and flavors derived from oak?

Back 33

Coconut, vanillin, butterscotch, cloves, cinnamon, and smokiness.
In addition, tannins are extracted to add to those of the grape itself. (These are called ellagitannins, and they tend to be stronger than the grape tannins.)

Front 34

What is the difference in French oak and American oak?

Back 34

French oak is usually considered the best, because of its tight grain. Am oak is a different species, with larger sized pores, and conveys noticeably stronger flavors to the wine.
You can detect its use in some New World wines by strong aromas of vanillin, and also in Rioja, where it has been traditionally been used rather than French oak.
Oak is expensive; barrels of top French oak run about $800 each (which comes to roughly $32 per case of wine).
Back in the 19th century, Baltic oak was generally used in Bdx; recent economic pressure has renewed interest in oak from eastern Europe; although it tends to be sweeter and spicier than French oak (but not as pronounced as Am oak).

Front 35

How does cork taint (TCA, 2, 4, 6-trichloroanisole) happen in a cork?

Back 35

TCA is produced by penicillin fungi that live naturally on cork trees. They act on a group of chlorine-containing compounds (the best known are the chlorophenols) to generate TCA and other compounds related to it.
Chlorophenols are used as pesticides and fire retardants, and they can come into contact with cork not only on the trees in the forest but during subsequent processing.
Abandoning the use of chlorine in cleaning corks brought the level of TCA contamination quite a bit, probs to around 2% or so.

Front 36

Who discovered the cause of TCA?

Back 36

Hans Tanner, a German scientist, discovered TCA in cork, in 1982.
Pascal Chatonnet, a research scientist in Bdx University showed that winery TCA was related as well.

Front 37

Who is credited with the origin of the screwcap, known in the trade as Stelvins?

Back 37

The original patent was grated to Dan Rylands in the UK in 1889. The first use of screwcaps for alcoholic beverages was for whisky.
Its intro by White Horse Distillers in 1926 doubled sales in 6 months.
Until 1913, whisky bottles were sealed with corks that had to be removed with a corkscrew; the replaceable cork was invented in 1913 by Teacher's, described as 'The Self-Opening Bottle (Patented),' and sold under the slogan 'Bury the Corkscrew.')

Front 38

What are the 3 most widely planted black varietals in the world?

Back 38

Cab Sauv, followed closely by Merlot and Grenache.

Front 39

What is the world's most planted white wine grape?

Back 39

Airen, a completely nondescript source of white wine in Spain. But its plantings have dropped dramatially since 1990.
Chardonnay was not even in the top ten in 1990, but is now the world's leading quality white grape.
There is still plenty of Trebbiano (Ugni Blanc), although quite a bit of it is used to make wine for distillation into brandy rather than for drinking.

Front 40

Malvasia = Malmsey = Madeira

Back 40

...

Front 41

True or False? Originally all grapes were black.
True.

Back 41

Color is due to production of the anthocyanin pigments in the skin. Grapevines producing white grapes arose by mutations inactivating the production of anthocyanins.
Most major white cultivars have the same mutation, which suggests the distinction btw black and white grapevines must have occurred early in the evolution of the grapevine.
Of course, white varieties continue to arise, sometimes by new mutations inactivating the anthocyanin genes.

Front 42

True or False. The oldest of the modern varieties can be traced back to the medieval period.
True.

Back 42

The two most anciently established of the important varieties grown today are Nebbiolo and Pinot Noir.
Nebbiolo wins for the oldest known description by a short head (a mere century or so).

Front 43

What grapes are the parents of Syrah?

Back 43

A cross between Dureza (found in the Ardeche region on the west bank of the Rhone) and Mondeuse (a grape of Savoie, well to the east).

Front 44

Sangiovese = 'blood of Jove'

Ciliegiolo + Calabrese Montenuovo = Sangio

Back 44

DNA mapping identifies the parents of Sangiovese as Ciliegiolo, a Tuscan grape, and Calabrese Montenuovo, a grape from the south.

Front 45

cepage = grape variety

Back 45

...

Front 46

White pepper = a characteristic of Syrah before it reaches full ripeness

Back 46

...

Front 47

True or False. Red wines are most often grouped according to whether they convey an impression of red fruit or black fruit.
True.

Back 47

...

Front 48

True or False. White wines divide into neutral and aromatic.

Back 48

True. Some neutral wines have a real affinity for oak, and can be greatly enhanced by time spent in wood, when the oak flavors may come to be as important a part of the profile as the grape flavors themselves.
It is less common for aromatic varieties to be exposed to wood.
At one extreme, Sauv Blanc can be 'grassy' or 'herbaceous' at the other.
Muscat (or its relative Torrontes) are rare varieties that actually show grapey aromas.

Front 49

True or False. More than a thousand volatile compounds contributing to aromas have been found in wine.

Back 49

True.

Front 50

Red fruits / Fruity

Back 50

Gamay
Dolcetto

Front 51

Red fruits / Savory

Back 51

Pinot Noir
Sangiovese
Nebbiolo
Tempranillo

Front 52

Black fruits / Herbaceous

Back 52

Cab Franc
Carmenere
Malbec
Tannat

Front 53

Black fruits / Fruity

Back 53

Cab Sauv
Merlot
Syrah

Front 54

Black fruits/ Aromatic

Back 54

Grenache
Zinfandel

Front 55

Neutral White / Acid

Back 55

Aligote
Muscadet

Front 56

Neutral White / Oak Affinity

Back 56

Chard
Semillon
Chenin Blanc

Front 57

Neutral White / Bland

Back 57

Muller-Thurgau
Gruner Veltliner
Pinot Gris

Front 58

Aromatic White / Herbaceous

Back 58

Sauv Blanc
Verdejo

Front 59

Aromatic White / Floral

Back 59

Riesling
Albarino
Tocai Friulano

Front 60

Aromatic White / Perfumed

Back 60

Gewurztraminer
Viognier

Front 61

Aromatic White / Grapey

Back 61

Muscat
Torrontes

Front 62

Compounds that contribute to flavor and aroma.

Back 62

- Thiols (sulfur-containing compounds)
- Esters (formed by reaction btw alcohols and acids)
- Terpenes (hydrocarbons formed by a wide variety of plants, which take their generic name from turpentine)

Front 63

Sometimes the compounds responsible for the characteristic aroma of a grape variety are found in the grape itself (Muscat is a classic example)...

Back 63

- But more often they are generated during fermentation and maturation
- Sometimes by directly converting an inactive precursor in the grape into an active odorant
- Sometimes as the result of a more complex pathway catalyzed by yeast
- Sometimes aromas and flavors develop only with bottle aging
- Some have an extraneous source, the oak of the barrels in which the wine is matured

Front 64

True or False? Yeasts are only machines for converting sugar into alcohol.
False.

Back 64

It depends a lot on the varietal how much difference yeast make at fermentation.
For aromatic varieties such as Sauv Blanc, where they play a key role in releasing aromas, the effect is much greater than for neutral varieties.

Front 65

True or False? Winemaking conditions can therefore have a strong influence on varietal character.
True.

Back 65

Thiol compounds are reducing agents, so it follows that their properties are emphasized by winemaking under reductive conditions and minimized under oxidative conditions.
This particular aspect of winemaking becomes of prime importance for varieties such as Sauv Blanc where a large part of the aroma is provided by thiols.

Front 66

True or False? Aromas and flavors in wine may be generated at any stage of vinification.

Back 66

True.
(see pgs. 156-157)

Front 67

True or False? Cabernet Franc is a parent to many grapes.
True.

Back 67

CF + SB = CS
CF + MN = Merlot
CF + GC = Carmenere

MN = Magdelaine Noire (des Charentes)
GC = Gros Cabernet

Front 68

How was CS introduced to Bordeaux?

Back 68

CS is thought to have been introduced to Bdx by Baron Hector de Brane (the proprietor prior to 1830 of Brane Mouton, which was later to become Mouton Rothschild).
Armand d' Armailhacq also grew the grape at his chateau and advocated its use in his book (published in various editions from 1855). It does best on well-drained, gravel soils.

Front 69

True or False? Merlot is a relative newcomer to the list of top varieties.
True.

Back 69

It was a secondary cultivar in Bdx in the 19th century, increasing in popularity in the second part of the century because of its relatively low susceptibility to powdery mildew, which was becoming a problem.
It became significant when it replaced Malbec during the replanting resulting from the phylloxera epidemic.
Today it is the major variety in Bdx, the most widely planted black variety in France, and close behind CS in worldwide popularity.
One of the most famous (and most expensive) wines of the right bank of Bdx, Chateau Petrus is made almost exclusively (95%) from Merlot, and many of the successful small-production, cult wines are monovarietal Merlots.

Front 70

Which country has the most plantings of CS?

Back 70

France remains the country with the most CS plantings, more than half in Bdx.
But overall, there is now more CS in the New World than the Old.

Front 71

How does the perception of CS change as it is grown in climates warmer than Bdx?

Back 71

As CS ripens, its aroma and flavor spectrum changes from:
bell peppers -> blackcurrant -> cassis -> jam

Front 72

What does CS owe for its herbaceous quality?

Back 72

CS's herbaceous quality is due to its production of a single compound, a pyrazine (3-isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine, known as IBMP).
Not surprisingly, since SB is one of the parents of CS, the same compound is also responsible for the characteristic herbaceous notes of SB, although in this variety it usually manifests itself more as grassiness or asparagus.
Methoxypyrazine synthesis is related to vegetative growth, occurring in the berries between fruit set and the period just prior to veraison. Sunlight triggers its destruction, and its level drops sharply between veraison and harvest.
Warmer climatic conditions, coupled with the trend to harvest grapes at greater levels of ripeness, may mean that the level has dropped below detection by the time CS is harvested.

