WINE AND WINE APPRECIATION
Enology = Winemaking
British version of the word is Oenology ~ stemming from the
Greek origin oinos (wine) and logos
What Is Wine
• "Wine is an alcoholic beverage obtained from the
fermentation of juice from freshly gathered grapes, the
fermentation taking place in the district of origin according to
local tradition and practice".
• Fermentation is the process by which sugar is converted to
alcohol by yeasts. At its simplest, wine is made by crushing
grapes and allowing the natural yeasts present on the skins to
come in to contact with the natural sugars present in the
juice. No other human intervention is needed: crushed and
fermented like this, any grapes will make wine.
•
Quality of wine produced
• For good quality wine the best quality of fruit
should be chosen
• Hygine and cleanliness should be ensured.
• The final product should be bright, clear and
fit for consumption.
• Different regions employ different techniques
and different varieties of grapes but the
principles are the same.
Fermentation
• Fermentation is a natural process.
• Left alone, a grape would ripen until the skin broke and
the juice is fermented.
• The intervention of man is only necessary to increase
the clarity and the stability of the end product.
• “Making wine” is mostly a matter of the choices and
decisions of the winemaker during each phase of
production, from growing the raw material grapes to
bottling the finished product: wine.
• These choices determine the wine’s style, flavors and
aromas to a great extent.
Yeast
• Yeast is the microscopic, single celled fungi which
causes fermentation.
• Yeast populations are present in the air, especially
in and around vineyards. This indigeneous yeast
population is known as “wild” oe “ambient”
yeast.
• Yeast cells are concentrated around the berry
stem (peduncle) and much lower in concentration
than thought, in the dozens rather than the
thousands.
Fermentation contd.
• When yeast comes in contact with the grape
juice, it begins to feed on it, grow and
reproduce.
• There are approximately 6000 yeast cells per
16 grams actively fermenting must.
• An enzyme (zymase) within the yeast converts
sugar in the grape juice into0 roughly equal
parts of alcohol and carbon dioxide and also
releases energy in the form of heat.
Fermentation contd.
• Theoretically, the process of fermentation
could continue naturally until the sugar is used
up, which is often the case.
• Occasionally, fermentation continues only
until the yeast cells are no longer able to
tolerate the level of their waste products:
alcohol, carbon dioxide and/or heat, thus
leaving very small amounts of residual sugar.
The science
Sugars and Sweetness
Reducing sugars – wines fermented to “ absolute
bone dryness” still contain between .001% and
.002% of unfermented sugars.
Most common reducing sugars are glucose and
fructose, with traces of arabinose but the exact
reasoning why they do not completely convert
during fermentation remains unclear…
Levels of Acidity
• Less than .500 g/100 mL are generally
considered bland.
• Exceeding .800 g/100 mL are usually sharp.
Sweetness levels tend to mask total acidity and vice
versa.
pH
The measurement of the active acid “strength” in
juice, must, or wine is expressed in terms of pH.
Determination is made by measuring the hydrogen
ion concentration in a given solution.
A pH scale is from 0 – 14
• A 7 on the scale is as pure as water.
• Each gradient from 7 toward 0 or 14 becomes more
intense.
• The lower the level, the higher the acidity.
• The higher the level, the lower the acidity.
.
Acids and Acidity
Principal acids involved in wine making:
• Tartaric
• Malic
• Lactic
• Acetic
The total of these and other minor acids determine the
amount of tartness the palate will receive from the wine.
Total acidity is a measurement made by analysis in winery
labs in order to quantify tartness in juice, must, or wine.
Sulfur Dioxide
• Sulfur Dioxide is a gas having a very prickly,
sharp pungency in the nose.
• Heavy doses of sulfur dioxide gas leave an
unpleasant powdery residue on the palate.
• The gaseous form of SO2 is generally used by
larger wineries, where greater quantities are
required.
Malolactic Fermentation
• The principle effect is a reduction in total acidity
along with a buttery-like flavor development
known as diacetyl.
• As a rule, malolactic fermentation is desired in
more complex table wines, and undesired in in
lighter types, which express greater fruit flavor
profiles.
5 TIPS FOR BLENDING
1. Blending reduces the character of individual
components
2. Blending increases the complexity of the
resulting product
3. Blending a faulted wine (bad wine) with a
good wine will still make a bad wine
4. Blending two stable wines can result in an
unstable wine
5. Always make a lab blend first!
Fining of Wines
• Fining is the process of removing suspended
particles from wines and will sometimes be used
for softening of wines of phenolic compounds
• Common types of fining agents are Bentonite,
egg whites, kieselsol and sparkoloid
Barrels
• Barrels are constructed from Oak staves from
many diverse countries around the world.
