Overview To Sampling Wine
The fundamentals of tasting red wine are reasonably straightforward to find out. As soon as the basics are understood, the nuances and details can be enhanced over a lifetime. Like any kind of various other skill, More »
Red Wine Types
Red wine has a lot of different types, among which, the most popular include Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. Moreover, More »
Category Archives: Zinfandel
Types of Wine Glasses
Wine glasses come in many shapes and sizes. The structure of the glass is designed to enhance the flavor and aroma of the wine so it is important to choose the right glass for the wine you are drinking. The shape of the glass determines several things: how much surface area is exposed to the air, how much wine can be swilled in the glass, how close your nose can get to the wine, and where the wine falls on your palate as you drink.
If you are drinking champagne for instance, it is proper to use a champagne flute. The champagne flute’s tall, narrow design forces our nose outside of the glass and causes the wine to fall further back on the palate as we tip our head back. In addition to keeping the wine carbonated, the narrow opening at the top of the glass minimizes the surface area that is exposed to the air and keeps the flavor clean and crisp. Since we want to slow oxidization in champagne, there is no need to have a wide bowl for swirling the wine around.
With white wines, a bit more reaction with the air is desirable so the glass is wider and shorter than a champagne flute. A white wine glass is designed to allow a moderate rate of oxidization, enough to release the bouquet of the wine while retaining its crispness. White wine glasses vary as much as the white wines themselves so it cannot be said that there is one standard. In some cases, like with a buttery chardonnay, a wider bowl that you can get your nose into is preferable and may not look like a white wine glass at all. Generally speaking, the crisper the wine is to be kept, that narrower the glass.
Finally, red wine glasses are generally the biggest, having wide bowls and large mouths. These glasses are designed so that a large surface area is exposed to the air and so that the wine can be swilled around to infuse more air while drinking. Some red wine glasses can be quite tall, forcing the wine to sit further down in the glass, keeping the aromas in the glass but the mouth is always wide enough to get your nose in there while taking a sip.
These are the three basic types of glasses and are representative of the spectrum. Between these glasses though there is every size, shape, and style imaginable, each enhancing their own varieties of wine.
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Wine Making Yeast Bits
What separates wine from simple juice is the fermentation process in wine making. Fermentation involves wine making yeast, not any other type of yeast like your bread yeast.
Importance
Wine yeast is the most important ingredient in wine making. Not only as an ingredient but the process of mixing it with the must will make or break the whole batch of wine. It is said that the real winemaker is not the person making the wine but the yeast itself. The yeast works to absorb the sugar from the fruit and creating alcohol and carbon dioxide in equal portions.
Timing
The timing of mixing in the yeast is crucial as well. One can neither put the yeast too early nor too late, in the whole wine process. At best, wine making yeast is mixed in at least twenty four hours after the fruit is crushed. And it is left to stand interacting with the must for at least five to seven days, with only a few stirring twice to thrice a day.
Activation
For better results, wine making yeast must be activated first before mixing it into the fruit must. How? Mix the yeast into a cup of juice squeezed from the must and set aside for at least twelve hours before mixing it into the must. Or a cup of warm water will suffice. Do not use hot water as the temperature will kill the yeast rather than activating it. You know the yeast is active when the mixture looks like it is boiling.
Buying
Buying yeast is extremely easy. Just make sure that the label reads wine making yeast or something to that fashion. Any generic brand will make do for the amateurs. But if you are the brave type or already an aficionado, those specialty types are great choices. The amount you buy is also noteworthy, a ten milligram packet of yeast is sufficient to work on ten gallons of grape must.
So you see, even the hardest part of the wine process, which is the part involving wine yeast, is relatively easy once you know why it is crucial, what to buy and how and when to use it.
What Is Great Wine Actually?
If you ask someone what actually Great Wine is, then you should know that this question has both no answer and about a zillion answers at the same time. Why is that? The answer, in fact, depends on the person you ask, particularly the time of asking.
There is no one type of wine drinker first of all. With that fact as our basis for moving ahead, you can see where you might come up with a gazillion different answers. I know there is no number relating to a Gazillion, but let it be enough that there are plenty of different types.
The range extends from the down and out street wino to the extremely upscale wine clubs found in the eastern seaboard of America. And then of course there are our European cousins that consume much more wine than we Americans do routinely. So who you ask about great wine will definitely influence the answer you get back.
So is the question even worth asking? From my perspective it is in fact. But who you ask may come as a surprise. You should ask yourself. That’s right. What you think is a great wine is all that is really important when it comes to drinking the grape nectar. After all, it’s your taste buds you are concerned with and not someone else’s. You want to please yourself. You want to experience pleasure when consuming a glass of wine.
What will play into and affect that experience is the surroundings with which you find yourself when drinking some wine. Why is that important, well there are some wines that just do not fit some occasions. And if you don’t know at least some basics, your wine selection could end with a very discomforting result.
Wine basics 101: there are White, Red and Rose’ in the color realm. There are desert wines, wines that typically go well with certain types of foods and then there are wines that can be enjoyed just by themselves. Actually all wine fits this last category. It just depends on your mood and taste.