Front 73

The aromas and taste of CS from different regions are much influenced by the typical levels of ripeness.

Back 73

Blackcurrants have become more evident than bell peppers as vintages have become warmer in Bdx.
Cali CS varies from relatively soft and amorphous black fruits at the generic level to intense blackcurrants from Napa, somewhat leaner from Sonoma.
CS from Australia tends to exuberance, with intense aromatics accompanying from blackcurrants from Barossa Valley, less aromaticity from McLaren Vale, and more precise, elegant fruits from Coonawarra.
Chile and Argentina produce CS in the style of Cali, but the fruits tend to be less well focused and less intense.

Front 74

Syrah.

Back 74

Sirah, Syra, Sirac, Seyras, Schiras, Shiraza.

Front 75

The oldest established appellation is Hermitage.

Back 75

Although wine was being produced in Hermitage in Roman times, there is no knowing what grape varieties were cultivated then, and the modern history of Hermitage starts with a royal visit in 1642, when Louis XIII was offered the wine.
Syrah has been grown in the Northern Rhone at least since the 7th century, when it became known as Serine at Cote-Rotie and as Petite Syrah at Hermitage.

Front 76

...

Back 76

...

Front 77

What is the difference btw Syrah and Petite Sirah?

Back 77

Syrah = cross btw Dureza and Mondeuse

Petite Sirah = cross btw Syrah and Peloursin
(PS is also called 'Durif')

Front 78

Petite Sirah is an entirely different grape varietal than "Syrah" (otherwise known as "Shiraz").
Also spelled as "Petite Syrah", it is a black grape varietal originating from the Rhone region of France. It is a relative newcomer: created only in the 1880s by Dr. Durif.
In creating Petite Sirah, Dr. Durif crossed 2 ancient Mediterranean varietals: Syrah (as the father plant) and Peloursin (as the mother plant). Peloursin is no longer commercially grown.

Back 78

In France, Petite Sirah was commonly known as "Durif" (also spelled as "Duriff") in tribute to its creator. Ironically, Petite Sirah did not fare well in Rhone. Petite Sirah is a very late ripening grape with a thin skin and hence susceptible to the ravages of late season rains common in the Rhone region. Although small quantities continue to be grown and used in such wines as Chateauneuf du Pape, it is no longer widely used in Rhone wines.

Once transported to California, Durif thrived under the new name of Petite Sirah. It was called "Petite Sirah" because it is a far less vigorous plant than Syrah. Otherwise Syrah and Petite Sirah do not physically look alike.
Petite Sirah is best suited for truly Mediterranean climates with long and dry harvesting seasons. Petite Sirah is presently grown across California, but tends to do best in Mendocino, Napa Valley and in certain parts of Sonoma.
Typically, Petite Sirah creates a wine of deeper color, richer texture, stronger tannins and a flavor profile steeped more towards spice and peppery red fruit when compared with Syrah.

Front 79

Australian Shiraz dates from cuttings taken from Hermitage from 1831 during James Busby's tour of France.

Back 79

Busby (who played a formative role in the early Australian whine industry) referred to it as Ciras or Seyras, and the vines were made freshly available; by 1860 they had been widely planted in Hunter Valley.
The earliest references to the grape in Australia often use 'Scyras' as a description, but by the 1860s the wine was generally known as Shiraz or Hermitage.
Hermitage ceased to be used in the 1980s to avoid conflict with the wine from France. Australia's most famous example of a Syrah-based wine, Grange Hermitage, changed its name to Grange in 1989.

Front 80

What are the aroma and tasting notes of the Syrah grape?

Back 80

Syrah is dry, dense, rich, alcoholic, and tannic. It is deeply colored with black hues; perhaps it is not as densely colored as CS.
The nose tends towards a mineral blueberry, often with spiciness or peppery overtones, sometimes showing a tarry or burned rubber aroma.
Classic notes of white pepper tend to come out in wines made from grapes harvested at lower ripeness levels.

Front 81

Syrah has spread around the warm climates of the world, with wine styles somewhat indicated by whether it is called Syrah or Shiraz.

Back 81

The wines of the Rhone tend to be relatively backward, often with gamey notes (but these may be due to infection with the yeast Brettanomyces rather than to the variety or terroir).
Eventually Hermitage ages toward a similar flavor spectrum as old Bordeaux.
The wines of the Languedoc, the other major locus for production in France, tend to be fruitier and richer, but less refined.
In hot vintages, Rhone wines can show fruits of black plums, closing the gap quite a bit with New World style, but they are rarely as full-throated as the Shiraz of Australia or South America.
New World Shiraz can be aromatic (moreso than CS). Australian Shiraz is often made in an exuberant style, bursting with forward fruits, dominated by notes of aromatic plums, tannins obscured by the fruits, tending to high alc of 14% or more.
It is at its most forward from Barossa Valley.

Front 82

True or False? France dominates worldwide production of Pinot Noir.
True.

Back 82

However, about 40% of France's PN is used for Champagne; in terms of production for red wine, its lead is much smaller.
Burgundy's 10,000 ha are roughly twice the area found in any other single region.

Front 83

True or False? Pinot Noir is definitely a grape for cool climates.
True.

Back 83

All the classic locations for Pinot production in France are in the northern part of the country:
Burgundy, Sancerre, Alsace, and Champagne.
The regions of Germany are farther to the north yet, Baden just to the north of Alsace, and the tiny region of the Ahr, the most northern region for wine production in Germany, able to ripen PN only b/c of its special properties as a micro climate.
In the US, Oregon might be compared climatcially to Burgundy (Sonoma Valley is somewhat warmer), while in NZ the move towards Central Otago takes PN production into the coolest climate in the country.

Front 84

There is still generally a distinction between PN from the Old World, epitomized by Burgundy, where the wine tends toward a lighter more savory style, and the New World, where it is richer, with more powerful fruits and a fuller body.

Back 84

In France, Burgundy is at its weightiest in the Cote de Nuits, with fruits tending to black cherries, lighter in the Cote de Beaune with fruits tending to earthy strawberries, lighter yet in the surrounding satellite regions.
Sancerre in the Loire produces light-colored Pinot Noirs with good acidity and (in a warm year) something approaching the earthy strawberry fruits of the satellite regions around Beaune.
PN in Alsace can be pale to the point of confusion with rose, but more intense examples can now be found (although their 'typicity' has been questioned), with good acidity and notes of earthy strawberries.

Front 85

Sweetness of fruits is a marker for all regions from NZ. Marlborough shows the bright, forward fruits that typify NZ wines, with red and black cherries on the palate, and precise fruit flavors supported by good acidity. The wines often show prominent aromatics. Martinborough (just to the north) is similar to Marlborough, but slightly denser and fuller in style, with more intimations of black fruit, especially cherries.
To the south, the cooler climate of Central Otago, a more recent convert to PN production, shows earthier aromas and flavors, with more upfront, softer fruit flavors tending to the classic strawberries. Fruits can be lifted by the higher acidity. Winemakers often compare it to Oregon.

Back 85

South Africa PN can be similar in style to NZ, but with less bright fruits and less noticable aromatics.
Chile is similar, with a mix of cherries and strawberries, but less fruit intensity and less aromatic than NZ, and sometimes a tell tale touch of menthol, often a faintly herbaceous note.
Yarra Valley in Australia shows rather soft, earthy flavors, with strawberries predominating, and acidity on the lower side, sometimes marked by a very faint medicinal edge. The wines are lighter than those of NZ, the fruits fruits are less lifted.
Willamette Valley in OR varies more significantly with climate, from wines that can be relatively thin and acid, to those that have palates dominated by earthy strawberries.

Front 86

Explain how Pinots differ within Cali.

Back 86

Carneros was one of the first regions in Calif to emphasize PN. Its wines have fruits of black cherries, sometimes notes of eucalyptus, can can be lean and spicy.
Russian River Valley in Sonoma shows quite weighty fruits in the same spectrum but with more precise delineation of flavors, fuller bodied, and often a little spiciness.
Santa Barbara produces Pinots in a softer style, but often too alcoholic.
Napa Valley PN tend to be over-ripe fruits, with rather jammy, and sometimes too heavy.

Front 87

In the early 1990s, the so-called Dijon clones were imported to Oregon, giving much better results than the ones recommended by UC Davis that ripened relatively late (which required harvesting around the time of the autumn rains in OR, with generally disastrous results).

Back 87

Dijon clones of PN have generally now replaced Oregon's traditional clones (Pommard and Wadensvil).
The Dijon clones have nothing much to do with Dijon; the name appears to have arisen simply because the clones are described D numbers and were imported from Burgundy.

Front 88

True or False? Pinot is particularly prone to mutation and throws off new variants at a greater rate than most other varieties; there are several hundred clones under cultivation.
True.

Back 88

The Pinot family consists of closely related variants:
Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Blanc.

The first three are black grapes, the last is white. (PN is black/purple, PG is red/pink)
Their genetic maps are almost indistinguishable, implying they all originate from the same ancestor.

Front 89

How different are the grapes within the Pinot family?

Back 89

The differences are subtle.
PB's lack of color is due to the same mutation that prevents anthocyanin production in other white grapes.
PG has rather variable color, possibly the result of a mutation specifically affecting only the cell layer that produces the skin.
PM differs from PN in having leaves that are densely covered with fine hairs, whereas the leaves of PN are smooth. This gives the underside of the leaves a slightly white appearance, somewhat like dusting the flour, hence the description 'Meunier' (French for miller). The grapes of PM have the same appearance as PN.

Front 90

What is the main difference btw PN and PM?