Primarily French and American oak barrels are
used in the California wine industry
• Common components from barrel aging wine
are:
– Nutty
– Smoke
Clove
Cedar
Coffee
Cigar Box
Leather
Dusty
Barrels (cont.)
• French barrels average $700 each
• American barrels average $300 each
• Prior to 1970’s, toasting of Oak barrels was a
phenomena of the Bourbon industry not the
wine industry
• Oak species (commonly used)
– Allier
– American
Limousin
Nevers
Filtration
• Two important points of filtration are;
– The degree of clarity desired
– The amount of coloring and flavor lost
• Red wines that are unfiltered are considered
higher in quality
• Pressure and flow rate are key to the filtration
process
Packaging (cont)
• Tip: Don’t get to caught up making your bottle
to complicated that a customer gets lost.
• Tip: Don’t put Cabernet Sauvignon in a Pinot
Noir bottle or Chardonnay in a Merlot bottle.
Customers do not like it. Use a Burgundy style
bottle with the “dead leaf green” color for
Chard.
• Tip: Bottle quality is the most important part.
Make sure the glass you use meets your
standards
HISTORY OF WINE
• Nobody knows from which particular part of the
world the grape-bearing vine originally came,
but man has been drinking wine with his food
for at least 5,000 years and the antiquity of the
custom goes back far beyond the days of ancient
Greece to Egypt and the early civilizations of the
East.
• The sacrificial wine which was offered as a
tribute to pagan gods became the sacramental
wine of the early Christian church.
Origins
• Vitis Vinifera, the species of vine which grows
wine grapes, is apparently a native of Persia.
• Certainly wine was drunk in ancient Persia,
Egypt and in ancient Greece.
• It spread, as our civilization spread, from the
East to West first by Phonecians to Spain,
Greeks to Italy and Provence, the Romans
through Gaoul and Germany
Ancient Greece
• Of all the districts of Ancient Greece, it was probably Thrace which
had the oldest reputation for its wine and also kept it the longest.
Homer mentions from here the wine of Maronea, which Ulysses
used in order make Polyphemus drunk. Macedonia had its chief
vineyards on the penins of Chalcidice, the most famous being the
wines of Acanthus on the Pierian Gulf and those of Mendae and
Scione which were towns situated between the Thermaic and
Poromaic Gulfs.
• Greatly appreciated in all the regions of Ancient Greece, wine was
throughout antiquity an important commercial commodity, even
though its price was always very high. At all times there was a big
difference in price according to the quality offered
Wine trading
• It was the Greeks who first established trading stations on
the barbaric shores of Provence and of Languedoc and here
they offered for sale the wines of their country.
• The international currency at that time was the slave ,and
both Diodorus of Sicily and the Roman Justin tell us that the
tariff was one young boy for an amphora of wine.
• These Greek traders even introduced the cultivated vine
into Provence and planted several cuttings, but they were
never interested in its development on a large scale for
fear, no doubt, of setting up dangerous competition for
their own products.
Egypt
• The earliest evidence was found in Egypt, in one of the
graves of a certain Phoorah some figures were
discovered showing a servant stoppering a wine jar.
This, together with a few surviving amphorae, is the
earliest evidence in the history of wine.
• So it seems that civilisation and wine were born at one
and the same time. The Egyptian religion attributed the
gift to the most noble of their gods, Osiris, the son of
Heaven and of Earth, 'Lord of the vine in flower', as he
is called in a hieroglyphic inscription.
Closures
• Corks; both synthetic and natural.
– Natural cork has risk of contamination with mold and other
problems i.e. over sulfured.
– Red wine usually has longer corks.
– Key to cork selection is size i.e. diameter of cork.
– Can be used to market wine.
• Screwcaps
– Proven to be a better seal for wine bottles than corks.
– Not generally found on “high end” wine due to poor
perceived opinion by consumer. One exception: Plumpjack
Winery.
• Box Wine—(Nuff Said!!)
The Romans
• From the earliest times in Rome wine enjoyed a vogue
certainly as great as in Egypt and in Greece.
The Romans derived most of their civilisation from their
conquest of Greece and it is, therefore, not surprising that
Roman vines were of Hellenic origin; the wines produced
by the Romans were more strong and more robust, but less
delicate and less perfumed than those of Greece.
By far the most famous growth was the Falernian. Most of
the poets have sung its praises, Horace especially. The
Imperial Palace adopted it, but the Empress Livia, who did
not find it to her liking, preferred the wine of Pucinum.
Romans contd.
• Imported Wine
• But apart from these local wines, much imported wine
was drunk at Rome: the Omphacite of Lesbos, the
Phanaean of Chios, the Saprian of Arvila, the wines of
Spain - Barcino of Barcelona and Tarragona - and the
wines of the Balearics, of Provence and of
Narbonensis, which were greatly despised by the poet
Martial and were often treated with herbs and various
aromatics. These were without doubt the ancestors of
our present day aperitifs and of contemporary Greek
resinated wine.