The days of wine snobbery are for the most part over. As the 21st century progresses, it has become more important for the individual to enjoy their selection than fitting a predetermined set of circumstances dictated by wine snobs. Those supposedly in the know.
While everything up till now is true, it’s pretty much an open game, there are a couple of things that you want to keep in mind. One is, you don’t want to select a desert wine such as Muscat to drink with dinner. That may seem like common sense and it is, but if you don’t know what Muscat is, then you could be at the front end of a very big surprise. Muscat is my favorite desert wine. As a child, I use to eat Muscat grapes fresh off the vine from wild grape vines that grew in our neighborhood. It was like free candy.
Up until recently, it was sort of taboo to drink white wine with red meat such as Beef, Veal, Venison or other game meats. Red was strictly the wine of choice. And to drink anything other was frowned upon by almost everyone. That is no longer true. It is completely acceptable to drink a white with a dinner steak. If that wine is to your liking, then do it.
So the old guidelines of food and wine pairings are not so much in vogue anymore. You will find that attitude at some upscale eateries that provide a wine Somalier. When faced with that situation, you just have to do what you feel comfortable doing. But other than that, great wine is the wine that makes you smile. Maybe even giggle a bit. Champagne bubbles popping about your nose is likely to cause that reaction more so than any other.
So….Great wine, what is it? It’s the wine that you love to drink, regardless of other’s opinions and ideas. So go ahead and have that Merlot with sauteed Prawns over Linguine or a nice Pinot Gregio with your Rib eye. You have no one to please but yourself.
White Wine Grapes Guide
Grapes used to make white wine produce an array of flavors and colors, with colors ranging from clear to a golden yellow as the wine ages. Since different climates affect the flavors of the grapes, different regions produce drastically different wines.
In extremely warm regions, the grapes become less acidic and the color of the wine tends to be more golden yellow. In temperate climates, there is more of a balance of acidity and also sweetness in the wine. Cool climates produce more acidic wines where the crop is prone to frost damage if not picked within the season. Chardonnay is perhaps the most well-known grape.
It is grown throughout wine producing regions of the world, but originated in Burgundy. The wine is typically light golden in color with melon and tropical flavors emerging in the wine. Riesling grapes produce a lighter bodied wine than Chardonnay and wine made from this grape usually is sweeter and has a flowery aroma. Sauvignon Blanc is a grape predominately found in France’s Loire Valley. It is a lighter wine that is often paired with a variety of food, including fish and poultry.
Pinot Blanc is a crisp wine that is sometimes made into sparkling wine in France. Champagne is the famous sparkling wine from the French region of Champagne. Only wines produced in this region can legally be called Champagne under a Protected Designation of Origin status.
Chardonnay grapes are most often used in making champagne, but blends with Pinot Noir are not uncommon. White wine grapes produce wine that is lower in tannins then red wine, since the wine is produced with minimal contact of the juice with the grape skins and seeds. The absence of the dry and intense flavor from high amounts of tannins make white wine easier for wine novices to begin tasting and enjoying wine.
Make Your Own Wine at Home
Your Supplies
The easy way to make your own wine would be to simply buy a kit to make your own wine. The prices are pretty steep but putting together your own supplies and totally doing it on your own can be a lot of fun. You will need: A few five gallon buckets to make and store the wine (some should have air locks for the fermentation process); a winepress (optional); a hydrometer to take readings of sugar and alcohol; a destemmer; a siphoning hose and some bottles, corks and a corker. Sterilize everything before you begin to make your wine.
Grapes (of course!)
I normally make roughly 5-6 gallons per batch when I make wine at home. This should give you about 24 bottles of wine. You are going to need quite a lot of grapes. You will need about 45 pounds of grapes. If you want, winemaking supply stores also sell bottled grape juice just for making wine at home.
Juice Those Grapes
You can obviously skip the step of making grape juice if you’ve bought the bottled juice. If not get that winepress working if you have one or start squishing grapes! Please note that red wine grapes must be fermented with the skins for several days before juicing.
Prep Your Juice
So you have you juice, now take out your hydrometer and take a reading of your sugar content. Check to see if the alcohol scale reads between 9% and 13%. If you are below that level add some sugar until your hydrometer gives you the green light to continue.
Ferment
Pour the juice into an open container about halfway. Next add yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme and potassium bisulfite. Wait a day and then gently sprinkle yeast (one package every 5 gallons) into your container. Let the fermentation process begin! Bubbling will occur in about 12 hours. Make sure you stir daily and have your containers lightly covered with a clean cloth.
And Again
You are almost there after five or six days. Move your fermenting juice into a clean bucket with an air lock. The sediment from the first bucket should stay there! Be carefull. Take another hydrometer reading to let you know if you are done fermenting. Almost there. Your wine will start to separate from the sediment at this point and needs to be taken out. This can take quite a while; several weeks to maybe even months.
Bottle Your Batch
After your liquid has cleared prepare for bottling. I usually strain my wine before bottling to remove any left over sediment. This is not necessary but a good habit to have I feel. Siphon the wine into your bottles, cork them and store them in a nice cool, dry place until you want to drink. Age it as you see fit. Enjoy!!
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