Back 90

The difference is due solely to a genetic change affecting only the outer layer of cells. It turns out that this results from a single genetic difference in the pathway for producing giberellic acid, a plant hormone that controls growth.

Front 91

The relationship btw the Pinots is made possible because grapevines are propagated vegetatively, by making cuttings, instead of being grown from seeds.

Back 91

All the Pinot varieties are chimeras, in which the genetic constitution of the layer of skin cells is different from the constitution of the cells of the inner layer.

Front 92

Chardonnay

Back 92

A cross between an ancestral Pinot Noir (father) and Gouais Blanc (mother).

Gouais is the mother for: Aligoté, Auxerrois, Bachet, Chardonnay, Franc noir, Gamay noir, Melon, Romorantin and Sacy.

Pinot is the mother for: Aubin vert, Knipperlé and Roublot

Front 93

Chardonnay is the most widely propagated white grape in the world; almost every wine-producing country has some.

Back 93

Chablis Chard:
Unoaked (steely minerality)
Oaked (adding hints of smoke and liquorice to the minerality, but not vanillin since the oak is rarely new).

Front 94

Cote d'Or Chard:
Puligny Mont: its most steeliest in the Cote d'Or
Chassagne Mont: creamier
Meursault: softer, sometimes with a nuttier edge.
Corton Charlemagne: can be fat and opulent

Back 94

Strength of oak depends on producer style but is not usually obtrusive and tends to be smoky rather than buttery.
When you get to the Grand Crus, with Le Montrachet at the peak, there can be overt oakiness when the wine is young.

Front 95

The style of Chard is at is fullest in Napa, similar but a little less rich in Carneros, somewhat leaner in Sonoma, with Russian River Valley providing a more elegant style.

Back 95

Like everything else, Chard from AU tends simply to be bigger and bolder than the same grape from elsewhere.
In the oaked style, AU Chards are big, oaky, buttery, and alcoholic; in the unoaked style they tend to lime and other citrus flavors.
The unoaked style is distinguished from the Old World by the intensity of its bright, forward lemon fruits, absence of minerality, and higher alcohol.

Front 96

Differences in worldwide production of Chard:

Back 96

Tropical notes can be a mark of New World Chards from AU, NZ or Chile, but not usually Cali. (Sometimes this is due to fermentation at low temps).
Chile and South Africa tend to follow the AU style, but with less intensity.
Norther Italy (Piedmont, Tuscany, and Umbria) produces some heavily oaked Chards, distinguished from the French by a touch of vanillin from the oak, sometimes coming close to a New World style.

Front 97

There are quite noticeable effects on flavor profile in clonal variations of Chard, when you look for them.

Back 97

Chard clones vary greatly in berry and bunch size.

Clone 4 is the most widely planted clone in Calif, and gives consistently high yields.
Clone 15 comes from Washington State and gives smaller berries and much smaller bunches.

Front 98

White Bordeaux

Back 98

Most production of Bordeaux Blanc uses old oak or stainless steel, but the top white wines are matured in new oak, which makes for complexity and age worthiness.

Front 99

SB

Back 99

Made famous by wines form the cool climate of Marlborough, the NZ style is achieved by rapidly crushing the grapes, followed by low temp fermentation (10 - 14 deg Celcius) in stainless steel.
This gives strong citrus fruit flavors (often showing as grapefruit) and tropical aromas and flavors (typically showing as passion fruit).
Accounting for 2/3 of SB production in NZ, the Marlborough region typifies the unoaked NW style of SB.
Other NW countries follow the style of strong, forward, often piercing fruit, but usually the fruits are not so bright as from NZ.
In South Africa, acidity tends to be relatively low for the variety, and aromatics of exotic fruits, especially passion fruit, are more noticeable than herbaceous or grassy notes.

Front 100

What year did Mondavi start marketing his 'Fume Blanc' to get consumers start drinking SB? (Imitating Bdx, his SB's also had Semillon in it).

Back 100

1966

Front 101

'Green' characters in SB are attributed to what in the SB grape?
And when is it most prevalent?

Back 101

'Green' characters, variously taking the form of grassy or asparagus-like aromas, result from methoxypyrazines.
Synthesized by the plant, they are found in the berry, and the most important is the same IBMP (3-isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine) found in Cab Sauv.
Humans are very sensitive to methoxypyrazines, and almost all SBs have a level above detection. (One reason we are so sensitive to them is that they are in indication of unripeness in fruit).
Exposure to sunlight causes levels to decline. The timing of harvest is a key determinant of the level in the grape.

Front 102

'Tropical' characters in SB are attributed to what in the SB grape?

Back 102

The 'tropical' characters in SB come from volatile thiols, which are formed during fermentation. The most important is 4-MMP. This is very potent; levels in wine are usually well above the threshold for perception. Its effect is greatly influenced by its concentration; at low concentrations it gives an impression of broom or box, turning to gooseberries, passion fruit and tropical fruits at higher concentrations, and ultimately showing as cat's pee when in large excess.
4-MMP exists in the grape as an odorless precursor. During fermentation, yeast enzymes release it from the precursor form. Different yeasts vary by up to 10-fold in their ability to release the volatile thiols, so the strain of yeast used in fermentation makes a significant difference to the aroma of the wine.

Front 103

The combined effects of IBMP and 4-MMP and their related compounds give Sauvignon Blanc that unique combination of herbaceousness and exotic fruits.

Back 103

How the two types of compounds respond to viticulture and vinification explains the differences btw the classical style of the wines from the Loire and the new style of the wines from NZ and elsewhere in the New World. High levels of methoxypyrazines are associated with less ripe grapes, so the wines of the cool-climate Loire tend to herbaceousness.
Volatile thiols are destroyed by oxidation, so winemaking in traditional conditions, typically using barrels of old oak where exposure to oxygen is high, reduces their levels.
The NZ style of winemaking in stainless steel, often in deliberately reductive conditions (when a layer of nitrogen is used to exclude oxygen) preserves the thiols, which is why you tend to find notes of passion fruit in Marlborough SB.

Front 104

Petrol in Riesling

Back 104

Is created in Riesling by TDN (trimethyl-dihydronaphthalene), which is rarely round in grapes but develops in the bottle by slow chemical actions.
TDN levels are increased by low yields, warm weather, and high levels of acidity in either fruit or the wines.
Petrol develops slowly over some years in FR or GER Rieslings, but typical growth conditions favor more rapid development of TDN in Australian Riesling.

Front 105

Riesling is the most racy and elegant of grapes, marked by good acidity, with light almost perfumed fruit, showing a range of flavors from green apples to minerals.

Back 105

But once again, the New World has brought a new intensity to bear, with fruit-driven Rieslings from South Australia always showing a completely dry style.

Front 106

The traditional quality grapes of German Riesling are nominally distinguished by the concentration of sugar in the grapes at harvest, but in practice they are associated with increasing residual sugar in the wines going up in the scale through Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, and the higher grades of dessert wines. All show soft aromatics, with the fruit spectrum starting with citrus and then showing increasing notes of apricot going through to the highest levels.

Back 106

Even in the trocken style, German Riesling is distinguished from Alsace or the New World by a certain softness and perfume on the nose, although differences btw regions are harder to see in the dry wines.
Petrol developing with age increases the sense of minerality.

Front 107

Elsewhere in Europe, Riesling is usually dry.

Back 107

Austrian Rieslings tend to have more mineral tones and sometimes higher overt acidity than German (trocken) Rieslings.
Alsatian Rieslings have a steely mineral character, lean and austere, with the palate often showing citrus fruits. (But the recent warming trend in Alsace has led to more production of wines with residual sugar.) They are often chaptalized and have higher alcohol than the trocken Rieslings of Germany.

Front 108

Australian Rieslings usually have those bright, piercing citrus fruits characteristic of the New World.
Clare Valley produces high concentration, often with predominant notes of lime as well as lemon. Watervale is the best part of Clare Valley for Riesling.
Eden Valley tends to be more floral. Both can have strong notes of petrol or kerosene even when young.

Back 108

NZ Rieslings follow the same style as Australia, but usually have a little residual sugar to soften and balance the acidity. This gives something of a Germanic quality, but without the delicacy or perfume.
The generality about NZ Ries is that it has more aromatic complexity but simpler, purer fruits, whereas Aus has more marked fruit complexity.

Front 109

Riesling - 'Terroir' grape
one that reflects the conditions of viticulture more than most

Back 109

You see this most clearly in Germany, where wines from the Mosel are the most elegant, with precisely delineated fruits;
From the Rheingau there is a little more weight with a delicious sweet/sour balance in the traditional style;
And then going farther south the wines become somewhat heavier, with less minerality.
The best soils are slate.

Front 110

It is said that the calcareous soils of Alsace give Riesling more weight and body than the slate soils of Germany; perhaps there is an effect from acidity of the soil, but the difference is more likely to reflect the effects of climate on ripeness, and length of the growing season, than to be due to mineral in the soil.
After all, the much larger differences btw the styles of GER and Australian Ries are attributed not to terroir but to winemaking (aided by the climate).

Back 110

...

Front 111

Riesling's characteristic fruit spectrum depends on terpenes, a group of organic compounds that also dominate Gewurztraminer, Muscat and Albarino. They are also found in Muscadelle, and SB, but at levels below the threshold of detection. An overlapping set of terpenes is found in all these aromatic varieties, but relative and overall quantities give each a different aroma spectrum.

Back 111

Muscat is dominated by geraniol (smell of roses), Gewurztraminer by cis-rose oxide (smell of lychees).
Albarino has high hotrienol (notes of lime), and Riesling has a complex set of aromas in which no single influence dominates.

