Oxygen is a vital, critical component to you, me and all human beings. Alas, the story is a bit different when it comes to wine. If wine is exposed to more than a small amount of oxygen, the results can be horrific. How so? Well, it might be better used for your fish and chips!
Timing is a big issue when it comes to wine. When you open a bottle of wine, you often want to let it breathe for a few minutes depending on the type of wine in question. Why? The exposure to oxygen will modify the taste of the wine in a manner that was planned for by the vintner at the winery. Take that same bottle of wine, however, and leave it uncorked and on the table for a couple of hours and what happens? The wine “goes bad” and tastes terrible. The reason has to do with the temperature probably getting to high and the impact oxygen exposure is having on the wine.
What is the problem with oxygen exposure? It has to do with a microbe called acetobacter. It is almost always present in wine. When exposed to oxygen, the microbe starts doing something interesting. It starts converting the ethyl alcohol in the wine into acetic acid through a multistep process. So, why is this a problem? Well, acetic acid is the main component of…vinegar! Yikes!
It takes more than a few hours for acetobacter to convert the ethyl alcohol in wine to a vinegar substance. Leaving a wine bottle open for a few hours isn’t a problem. Exposure to oxygen while the wine is being stored, however, is a different story. Even a tiny bit of oxygen leaking in through the cork can lead to a stored bottle of wine that is not wine, but vinegar. It happens all the time!
If you have are storing wine to let it age, you should take all possible steps to prevent oxygen from getting into the wine. The last thing you want to do is open a bottle after 10 years and get a whiff of vinegar!
Thomas Ajava writes for – makers of leather wine journals that make great for any occasion including wine tasting parties.
A “connoisseur” – according to Oxford – is an “expert judge in matter of taste”. For sure you know what you like and dislike, so already that makes you a judge. As for being an expert, you have “to have special knowledge of or skill in a subject”. OK, this might require a bit of work but I can assure you it is much easier than most connoisseurs would have you believe.
Realize first that the key to being an expert in wine is to know precisely what aspects to look for in any bottle you uncork. The average novice has a vague idea at best. Consequently, despite the fact that both persons have the same discerning abilities, no matter how much wine the novice drinks, it won’t improve his ability to judge properly.
So what we will do here is to spell out in plain English the basic but quintessential virtues that make for a good bottle of wine. I think this will help you evaluate every glass of wine and form an expert opinion with ease. I am going to take you through just three fundamental areas of appreciation, namely Typicity, Quality and Age-worthiness. Mastering them is all that stands between you – a wine novice – and you – a wine connoisseur.
Style and Typicity
The style of wine from Bordeaux will and should be different from Napa Valley or Chile, otherwise wine would be a terribly boring hobby. No one style rules supreme in the wine domain. Typicity which describes how accurate the rendition of the style that the wine is supposed to manifest, is very important quality.
An average wine connoisseur is familiar with about 30 styles of wine. It doesn’t take long for a novice to achieve that. All you need to do is to taste a lot. Your palates have excellent memory even if your mind struggles to find more Giga bytes to store a lot of facts and figures. Very soon, when you open a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino, all your senses will automatically receive a download of tasting expectations. And even if the wine tastes very good it would be a disappointment if it doesn’t reflect the quality of its roots. So questions like “Are Australian wines better than French?” are really missing the point.
Quality
With the topic of style down pat, we can take a look at quality of taste. It is actually quite easy. I just need your mind to zoom in on five key areas. Your senses will then render an expert opinion on whether the stuff is good, bad or ugly. The five areas are:
Consistency
Intensity
Vigor
Balance
Finish
Consistency is about tactile qualities that leave a rewarding palate impression, not about flavors. Wine writers like to use the term Body to describe the weight of a wine. Full-, medium- and light-body describe how heavy and light a wine feels on the tongue. But size isn’t everything so in addition to body, we’re also looking for texture of smoothness and silkiness. The great Burgundy wine of Chambertin is well known for its remarkable combination of a full body and a velvety texture.
The flavors of a wine might come in low, medium or high intensity, much like the volume of music played on a stereo. Great wine comes with an appropriate level of intensity just high enough to capture your undivided attention yet not excessively so as to drown out everything else. It is such deft touch that separates the great Australian wine – Grange (Hermitage) – from many expensive baubles out of the same region.
Vigor comes from acidity without which the wine would taste dull and flat if not downright boring. Great chefs often squeeze a splash of lemon juice to finish off a dish. The presence of the same kind of fresh acidity adds crispiness to a wine making it taste racy with a bit of welcomed levity. The great Italian Barolo from Piedmont are endowed with this quality and so are some of the lovely Sauvignon Blanc white wines from New Zealand.
Balance is the quintessential quality of a great wine. A wine is out of balance if one component sticks out like a sore thumb. Most frequently encountered flaws that throw a wine out of balance are excessively high alcohol which makes the wine taste overly dry and astringent (“hot” in wine jargon) and in white wines especially Chardonnays, excessively woody (“oaky” in wine jargon) and buttery which effaces the fruit flavors in the wine. The great Château Lafite-Rothschild is benchmark for balance par excellence.
The word “finish” refers to the length and quality of the aftertaste. In a long finish, flavors linger on for nearly a minute. But length isn’t everything if the aftertaste fails to maintain its balance. Some long finishes fall apart giving way to a distinctly sour or bitter impression. Length doesn’t always bring satisfaction.
