WINE

"Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know." – John Keats

What is Wine?

Wine is made from the fermented juice of fruit. Any fruit can be used to make wine, and some of it is no doubt delicious. However, for the purpose of this book, our discussion of wine is limited to the fermented juice of grapes made from the Vitis vinifera vine which is native to the Eastern Mediterranean but is now planted worldwide.

Fermentation is a naturally occurring process in which the yeast found in the grapes converts the natural sugars into alcohol. The more sugar the grape contains, the higher the level of alcohol.

There are seven basic categories of wine:

Red Wine: Made from dark-skinned grapes when the skins remain with the juice during fermentation.

White Wine: Made from grapes with the (usually pale) skins removed before fermentation.

Rosé Wine: Made from dark-skinned grapes when skins have been allowed brief contact with the juice during fermentation. Obviously, the longer the contact, the deeper the color will be.

Sparkling Wine: Wines which contain small bubbles of carbon dioxide, either as a result of a secondary natural fermentation or through post-fermentation injection. The most famous come from the Champagne region of Northeast France.

Distilled Wine: Brandy is made from fermented wines which have been distilled to 35-60 percent alcohol, and the name comes from the Dutch word brandewijn, "burnt wine." The best-known brandies are Cognac and Armagnac, two regions in Southwest France.

Fortified Wine: Made from fermented wine to which some brandy has been added, raising the alcohol level to about 18-20 percent. The most famous fortified wines are from Jerez (Sherry) in Southern Spain and Porto (Port) in Northern Portugal.

Raisinated Wine: Rather than fermenting the juice of the freshly picked fruit, the grapes are allowed to dry in the sun, becoming more like raisins before they are crushed and allowed to ferment. This process, which is called appassimento in Italian, concentrates the sugars and thus results in a far higher alcohol level as well as a sweeter wine. Historically, all the best and most expensive wines used to be made this way.

These different categories will be examined in more detail in the chapter on "How Wine is Made."

There are three external factors which affect the taste of wine:

Chemical: Perhaps the most important factor is the chemical composition of the wine. In fact, if the wine is bad, then all the other factors are irrelevant. But assuming the wine is good, that "goodness" is composed of all sorts of qualities, ranging from the type of grape to the minerals from which the roots have derived their taste, and the balance between the sweetness of the residual sugars and the acids and tannins of the skin.

Physical: Even a great wine will be disappointing if it is served at the wrong temperature, while an otherwise mediocre wine, served at the correct temperature and accompanied with food, will taste much better.

Mechanical: As a certain well-known glass manufacturer, Riedel, never fails to remind us in their advertising, each wine improves in the "correct" glass. Certainly, any wine will taste better in a wine glass that tapers toward the opening, rather than one that widens towards the top. The correctly-shaped glass is widest in the middle, where the maximum surface of wine is exposed to the oxygen in the air, releasing the volatile aromatic molecules that rise towards the top of the glass which, tapering to a narrowed opening, concentrates them for the human nose. In order to focus on the color and pleasures of the wine itself, the glass should be clear, un-decorated and certainly not colored.

Alright — four external factors: Dishwashing liquid! Assuming that you follow all the advice and suggestions in this book and put them into practice with a carefully selected wine in an expensive crystal glass, it will all be meaningless if the glass has not been properly rinsed. Wine glasses should be washed by hand if possible, using only the tiniest hint of dishwashing liquid, and then thoroughly rinsed so that no residue remains. The smallest hint of soap in a glass will destroy even the most robust and expensive of wines.

The moment the cork is pulled and the first glass is poured, chemical changes begin which will ultimately affect our appreciation of the wine. As soon as the wine is exposed to the air, it begins to oxidize and evaporate as tiny molecules of aroma are released into the air and give the wine its bouquet.

Tasting Wine

While it is true that the satisfying "pop" of a cork being withdrawn from a bottle, the clink of glasses, the charming gurgle of wine being poured, or the gentle fizz of bubbles in a flute of champagne all involve our sense of hearing, it is the other four senses which are more important for the appreciation of wine: sight, smell, taste, and touch. In my wine class, I make my students follow the same noisy ritual for every glass of wine we taste: swirl, snort, slurp, and slosh. It makes for a somewhat raucous and inelegant class, but establishes good tasting habits which can eventually be discreetly modified to socially acceptable levels.

It is very important to remember that just as we all differ in size, height, weight, hair color, and skin color, so too each one of us has a unique sense of taste. About 20 percent of the population have 150 tastebuds on each square centimeter of tongue. They are known as Supertasters; they react badly to any taste of bitterness and are very sensitive, usually avoiding most red wines and preferring sweet whites. At the other extreme, 20 percent of the population have only fifty tastebuds per square centimeter, and they are very tolerant of tannins and bitter tastes, usually preferring "big" red wines. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, with about one hundred tastebuds per square centimeter. We are known as "tasters" and can enjoy both sweet and bitter tastes, both red and white. Because of these fundamental and natural differences between us, when it comes to wine tasting, there are no "correct" tastes and no "correct" answers. Do not feel bad if your experience is different from your friends or from an "expert." Vive la difference!

Eyes / Sight (Swirl)

Our first contact with a glass of wine is with our eyes, which tell us immediately if it is red or white (or rosé). Sight is the most superficial of our senses, but, even before we taste the wine, our eyes give us a hint of the grape the wine is made from and also its age. Pick up your glass and swirl the wine around as you look at it. (Novices may want to practice swirling while the glass sits on the table, moving it in a circular motion so that the wine swirls around, but without spilling over the glass onto a smart white dress or shirtfront.) First look down into the glass, and then tilt it away from you at an angle, preferably against a white background.

By tilting your glass, you will see the variations in color from the center, where the wine is deepest...