Front 112

Terpenes have their characteristic odors only when they are free volatile molecules.

Back 112

The grape contains a mixture of free terpenes and precursors that are odorless because they are bound to sugars. In most of these varieties, the majority of terpenes are in the inactive bound form. Breaking the chemical bond linking the terpene to the sugar, called a glycoside, releases the odiferous form. This happens to a small degree naturally in the grape itself, and during fermentation, but if you want to increase the concentration, the most effective way is to use cultured yeasts with increased enzyme activities or even directly to treat the must with an enzyme that breaks glycoside bonds.
Once again, varietal character is not entirely intrinsic but can be controlled by choices during winemaking. No one has done a systematic tasting test to see whether the results of using enzymes produces wines as subtle as those produced by nature, or whether the wine are unbalanced by excessive release of terpenes.

Front 113

Genetic engineering of yeast is a lot simpler than with the grapevine, and it has just as much potential to affect the flavor of wine.

Back 113

Potential targets for modification of yeast are at fermentation
- to change features such as how much alcohol is generated
- to make the process more resistant to spoilage (by introducing antimicrobial agents)
- or to affect specific wine properties (such as release or synthesis of aromatic compounds that affect varietal typicity or to increase production of agents such as resveratrol).

Front 114

One of the most dramatic developments in genetic engineering has been to produce strains of yeast that can perform both the alcoholic fermentation and the MLF.

Back 114

This was done by transferring the genes needed for the process from a bacterium into yeast. Then MLF occurs simultaneously with alcoholic fermentation instead of separately. This has major implications for big commercial producers, who can cut time required for production. But it is almost certainly going to result in changes in the aroma and flavor spectrum.

Front 115

Varietal labeling is now seen as a brilliant move that gave New World wines a a major boost compared to the complicated place names of Europe, but it met with enormous hostility when it was first suggested.

Back 115

Frank Schoonmaker, a major figure in the NY wine world, was the driving force behind the idea (even though varietal labeling started in the 1890s, he really developed the idea in the market). In 1939, he added a handful of wines from CA to his portfolio and demanded that wines be identified by the varietal names.
Most CA wines of the period were labeled with generic names imitating places in Europe.
Ironically, b/c varietal labeling went hand in hand with discouraging the use of European place names on American wines, Schoonmaker was seen as the enemy incarnate by the winemakers.
Schoonmaker, along with Frederick Wildman, another NY importer that really forced the association btw varietal labeling and quality.

Front 116

Wine production in the US started with the failure to grow imported European vines on the East Coast. Apart from phylloxera, the problem with making wine from the native grape varieties (such as Vitis labrusca) was their idiosyncratic taste, a smell and flavor often described as 'foxy,' which is due to the presence of the compound methylanthranilate in the grapes.

Back 116

Nonetheless, the Concord grape, a cultivar of Vitis labrusca developed in 1853, is the most widely cultivated grape in the US outside of CA. It is used to make juice, grape jelly, wine, and also as a table grape.
Plantings have been declining, but Concord still occupies almost 2/3rds of the vineyards in NY State. (Vitis vinifera is just over 10%).

Front 117

The grapes of native grapes do not accumulate high enough sugar levels to give good wine, and they have far too much acidity.

Back 117

As a result, it is legal to adjust the juice by adding both sugar (to increase production of alcohol during fermentation or to sweeten the wine afterwards) and water (to reduce the acidity). In fact, dilution of 35% is permitted for wine made from non-vinifera species. This is euphemistically (not to say misleadingly) described as 'amelioration.' (The State made it illegal in 1887 to add sugar to wine in CA, but addition of water is still possible, although the limit is 7%).

Front 118

The first Vitis vinifera vines were brought into CA from the south.

Back 118

Previously imported into South America by Spanish missionaries, Vitis vinifera reached CA with Franciscan monks in the 18th century.
The vines were a single variety, named for its origins as 'Mission.'
Although no doubt better than the wine made from native or hybrid varieties, quality was poor, since the Mission grape is a rather characterless black variety. It is still grown in South America, where it is knows as Pais in Chile and Criolla Chica in Argentina.

Front 119

Wine production from imported European vines started in CA in the 1860s.

Back 119

A Hungarian entrepreneur of slightly uncertain origins, Agoston Haraszthy, who owned the Buena Vista vineyard in Sonoma, is officially designated as the 'Father of California Viticulture.'
With a commission from the state of California, he visited European vineyards in 1860, and the following year reported on the prospects for improving viticulture.
He imported a wide range of grapevine varieties and offered them for sale, his catalog claimed 492 varieties. It is not clear how much impact Haraszthy actually had on plantings.

Front 120

At the end of the 19th century....

Back 120

2 significant changes had occurred:
- Zinfandel had largely replaced Mission
- And phylloxera had arrived, making it impossible to grow Vitis vinifera in CA on anything other than rootstocks of native varieties. The industry continued to develop for the first two decades of the 20th century until it was stopped by Prohibition.

Front 121

What year was it that sales of dry table wine passed those of fortified wine in the US after Prohibition?

Back 121

1967

Front 122

Federal regulations were established in 1936. It required only 51% of a variety in order to be labeled with its name. What year did it change to 75%?

Back 122

1983

Front 123

What was the first AVA in the US?

Back 123

Augusta, Missouri in 1980.

Front 124

What was the 2nd AVA in the US?

Back 124

Napa Valley

Front 125

A 'North Coast' labeled wine has grapes come from which areas in CA?

Back 125

Includes Napa, Sonoma, Medocino, Lake, Marin, and Solano.

Front 126

True or False? Napa County is an AVA.
False.

Back 126

Napa County is not an AVA but can be used to describe wine from anywhere within the political unit. And within the famous AVA of Napa Valley are several smaller appellations.

Front 127

Describe how the AVA works in CA.

Back 127

The AVA describes only the geographical area; it does not specify varietals, yields, or any other details of viticulture or vinification as is common in Europe. In fact, the regulations do not require that wine actually is produced there for a region to be described as an AVA.
The AVA is America's closest equivalent to the AOP, but while it is certainly an appellation, it is not very controlee!
It is basically a marketing device.

Front 128

Explain vintage labeling and its percentages in an AVA, and in state/county designations.

Back 128

Wine from an AVA must have 95% of its grapes from the stated vintage.
85% for wines from state or county designations (proportion reduced from 95% in 2006)
So Napa Valley AVA requires 95% but Napa County requires only 85%.
EXAMPLE (worst case scenario):
Napa County Cab Sauv
- 75% of the grapes are Cab Sauv
- 75% are from Napa County
- and 85% of grapes are from the stated vintage.
Therefore, only just under half (48%) of the wine will be exactly what the label states.

Front 129

AVAs vary enormously in size.

Back 129

Some are so large as to be completely meaningless. Virtually all the wine produced in Washington State is entitled to the Columbia Valley AVA, which brings the concept to the point of absurdity.
Sonoma Coast covers a region of 205,000 hectares (although there are only about 2,800 ha of planted vineyards).
Napa Valley is large with 18,000 planted hectares (about 9% of the total area of the valley, total of 200,000 hectares).
The Oakville or Rutherford AVAs within Napa are only 2,700 ha each.
But many AVAs are the results of compromises to satisfy vested interests, and only a few have any real homogeneity of terroir. There's a huge range of variation between the north and south ends of Napa Valley, for example, but the AVA does not distinguish btw them.

Front 130

US production is not organized on a north-south axis comparable to European viticulture.

Back 130

Temperature is influenced more by proximity to the cooling effects of the Humboldt current in the Pacific Ocean than by the latitude.
Any attempt to relate the varieties grown along the north-south axis parallel with the Pacific with those grown on a north-south axis in France or Italy is confounded by microclimates.

Front 131

A line of latitude running from Bdx (where CS triumphs) would pass through Oregon (where PN triumphs).

Back 131

Willamette Valley has an avg growing season temp slightly below Burgundy. Yet OR is sandwiched btw Washington State to its north and CA to its south.
Parts of WA's Columbia Valley, such as Walla Walla, have temps similar to Bdx.

Front 132

Average growing season temps in wine growing regions of the western US extend over the same range as from Bdx to the south of France.

Back 132

...
(see pg. 267)

Front 133

Chateau St. Michelle is the oldest winery in WA state.

Back 133

Serious production of wines from Vitis vinifera did not start until about 1970.
Currently, more than half of all production come from wineries owned by the Stimson Lane Company (owners of Ch St. Michelle).

Front 134

California wines are 2/3rds of all wines sold today in the US; this represents a drop from the peak of 90%.

Back 134

...

Front 135

(1) California has a wide range of climates and terroirs.

Back 135

Wine made in the coastal portion of the state from Medocino county in the north down to San Diego County on the border with Mexico.

Front 136

(2) California has a wide range of climates and terroirs.

Back 136

In the center of the state lies the Central Valley, a rich agricultural area. This area btw the coastal foothills and the Sierra Nevada mountains really comprises two river valleys for the Sacramento valley to the north and the San Joaquin valley to the south.
Grapevines are widely grown all over San Joaquin valley b/c the fertile soils produce large yields, giving grapes that are used for cheap wines. This accounts for more than half of all CA's production.

Front 137

(3) California has a wide range of climates and terroirs.

Back 137

To the north of SF, Napa and Sonoma valleys are the best known quality wine regions, emphasizing reds of Bdx varietals and whites of Chard.

Front 138

(4) California has a wide range of climates and terroirs.

Back 138

Quality wine production in the south is more recent, with Paso Robles now producing Rhone-like blends, and the Santa Ynez and Santa Maria Valleys of Santa Barbara split btw Burgundian varieties in the cooler western part and Rhone varietals in the warmer eastern half.