Gaul (France)
• Since time immemorial the wild vine has
grown in the temperate climate of the
Mediterranean and prehistoric man must
certainly have refreshed himself with the little,
acid grapes, just as we do today with myrtle
berries or wild blackberries.
Importing Wine
• Wine was one of the principal products exported by Rome into
Languedoc. It was carried by sea in large merchantmen navigated
by sail (corbitae) in which the amphorae were stored.
• A shipwreck was discovered. The perfect state of preservation of
the wreck, buried in the mud at a depth of over 130 feet, in 240
B.C. She had been commissioned by a rich merchant by the name of
Marcus Sestius and left the Greek port of Delos with a cargo of
Cycladic wines, supplemented en route by some wine from Latium
which she took on board in the Gulf of Gaeta.
• Her cargo was about a thousand amphorae and some eight
hundred vases, mostly intact. Some of the stoppered amphorae still
contained wine, if the pale liquid found in them, more than 2200
years old, deserves such a name.
Blending of Wine
• Primarily bottled wines of France (especially
Bordeaux) are blends of different varietals
• Champagne is a blend of Pinot noir, Pinot
menuier and Chardonnay
• California Sparkling wine can be a blend of
varietals that the winemaker deems sufficient
• There is no magic formula to be found in
blending of wine
Science of Viticulture is Developed
• Roman agriculturists, with the experience of the
Greeks and Carthaginians behind them, had greatly
developed the science of viticulture; little by little they
improved methods of growing and found strains
capable of growing beyond the olive zone and
Languedoc; the vine reached Aquitaine, the Rhone
Valley and Burgundy.
At Bordeaux, a Spanish vine seems to have been used.
It was called the Vitis Biturica from the name of the
Bituriges, a tribe living in this region, the original
inhabitants of the country round Bourges.
The CHURCH
• The decline and fall of the Roman Empire in
continental Europe left the church in power..
• Church kept alive the vital skills of civilization
(agriculture, letters and law) The knowledge of
wine making became almost a monopoly of the
Church for at least one thousand years.
• All of the vineyards in Europe the traces remain
to this day.
• This monopoly continued until the French
Revolution in France which deprived the Church
from this and the lands were sold.
The evolution of Modern Wine
• Wine was the only stable beverege in the 17th
century.
• Water was not safe
• Wine is storable, carries no harmful
microorganisms and tasty
The Evolution of Modern Wine
• Wine has been a very successful
transplantation from the Old World to the
New World.
• The first of the European settlements to have
the vine were South America and South Africa.
• In the second quarter of the 19th Century the
new world started their vineyards.
Table 31. Top countries ranked by total grape production, 2005
Country Grape production million tonnes
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Italy
USA
France
China (includes Taiwan)
Spain
Turkey
Iran
Argentina
Chile
Australia
World
8,553
7,088
6,790
6,520
6,072
3,303
2,963
2,829
2,319
2,026
67,396
% of world
12.7
10.5
10.1
9.7
9.0
4.9
4.4
4.2
3.4
3.0
Table 32. Top producers of wine in the world, 2005
Country Wine production (ML)1 % of THE WORLD
• Country
Italy
• France
• Spain
• USA
• Argentina
• Australia
• China
• Germany
• South Africa
• Chile
• Portugal
WINE
5,402
5,210
3,615
2,288
1,522
1,430
1,200
915
840
788
726
%
19.1
18.5
12.8
8.1
5.4
5.1
4.3
3.2
3.0
2.8
2.6
The Vine
• Vine is the plant that bears the grapes.
• The first 2 years of its life the plant creates roots
and builds a strong woody stalk to bear and carry
the grapes
• Like most plants, vines will reproduce from seed
but the seeds rarely turn out like their parents
• Viticulturists propagate vines asexually instead so
that they can be sure that the offspring are the
same as the mother vine.
Vine contd.
• For planting a new vineyard, every vine originates
as a cutting, either planted to take root of its own
or grafted onto a rootstock a rroted cutting of
another species especially selected for the soil
type or resistence to draught or nematodes.
• Only healthy cuttings are used.
• As the vine greows older the principal roots
penetrate deeper in the ground.
• Yields decline after 25 to 30 years.
The vine stages
• Stage 1 As early as March, in Northern
Europe and September in the Southern
hemisphere, the buds left after winter pruning
start to swell and the first signs of green can
be seen emerging from the gnarled wood.
• The temperature is important. 10C, although
different grape varieties vary.
The Vine stages
• Stage 2.
• Within 10 days of budbreak, leaves start to
seperate from the bud and embryonic tendrils
begin to be visible and are too vulnerable to
frost which can strike as mid-May or midNovember.
• Late pruning can delay budbreak.