Age-worthiness
To achieve greatness a wine must first undergo the arduous challenge of time. Most wines are not made with greatness in mind. For them, time is an insidious revelation of their mediocrity. For the best of breeds, age imbues in them depth and complexity of flavors. That distinguishes the wine from the merely good. Knowing this, fastidious connoisseurs relentlessly scour the town for old vintages pricey as some old bottles could (and should) be. Novices on the other hand go for brand names and sometimes settle for wines that are far too young to drink, rarely getting their money’s worth. After all, it is the ability of wine to improve with age that positions it above all the other beverages.
By now, you have endued yourself with more than enough knowledge to be your own expert judge on every bottle you drink. If you feel lacking a bit in exposure and experience, then just drink and drink and drink some more. But drinking the same stuff over and over again won’t help. Best advice is for you to refrain from ordering the same wine night in and night out. Your time is best spent with a new fancy every evening. Promiscuity is inextricably married to connoisseurship. Even if you can’t divorce yourself from the “usual” at least be adventurous with different vintages of the same wine. Every year produces a different version of the same wine. This too is part of the myriad of fascinations that the world of wine has to offer.
Whether you are an assiduous restaurateur, a gregarious hobbyist or just a raver with a penchant for the finer things, wine is certainly an affair worth pursuing. This is one relationship which allows you to define all the rules. It can be a languid sidekick or you can take it seriously with a lot of respect and understanding. Ultimately it probably won’t love you back and it certainly won’t stop demanding more of your time, attention and alas, money. If this sounds like a raw deal, then perhaps this is one affair you should sidestep.
But imagine if that’s not a problem for you, what else in life can offer an reward so prodigious as something different and exciting to look forward to every single night?
Tim Drake is resident wine journalist in Asia, contributing to magazines and broadsheet in wine and the lifestyle that this beverage has created for the modern world.
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First steps in hobby wine making process. A small batch of Shiraz from 180 four year old vines in a dry climate at Gingin in Western Australia. The equipment was obtained from Malthouse in Welshpool (the crusher) and Bunnings (some 25L plastic bottles). Firstly we pick grapes and drive them to the garage. Then crushing the grapes twice and after that, removing the stems and sticks by hand. Finally we have the mix. The next step is to obliterate the natural yeast for 12-24 hours then add pectinase for 12-24 hours to help break down the grapes. Then the yeast is added and the brews are stired three times daily to let the pink froth of the fermentation come out. After about 5 days at 25degress C, the sugar content has dropped from 13% to 5%. Then the wine is decanted and the solids are pressed to remove extra wine. The pure wine is then sealed from the air and allowed to do anaerobic fermentation for a few weeks. During this stage the rest of the sugar should convert to alcohol. I’ll update this next week if it all goes OK.
I have researched and every recipe is different , I know the basics, fruit juice, yeast and you put it in a jug and put a balloon over it, but some recipes say to poke holes in the balloon and some don’t and some recipes call for acid blend and some dont, some say to boil the sugar and water, but when do you add the yeast and how, I am confused. I just want to make a wine that tastes pretty good, but doesnt call for lots of expensive ingredients.
It is important to do some homework and learn exactly what’s entailed before undertaking the hobby of step by step wine making. It’s not something that can be simply plunged into and then learned on the way. Without the urgent research needed to have the required to have the mandatory of every imperative step by step wine making step and what’s wrong and process, When it comes to winemaking, failure can taste as nasty as success is sweet.
Winemaking is an entertaining pastime that can easily be done in one’s free time and at the end of the process–provided everything goes well–there will be a fantastic result. Many of us find step by step wine making to be an addictive past time, because irrespective of how well they might do they always envision room for improvement, in the following batch. As more is learned about wine making and as more wine making experience is gained the wine will improve. As more tricks are learned into the coaching and endless process begins of improving the next batch, and then the subsequent batch, and then the next, and so on.
The huge majority of wines are made of grapes for a very good reason: the grape has nearly all of the ingredients necessary to making wine already infused into it. Success in step by step wine making entirely wrapped up in the balance of chemicals, and the grape has many of the obligatory chemicals in it already, in balanced perfect for winemaking.
The right balance of the fun and nutrients, are vital to make a quality wine, and it just so occurs the grape completely is suitable. This natural balance allows the grape to ferment exactly as it needs to for successful step by step wine making. However, picking the right grape is only the beginning of a successful winemaking journey.
There are of grapes many different grapes that can be employed in different combinations. As the hobbyist becomes more skilled at winemaking they may want to try adding a bit of some other fruits to the mixture to need to show the dog what’s right and what’s incorrect. the different grapes that can be employed in step by step wine making and how they affect the outcome of the wine making process can be enormously useful. Knowing what kind of wine the maker favors a idea of which direction idea of which direction to set out in.
As with any past-time it is necessary to keep close in mind that step by step wine making is supposed to be fun. Mistakes are bound to be made, and no one takes up winemaking without making a few along the path. Do not let mistakes destroy the fun of the past-time. Rather, learn from them and seek to correct them.
This hobby can’t be rushed. Each step takes a particular period of time, and cutting that time short will mean catastrophic results. This step by step wine making is a cool pastime, and you will have many enjoyable hours making your wine, and many rewarding times, tasting your finished wine, and sharing with your buddies and family.
Jason is an expert in the wine business and he shares his step by step wine making process on his site. http://www.homewinebrewing.info
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