Front 139

The current style of Napa is relatively recent. Napa grape grower Andy Beckstoffer says that phylloxera was the point at which everything changed in Napa...not going back to 1880 as the turning point.

Back 139

He means the most recent problem, when most of the vineyards had to be replanted btw 1989 and 1996 b/c the predominant rootstock AxR1 rootstock succumbed to phylloxera.
Beckstoffer dates the switch to harvesting grapes at increased ripeness and making wine in Napa's current lush style from this period.
The replanting gave an opportunity to experiment with rootstocks and varieties; planting clones that developed physiological ripeness later, combined with the late harvesting trend, saw levels of alcohol and extraction increase significantly.

Front 140

Napa Valley is by far America's best known wine-producing region.

Back 140

About 30 miles long and generally less than a mile wide, nestled btw the Mayacamas mountains to the west and the Vaca mountains to the east, it has less than 10% of CA's vineyards and accounts for under 5% of all production, but it has set the standard for quality wine production for more than a century.

Front 141

Napa's growing temps increase by more than 1 day degree zone from south to north.

Back 141

...

Front 142

The collision btw the 3 tectonic plates that created the valley some 150 million years ago left detritus of a great variety of soil types.

Back 142

Climate is subject to a a variety of local effects, so the Valley escapes the European rule that things get steadily warmer going south; the northern end is decidedly warmer than the southern end.
The reason is that the more open southern end gets cooling breezes from San Pablo bay, whereas the northern end is effectively closed.

Front 143

Napa itself, at the very southern end, is close in temp to Bdx; but Calistoga at the far north is more like the south of France.
Moving from south to north, the soil changes from sediments deposited by past oceans to more volcanic terrain.

Back 143

A major factor, of course, is the consistent difference btw the warmer, and more fertile, valley floor, and the cooler terroir of the slopes to the west and the east.
The east is drier than the west, because rainfall gets blocked by the Mayacamas Mountains separating Napa Valley from Sonoma.
Because a high pressure system usually settles over the CA coast each summer, the growing season is usually warm and dry.

Front 144

Fog is not usually a welcome component of the climate for grape growing, but it's different in Napa.

Back 144

Fog rolls in from the Pacific regularly each morning and clears later in the day; this is an important factor in moderating the daily temperature. There is also an important difference for those vineyards located high enough on the slopes to be above the fog line.

Front 145

Recognizing politics more than terroir, the Napa Valley AVA was defined on an inclusive basis, extending to most of the vineyards in Napa County.

Back 145

Wild Horse Valley, Atlas Peak, and Chiles Valley are distinct from the valley itself.
Within the valley, the heart of the AVA is at Rutherford and Oakville, which have the terroir known as the 'Rutherford Bench,' although its boundaries are not well defined.

Front 146

What is the 'Rutherford Bench' and 'Rutherford Dust'?

Back 146

Rutherford Bench is a gravelly terroir deposited on an alluvial fan by the Napa river.
References to the 'Rutherford dust' refer to a supposed dusty note in the wines reflecting the terroir, and the local association of producers calls itself 'Rutherford Dust'.

Front 147

After a morning on Howell Mountain with Chris Carpenter, I gained some clarity on how several of the nuances of a wine are born in the vineyard. Chris distinguished between a few concepts that are often lumped together, and it is in these crucial distinctions (and the vintner's mastery of them) that the success and focus of a given wine lies.
In particular, Chris examined the interrelated ideas of phenolics and tannins, and how warmth and sunlight propel their development.

Back 147

Essentially, tannins are phenolic compounds, but not all phenolics or phenolic compounds are tannins. For our purposes here, let's break this into two categories: Flavonoids and Non-Flavonoids. Flavonoids include tannins and anthocyanins, which affect color and mouthfeel (read: sight and touch), and non-flavonoids produce perceptible aromatic acids (such as phenolic, caffeic, cinnamic, and benzoic acids) that can affect taste and smell. I'm not an expert on phenolic compounds, but I can use this (admittedly over-simplistic) distinction as a basis for discussing what may be affecting the senses of sight and touch and what may be affecting the senses of taste and smell.
A look at the so-called "triangle of phenolic bitterness" (Pinot Grigio, Albarino, and Gruner Veltliner) highlights how non-flavonoids manifest themselves differently than tannins and anthocyanins.
While wines made from those grapes contain far fewer flavonoids, they are certainly influenced by other phenolic compounds. This wide range of non-flavonoid phenolic compounds is perceptible as distinct flavors in a wine.
While non-flavonoids may not be as easy to distinguish in red wines, they certainly play a role in the final product. Chris makes the point that an astute winemaker will be aware of the difference in tannin and phenolic development. As he says, "you can't fake or adjust phenolics like you can everything else." Naturally, the question follows about how to manage the development of each. The answer reveals another seemingly subtle yet critical distinction between the effects of sunlight and heat on the vine.

Front 148

Sunlight plays a greater role in the development of the phenolics, flavors, and the chemical compounds that create them by igniting the process of photosynthesis and determining how nutrients are developed and fed to the grape. Warmth and heat play more of a role in the rate at which a grape goes through the arc of the general ripening process – development of sugars and the decrease in acidity. Thus, in management of the vineyard, Chris makes an important distinction between sunlight hours (affected by aspect and, more specifically, ridge/tree lines and their shadows) and degree days (governed by latitude, elevation, and proximity to oceans).

Back 148

...

Front 149

Acidity in pH - in conversation with Mark Bixler and Geoff Labitzke MW, and deepening our understanding of post-fermentation chemical changes in wine

Back 149

TA vs. TA:
From Mark Bixler we learned that, practically speaking, there is no difference between total acidity (TA) and titratable acidity (TA). While we all know and acknowledge that there are many types of acidity in must and wine, we express them all as a single number (in g/l of tartaric acid equivalent) when measuring TA.

Front 150

pH is a logarithmic scale:
A wine with a pH value of 3 is 10x as strong in acidity as a wine of pH of 4. Additional fun fact: lees stirring in barrel tends to increase pH, and lower acidity.

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The relationship between pH and Sulfur Dioxide: My biggest takeaway from the pH discussion is how the pH of the wine affects the bioavailability of SO2. Lower PH allows a winemaker to use less SO2 to accomplish the same result.

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pH is a more important indicator of age-ability than TA:
From Mark, we learned that pH is a measure of the strength of acid based on the activity of Hydrogen ions, while TA is the expression of titratable acid, or the measure of total acidity. The idea that pH is more important for aging wines makes perfect sense as the evolution and reaction of Hydrogen ions with enzymes, esters, sugars and phenolics should be more important to the development of a wine in the bottle. What makes it difficult is how to measure the predictability of these reactions based on a given crop harvested at different times in different vineyards in various vintages. And how does one quantify or measure the future effects of these reactions? In the future, it will be interesting to see more data come out regarding the science of these reactions.

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Non-Blind Tasting: We don’t often get to do tastings like this, and we probably should, as it is fantastically informative and more productive then just continuing to beat yourself over the head with blinders. Tasting in this fashion is incredibly useful as a drill to ascertain ripeness and oak contact on various similar wines. Tasting with a MW and hearing their views and thought processes on wine provides a slightly different perspective than tasting with MSs. Geoff Labitzke seemed to be more analytical, and used less “restaurant verbiage” in relation to wine's qualities (which certainly makes sense).

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Everyone has a very different style and approach to thinking through a wine. It seems that there is spectrum of fantastic tasters that simply rely on different aspects of a wine to come to a conclusion. In the past, a lot of the MSs I have tasted with seem to be focused on the tactile feel/profile of the wine in conjunction with structure to provide their conclusion.
In this tasting, we looked at a more theoretical and scientific side of the spectrum. With an amalgamation of tasting tactics, you have more tools to get past the “brick wall” with difficult wines.

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At our blind tasting round table we learned about some of the chemical makeup of wine identity, and how things like pyrazines or rotundone decrease with ripeness.
So (for instance) the debate between Federspiel and Smaragd Grüner Veltliner can be essentially boiled down: does it have significant white pepper and more tart, citrus-driven fruits (Federspiel), or, does it have very little pepper and ripe, fleshy, juicy fruits (Smaragd). Plus, you can always expect botrytis with Smaragd because that concentration is usually necessary to get to the alcohol levels required for the category.

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The terrain is fairly different on the mountains, notably Mount Veeder on the western side and Howell Mountain on the eastern side; and of course, temperatures decline with elevation.

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...

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Napa was not the first of the fine wine regions to be planted in CA. Vitis vinifera vines probably reached northern CA in 1817, and in 1823 the Sonoma Mission was established, where there was a working vineyard within a year.

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The Mission system gave way to secularization, and around 1838 GEorge Yount established what was to become the first vineyard in the area now occupied by the town of Yountville in Napa Valley.
At this point, CA was still Mexican; the town of Napa was founded in 1848 after CA became part of the US.

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Shortages of European imports during the second world war led to increased national interest in quality wines from CA, with particular emphasis on Napa. This was the beginning of the move to varietal labeling.

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...

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South of SF, extending from San Jose, Santa Clara Valley was one of the first areas of CA to be planted for wine production; it moved towards premium wine production after the repeal of Prohibition, but the late 1950s, wineries were abandoning production.
Today it has been turned into Silicon Valley.

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...

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Who is Andy Beckstoffer?

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He is the largest individual grower in the Napa Valley. He was one of the first growers to link pricing of grapes to the price of the wine made from them (as opposed to charging by weight. At that time, CA was making the move towards harvesting grapes later to obtain riper grapes, which results in about a 20% decrease in weight as the berries become dehydrated).
He owns about 1,000 acres of vineyard land in Napa.
Purchased To Kalon from BV/Mondavi (89 acres).
Sells this fruit to Stag's Leap, Franciscan, Paul Hobbs.

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The history of the old Inglenook winery in the Rutherford region reflects in microcosm many of the twists and turns of winemaking in Napa Valley. Some people regard it as the birthplace of fine wine, or at least of fine wine based on Cab Sauv, in Napa.

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Founded by a Finnish sea captain Gustave Niebaum, who made a fortune selling furs in Alaska.
Decided after a visit to France that the gravelly loam soils of Rutherford resembled Bdx and might reward attempts to produce the same blend of wine.
In 1975, film director Francis Ford Coppola purchased Niebaum's former home with 49 hectares of surrounding vineyards. In 1995, he bought the Inglenook winery and the rest of the vineyards.
The original holdings are now reunited under the name Rubicon Estate.
The Inglenook name was sold to Constellation, who sold it to The Wine Group in 2008; now, sadly, it is used for jug wine.

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Sonoma - harder to pin down any unifying factor for Sonoma than for Napa, with no single variety or style dominating.

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...

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Sonoma County is a relatively large area, extending from the coast to the Mayacamas Mountains separating it from Napa County. Labeled Sonoma County, a wine can come from anywhere in the area. Only a minor step up, Sonoma Coast is a vast coastal area without particularly distinguished terroir, although within it are some individual vineyards with good reputations.

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Coming to the regions of highest quality, it might be more appropriate to talk about Sonoma Valleys in the plural, since in addition to the eponymous Sonoma Valley itself, there are several other valleys, each with its own characteristics.
The AVA of Sonoma Valley is to the north of the town of Sonoma, centered on the Sonoma river.
The other areas of interest are the valleys formed by rivers that drain into the Sonoma river (a contrast with Napa Valley, where the area of interest are the mountain slopes on either side of the valley bottom).
The best know valleys in Sonoma are the Russian River Valley (for Pinot Noir), Alexander Valley (for Cab Sauv), and Dry Creek Valley (for Zinfandel).

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Closer to the breezes and fogs from the Pacific, Sonoma has cooler climates than Napa, and the average grapes have about 0.25% less alcohol at harvest.
Fog is the main climatic element, and may persist well into the day. Black grapes are about 2/3rd of plantings (less than Napa's 3/4).
Total production is about 10 mill cases annually, compared with 7 mill in Napa.

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Russian River Valley, running to the south of Healdsburg, is Pinot Noir Central. The style is richer than Burgundy.

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Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys run parallel to the north of Healdsburg. Closer to the coast, Dry Creek is a broad valley, cool at the southern end and warm at the northern end, growing a wide range of varietals from Pinot Noir at the south, to Cab in the middle, and Zin in the north.
It's by far best known for its Zins, and indeed perhaps this is the one region in CA where Zin can be taken seriously as a grape that reflects terroir and produces ageworthy wines.

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With that perverse reversal of the usual north-south, cool to warm, relationship, Alexander Valley, the most northern AVA of Sonoma, is where Cab Sauv does best.
The Cabs don't have that extreme lushness found in Napa Valley and can offer a more restrained impression, as indeed also can the Zins, esp those from around Geyserville, which rival those of Dry Creek Valley.

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Washington and Oregon are divided by the mountains of the Cascade Ridge, which separate the wet western side (continuously soaked by rains from the Pacific) from the dry eastern side (where agriculture is possible only when supported by irrigation).

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The climate in the west is cooled by the Pacific.
The climate in the east is Continental, with extreme heat in the summer, and winter freezes that sometimes kill the vines.
Wineries in WA are often relatively small, but (unlike CA) tend to be part of larger agricultural enterprises in which other crops are more important. Polyculture rules. Most agriculture is in the east, relying on irrigation.
OR is more giving to treating viticulture as an isolated activity, but the enterprises tend to be relatively small. Oregon's vineyards are concentrated in the western part of the state, with Willamette Valley as the best known area.

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WA is divided into two AVAs:

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Columbia Valley AVA includes the bulk of winemaking, with all areas to the east, and includes several smaller AVAs, including Yakima Valley and Walla Walla.
Puget Sound mops up the east.

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The map of WA State shows AVAs on both sides of the Cascades, but this is misleading. There are only a handful of wineries in Puget Sound

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Columbia Valley inclues virtually all the wineries, although all the AVA means on the label is that the winery is not among the 1% located in Puget Sound.
The real indication of quality here comes from the sub-appellations, all located within Columbia Valley, of which Yakima and Walla Walla, the first to be given AVAs, remain the best known.
Basically this is a desert plateau, where viticulture is completely dependent on irrigation.

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WA's production is split btw red and white, with slightly more red.
Chard has been the main staple of the whites, but Riesling has increased, and now if fractionally in the lead.

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Most of the blacks are Bdx varieties (85%), the remainder largely being Syrah (grown in the warmer spots).

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OR:
Willamette Valley and Southern Oregon are the 2 major AVAs of Oregon.

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Willamette has some smaller AVAs within it;
Southern Oregon is effectively divided into 3 major AVAs, with smaller ones within them. There are also some AVAs to the north and east.

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OR's plantings are 3/4 in black varieties, with PN accounting for about 3/4 of that.
PG accounts for about half of the white varieties; Chard is the runner up.

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North Willamette Valley, a relatively fertile environment, is by far the most important region, with roughly 2/3 of the vineyards and most of the wineries.
Some smaller AVAs are located within it.

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Canada:

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The Provinces repealed Prohibition during the 1920s, but Ontario did not grant any new licenses to produce and sell wine until 1974.
Domestic sales have 40% of the market. Much of their wine is bulk wine bought at rock-bottom prices in the int'l market, and blended with a minor component of Canadian wine, even though most wines are labeled 'Cellared in Canada' (up to 70% foreign in origin).

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Two leading wine grape regions in CAN:

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(1) Niagara Peninsula - located in Ontario
(2) Okanagan Valley - located in B.C.
Both introduced appellation or origin schemes in the form of the VQA (Vintners Quality Alliance) label, with 85% rules for vintage year and place of origin.

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Extreme cool climate conditions limit the possibilities for wine production, but Vitis vinifera has begun to replace the native and hybrid varieties.

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Grapevines are grown in microclimates where they can escape the harsh winter, but even so, Vitis vinifera is vulnerable to the impact of cold weather.
In Ontario, Vitis vinifera has now increased to 2/3 of production, but cool climate hybrids are 20%, while Concord is still 13%.
The most widely planted grape is they hybrid Vidal, but it is followed by Chard. There's actually a substantial proportion of black Bdx varieties.

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One of the most remarkable features is the production of ice wine, where grapes are kept on the vine well into winter, and wine is made by pressing the frozen grapes, giving a very concentrated and sweet wine.

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The best are made from Riesling, but there is also substantial production form hybrids that withstand the cold winter weather well.

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Regulation of wine production and consumption in Europe:

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- US is completely opposite of Europe
- In Europe, every aspect of viticulture and vinification is regulated.
- However there is nothing to stop a producer making whatever arrangements he wishes to sell the wine, directly to the consumer, via distributors and wholesalers, or through retail stores.
However, advertising alcohol involving alcohol is much more controlled in Europe, esp in France where fanatics have got hold of the bureaucracy.

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Regulation of wine production and consumption in the US:

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In the US there is very little regulation of production. A producer can plant his grapes where he wants, cultivate them in whatever manner he wishes, and use most of the available technology for winemaking. But he can sell the wine only under and intricate set of conditions that vary with each individual State and which severely limit his ability to make contact with the consumers who actually drink the wine.

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The same yeasts involved in alcoholic fermentation are the same yeasts that are involved in making bread, baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Saccharomyces means 'sugar fungus.'

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But yeast if far more than a mere catalyst for turning sugar into alcohol; it changes many of the compounds present in the grape juice, and creates many of the compounds in wine.

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For red wines, the grapes go directly from a destemmer/crusher into the fermentation vat, so the juice ferments in contact with the skins. Release of carbon dioxide pushes the skins to the surface where they form a cap. Various means are used to stop from drying out; depending on the grape variety, the juice may be sprayed over the cap, or the cap may be punched down into the juice. When fermentation is over, the wine is run off into another vat; this is called the 'free-run' wine.

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Before temp control became common, fermentation could overheat if the weather stayed hot or the juice had a great deal of sugar. This could cause fermentation to become stuck or could result in infection with Acetobacter (bacteria that would convert some of the alcohol to acetic acid).
Because it's a slow process to cool the must down, it's still important not to let the grapes get too hot when they are harvested.

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Because of the need to extract color and tannins from the skins, red wines are usually fermented at higher temps (24-27 deg C) than white wines (10-18 deg C).

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HIght temp makes the ferm go faster, so a red wine ferm is likely to last only a few days, whereas a white wine ferm may take a couple of weeks. It's a delicate balance with red wines, because although you need extraction, volatile compounds, which are part of the aromatic spectrum, are lost at higher temps.

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Ferm temp can have a significant effect on the aroma and flavor spectrum of a wine, esp in the production of esters.
Esters are volatile, fruity substances formed when alcohols react with acids. They are responsible for the characteristic aromas of freshly fermented wines, such as banana, pineapple, or bubblegum, but the esters are rapidly broken down within a few months in bottle. That's why you may find these aromas esp concentrated in wines that are drunk very young.
Reducing the ferm temp enhances production of esters, and some wines produced by very cool ferm retain them even some time in bottle.

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Barrel ferm is used for top-flight white wines that will subsequently be matured in oak, esp Chard. It makes for a better integration btw the intrinsic flavors of the wine and the flavors that come from the oak, because the tannins inhibit the yeast and slow down ferm, and the yeast modulates extraction of flavors from the oak.

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The balance you get by adding sugar to increase the alcohol level is different from the results obtained when the same sugar level is reached naturally in the grape...

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because other compounds are produced by more extended ripening.

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What sugars are found in grapes?

Back 180

A mixture of glucose and fructose

But the sugar in beets or maple syrup is largely sucrose.

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MLF

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For some time, no on knew why MLF happened to the wine, and it was often regarded as undesirable.

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By the 1940s it was known that MLF happens in the spring b/c at this point the cellars warm up enough to activate the bacteria that are responsible.

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By the late 1950s, the great oenologist Emily Peynaud had isolated the bacteria and shown that inoculating wine with them would induce MLF.
One of his greatest contributions was to show that MLF could be controlled, and that it usually improves the quality of the wine.

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Today MLF is regarded as essential for production of almost all red wines and for many white wines (esp non-aromatic, longer-lived wines such as Chard).

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It is not usually performed with aromatic varieties, such as Riesling or Sauv Blanc, where it would interfere with the characteristic aroma spectrum.

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MLF is the creation of a compound in wine, called diacetyl, the same compound that gives buttered popcorn its characteristic smell.

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The level of diacetyl can be controlled by the duration of MLF;
- it peaks before the end, so to maximize diacetyl, MLF is stopped (by adding sulfur dioxide)
- to minimize it, wine is kept in contact with the malolactic bacteria as long as possible.

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Where and when to perform the MLF has become an issue in recent years.

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After the alcoholic ferm (and any post-ferm maceration) has finished, the wine is run off into new containers.
In Burgundy, the tradition has been to go straight into barrels, whereas in Bdx, at least for the last century, the wine has been transferred to a larger vat. Typically the wine would then rest until the Spring before the MLF began.
More recently, and with much controversy, Bdx has been transferring the wine straight into barrel when ferm is complete, and performing the ML conversion shortly after the transfer.
This makes the wine more attractive in the short term, esp at the point when the wines are the first shown to critics just a few weeks later, but it's not clear that the exact timing or whether it's done in barrel makes any difference in the long term.

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Carbon dioxide is heavier than air.

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Bubbling up through the must during fermentation, when 1 molecule or CO2 is released for every sugar molecule converted to alcohol, it is responsible for the tumultuous appearance of a fermenting vat.
After ferm has been completed and the vat has been emptied out, CO2 can sink into the vat to form a lethal layer devoid of oxygen. From time to time, people have been killed by CO2 poisoning when trying to clean out vats after ferm.

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The release of CO2 has both physical and chemical effects on ferm. The act of bubbling through the liquid has a purging effect, and can carry volatile compounds along with the gas.
This is another reason why it's important to control ferm temp; higher temps mean faster ferm, which means a rapid rate of release of CO2, and greater loss of aromatic compounds.

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Under some circumstances, CO2 forms a layer in the ferm vat that changes the process of ferm itself. This process, called carbonic maceration, originated naturally in the custom of putting whole clusters of grapes, uncrushed, into the fermenter.
The grapes at the bottom are crushed by the weight of those above, releasing juice that is fermented by yeast in the usual way.
The CO2 released by this fermentation excludes oxygen around the intact grapes above them. The lack of oxygen stops respiration, enzymes within the grapes are released, and they ferment the sugar within the grape. Yeast is not involved.

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Carbonic maceration is a method of grape fermentation that creates light, fruity wines, particularly out of red grapes that are known for making big, heavy wines. It is also referred to as *whole berry fermentation* and *whole grape fermentation*.

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In the normal fermentation process, grapes are crushed in a tank then fermented with yeast. During carbonic maceration, however, entire bunches of grapes (with the skins, seeds and stems intact) are gently placed in a vat. Gravity causes the grapes at the bottom of the barrel to be crushed by the grapes at the top.
The crushed grapes release carbon dioxide, which ferments the uncrushed grapes at the top. (Alternatively, carbon dioxide gas can be manually added to a vat of uncrushed grapes.) The contact of carbon dioxide with the uncrushed grapes causes fermentation of the juice while it is still within the grape skin and postpones the activity of the yeast. The resulting wine is low in tannins and high in fruit.

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Malic acid is consumed during carbonic maceration, reducing overall acidity. Wines produced by carbonic maceration have lots of ferm esters, resulting in aromas of banana, pineapple, bubblegum and so on.

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Beaujolais Nouveau is the classic example of a wine produced by carbonic maceration. These days the process is deliberately controlled. The vat is flushed with CO2 to remove oxygen and filled with whole bunches of grapes -- the grapes must be unbroken in order to avoid an ordinary ferm.
The fermenter is kept under a blanket of carbon dioxide while ferm proceeds.
Carbonic maceration is usually just the first stage, and ferm is not completed. Typically the juice is run off, the residue is pressed, and then the press-run juice and free-run juice are fermented together in the normal way.

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Carbonic maceration has ancient origins. It's thought that wine was produced by semi-carbonic maceration in Roman times, when grapes were trodden in large lagares (troughs for holding wine with suitable holes for runoff), and the layer of CO2 cased carbonic maceration in unbroken grapes.

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Lagares were also used for producing cider and olive oil, and have been excavated all over the wine-producing areas of Spain.
Winemaking in Rioja in the 19th century used light treading in a lagar, which typically left the majority of grapes unbroken. Similar methods are still used in Navarra, where they are called the metodo rural (rural method).

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debourbage = natural settling process for filtration

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Addition of various fining agents = proteins, siliceous earths, various synthetic polymers, and a clay called bentonite.

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gross lees = suspended matter

Back 192

fine lees = consists of dead yeast cells and other materials.
Fine wines may be kept in contact with the (fine) lees for several months to enable them to absorb compounds from the lees; this increases flavor complexity. The overall result of maturation on the lees is a creamy, richer texture.

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The lees also have a protective effect on the wine

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They provide a reducing environment, which antagonizes oxidation. Periodically the lees are stirred up (this is called battonage, because originally it used to be performed with a baton or stick).
Battonage prevents reductive flavors from developing in the vicinity of the lees.
These days it can be performed more easily by keeping the barrels on a roller system that allows them to be rotated in place (some winemakers call them spinning barrels).

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Maturation in barrel inevitably involves some exposure to oxygen, although it is probably not (as traditionally held) due to seepage of air btw the staves of the barrel.

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Emile Peynaud calculated that oxygen penetration through the wood cask is insignificant.
Even though barrels are regularly topped up to compensate for evaporation, there's always some exposure to a headspace of air in the barrel.
From time to time (typically every three months) the wine is racked off the lees into a new barrel, and then to siphon the wine into it from a barrel at a higher level; these days there are gentler systems involving compressed gas to push the wine from barrel to barrel.
Some oxidative exposure occurs under conventional racking, although it can be minimized by racking under a blanket of inert gas.

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albumin

Back 195

= egg whites (pos charged) to clarify wine, also reduces tannins (neg charged)

Front 196

cold stabilization = chilling the wine to (-) 4 degrees Celsius in a cooling tank. A thick layer of ice froms on the outside of the tank, while inside the cold precipitates the tartrate crystals. This prevents any crystallization from happening later.

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Cold stabilization largely fixes problems with precipitation for white wines, but red wines are naturally prone to throw sediments.

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Color and tannins are both in the general class of compounds known as polyphenols.

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The "poly" in polyphenol indicates that the molecule consists of a chain of phenols linked together.
Polyphenols come in a range of sizes, depending on the length of the chain, and one of their important properties is the ability to interact with one another to from longer chains. This softens their effect on the palate. And then as the chains extend (polymerize is the technical term), they reach a point at which they become too large to remain suspended in solution; they precipitate out to form the sediment at the bottom of the bottle. This reduces bitterness and color in the wine. This change in the tannins is an important aspect in the maturation of red wines, and explains why they may start out as bitter, but become softer and gentler with wine.

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The tannins give structure to a wine -- that sense of texture extending beyond mere fruit flavors. More than half of the tannins are in the skin, but stalks and seeds also have a good amount.
Tannins are bitter and the sense of a dry mouth is due to the effect of the tannins in binding to the salivary proteins. In fact, one of the chemical methods for measuring the level of tannin is based upon its ability to interact with the protein serum albumin (found in saliva).

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Tannins vary from relatively benign and ripe to astringent and stalky. Tannins on the stalks are somewhat harsher than those in the skin, which is why a noticeable softening occurred in Bdx wines when destemming (removing the stems before ferm) was widely introduced from the 1970s.
The tannins in the seeds are the harshest of all, making it important to avoid pressing hard enough to extract tannins from them.
The quality of the tannins changes as the berries mature, going from green or stalky character to riper, better rounded character.
The amount of tannins depends on the grape variety, ranging from 1 g/l in a light-bodied red wine to 6 g/l in a heavily extracted full-bodied wine.

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It's not straightforward to get a clear measure of the total quantity of tannins -- different methods of measurement can give different answers.

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There is even less agreement on how to assess the quality of tannins. As grapes develop, the total amount of tannins increases, and you can tell by taste that they become less bitter and astringent, but there's no chemical measure of how different tannins affect taste.
The general concept that grapes should be harvested only when they reach "phenolic ripeness," is inevitably somewhat imprecise.

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Tannins in wine come from the grapes, and are also extracted from the wood if the wine is matured in new oak barrels.

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Grape tannins are extracted into the juice by contact with the skin.

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Alcohol affects which tannins are extracted, so a cold maceration (when the juice is held contact with the skin before ferm) has different effects from maceration post ferm (when alcohol is at its peak).

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During ferm, extraction of color and tannins occurs as the cap of skins that forms on the top of the tank is pushed into the juice (pigeage or punch-down) or as juice is sprayed back over the cap (pumping-over).
Pigeage is usually used for varieties where less overall extraction is wanted (such as Pinot Noir), whereas pumping-over achieves high extraction (and is usually used for Cab Sauv).
Today, enzymes that help to break down cell walls are sometimes added to help increase the level of extraction.

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Oenologist Guy Accad

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Introduced extended cold maceration in the 1980s

Front 203

By contrast with tannins, color can be more precisely measured in terms of both density and hue.

Back 203

...

Front 204

Color is due to polyphenols, including both anthocyanins (purple or red pigments) and tannins (lighter red-brown colors), which are extracted from the skins during ferm.

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The dark colors of varieties such as Cab Sauv and Syrah are due to the high content of anthocyanins.
With age, anthocyanins polymerize (form longer chains) as the result of oxidation and fall out of solution, causing both a change in hue (anthocyanins change from blue to red, and tannins change from red to brown) and a general lightening of color intensity.

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But there is more to color than simply the concentration or types of anthocyanins.

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When black grapes are fermented, pigments are extracted from the skin, but this is not of itself enough to ensure good color.
Anthocyanins are unstable and have to be "fixed" by conversion to a stable form. The effect of other factors on the color pigments is called copigmentation; it can account for up to half the color of young red wine, and also is responsible for shifting the color spectrum from red towards purple. Low concentrations of cofactors add to the color profile of varieties such as Pinot Noir.

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Sometimes additional color concentration is obtained by cofermenting different varieties together, because one contains cofactors that act on the pigments of another.

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An especially striking demonstration of this effect is the ability of white grapes to increase color in red wines. The effect depends on the relative proportions of black and white grapes included in the same ferm vat; probably it peaks at around 10% white grapes, b/c at that point the white juice reduces color overall.

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Flavonoids = the basis for color in white wine.
Another class of phenolic compounds found in the skin

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Oxidation of the flavonoids gives wine a golden color as it ages. Since skin contact is limited in white-wine production, the skin color of the grapes has little effect, although some color is gained if there is a cold maceration before ferm.
(Skin contact -- called maceration pelliculaire -- is used for some white varieties such as Muscat or Sauv Blanc in order to extract aromatic compounds.)
Some faint coloration of the pulps of some varieties contributes slightly to color, as in a faint pink in Gewurztraminer.
Barrel fermenting or oak-aging produce yellow colors by extracting non-flavonoid phenols, principally lignins, from the oak.

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Lignins

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Non-flavonoid phenols; comes from oak.

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Rose wines

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At its best, a rose should be delicate, with the freshness of a light white wine, but with just that ery faint touch of additional structure, a barely perceptible taint of austerity, coming from skin extraction.

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Rose winemaking methods

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(1) Using the white winemaking methods with red grapes produces the lightest colored roses;
the grapes are pressed immediately, and the juice is kept in contact with the skins in the press for only a very short time, while the crushed grapes are being drained.
Deeper colors are produced by allowing skin contact for a few hours, somewhat equivalent to maceration pelliculaire for white wines.
As with white wines, this enhances softness and fruit, and reduces acidity.

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Rose winemaking methods

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(2) A Saignee (a "bleeding") from vats used in conventional red winemaking. Most often, the main purpose of saignee is to improve the quality of the red wine, and the rose is a byproduct.
By drawing out the first juice out of the vat, concentration is increased in the remaining red wine.
This juice is rose because it has nto had much time to absorb compounds from the skins.

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Rose winemaking methods

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A major distinction btw the two methods comes from their different purposes. When your main objective is a quality red wine, you are looking for fully ripe grapes.
A saignee from the must gives different results from macerating grapes produced specifically for making rose, where preservation of acidity and freshness is as important as ripeness.
Muga uses grapes grown in shadier conditions to obtain the higher acidity and lower color appropriate for rose.
Better results are obtained by using higher yields than you would for a red wine, so there is no green harvest, and by managing the vineyard so as to harvest the grapes a little less ripe than they would be for red wine production.

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Of course you can make a rose wine technically by blending in a little red to give color to a white wine

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This is illegal in the EU, except for Champagne where it's relatively common to put a little dry red wine in the mix to give a rose its color. (Although some champagnes are made by extracting a little color from the red grapes during winemaking.)
It is perfectly legal, and not uncommon, in the NW, however, to blend red and white to make pink wine.

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SO2 has been used in winemaking for several hundred years

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When the Romans first started using wooden barrels, they discovered that burning a sulfur candle inside the empty barrel had a fumigant effect.
Its specific effect in preserving wine was recognized when the use of burning sulfur was authorized for wine production in Prussia in 1487.
The technique was introduced into modern winemaking by the Dutch in the 18th century.
Addition of SO2 as such (directly as a gas or by addition of potassium metabisulfite powder releases SO2 when it dissolves) dates only from the 20th centurye.

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SO2 has 2 important roles:

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(1) It is an antimicrobial agent that acts as a preservative by inhibiting growth of undesirable yeasts and bacteria
(2) It is an anti-oxidant that protects fruit and wine against damage from oxygen. S

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SO2 exists in 2 forms:

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(1) Free gas (molecular SO2) - the form that is most effective as an antimicrobial agent
(2) Sulfites - When it dissolves in water, it generates sulfites, and this form is the most effective as an anti-oxidant.

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SO2 is used at all stages from harvesting to bottling.

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- Grapes are often dusted with potassium metabisulfite (which releases SO2) when they are harvested, to protect them from oxidation before they make it into the bat.
- A low level of SO2 may be added at the start of fermentation to inhibit the wild yeasts.
- SO2 is used as a protective agent while wine is maturing in barrels
- And it's added at bottling as a sterilizing agent

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Red wine does not need as much SO2 as white wine

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This is because the polyphenols in red wine have an anti-oxidative effect.
And because sweet wines have sugar that can provide an excellent medium for yeast to grow, they require much higher levels of SO2.

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It is, however, a myth that SO2 actually prevents oxidation from occurring.

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When a wine is exposed to oxygen, alcohol (ethanol) is converted to acetaldehyde. This is a compound found in oxidized styles of wine, such as fino Sherry, where it contributes to the characteristic nutty aromas.
What SO2 really does in wine is to combine with acetaldehyde, forming an odorless compound that does not change the wine's aroma. (This is why SO2 is not used in the production of fino Sherry).
SO2's action in removing acetaldehyde makes attempts to reduce it to absolutely minimal levels in order to reduce allergic reactions.

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Left alone, ferm will continue until almost all the sugar in the must has been converted into alcohol.

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But the yeast have their limits. Most yeast cannot function at alcohol levels over 15%. So if the must has so much sugar that there is still some left when ferm reaches 15% alcohol, the process will stop, leaving a sweet wine.
Some of the great dessert wine are made in this way, by harvesting grapes very late, when sugar levels have become very high.

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When grapes are left on the vine after the regular harvest date, a certain amount of dehydration occurs, called passerillage in France; by reducing water content in the grape, this increases the concentration of sugar, and the grapes are said to be passerille.

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A more forceful concentration occurs when the fungus Botrytis cinerea infects the grapes. Forming a unpleasant looking mold on the surface of the skin, it extracts water and greatly concentrates sugar. But as well as being more concentrated, botrytized grapes have more intense flavors than berries that are merely passerille, because the botrytis also adds notes of honey and increases volatile acidity (acetic acid), giving that delicious tang of honeyed piquancy.

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It's also possible to retain residual sugar in the wine by stopping ferm before it is completed. One way to do this is to stop the yeast from working, most commonly by adding sulfur dioxide and/or lowering the temp. This is how sweet German wines are made; and since ferm is typically only a bit more than half complete when this happens, the resulting wine has relatively low alcohol, in the range of 8-10%. The result can be a beautifully balanced wine, sweet certainly, but with refreshing and lively acidity.

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A more dramatic way of stopping ferm is simply to add enough alcohol to bring the level over 15%, at which the yeast die, and the wine will be stable. This is the basis for all sweet wines based on fortification, such as Port. Fortified wines have an advantage that they are stable against refermentation, whereas sweet wines with alcohol below 15% need to be protected against any reinfection with yeast, usually by keeping the level of SO2 high.

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Hot fermentation

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Fermentation temperature is another technique that changes resulting fruit flavors and color in a wine. A hot fermentation can get up to 80-100 °F (26-37 °C — nearly hot tub temperature) as the yeasts metabolize and produce alcohol. Warmer fermentations are usually used for red wines for increased color and tannin. There are also several minimalist producers practicing warmer fermentation temperatures on white wines. Their goal is non-interventionist wine making that is more in tune with the conditions of the vintage.

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Cold fermentation

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Cold and cooler fermentations are usually practiced on white and rosé wines. Landon Sam Keirsey explained that cooler temperatures (from 42 – 50 °F, 6 – 10 °C ) help preserve delicate aromas in white wines. The reason for this is aroma compounds are volatile and are more likely to be lost at a higher temperature where reactions happen faster. This is probably why wine serving temperature greatly affects the taste of wine out of the bottle.

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Pumpovers

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Pumpovers can extract higher amounts of tannin in a wine depending on the frequency and force. Some pump over systems are basically wine sprinklers, offering a gentler extraction and some aggressively stir up the fermentation tank. For larger fermentation tanks in commercial operations, much needed oxygen comes through a pumpover device.

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Punch downs

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Punch downs, on the other hand, are a very delicate way of stirring a wine. They keep skins from getting too extracted and little to no amount of added oxygen in the fermentation. Punch downs are typically done by hand and are more popular with non-interventionist winemaking.