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Hi, Sarah. Appassimento is the Italian word for the process of dehydrating harvested grapes by spreading out the clusters on straw mats or shelving or hanging them up in special, cool drying rooms. The process, which can take several months, raisinates the grapes and concentrates the sugars in them. Several notable wines of Italy’s Veneto region are made this way, including the dry wine amarone and the sweet wine recioto di Valpolicella.
—Karen
Yes Paul, clos is the French term for an enclosed or walled vineyard. Clos St. Hune in Alsace and Clos de Vougeot in Burgundy are examples. Often the physical walls of the clos no longer exist, but the history and the name of the vineyard remain with the wine.
—Karen
Acidity gives wine a dynamic pulse. It’s what accounts for a wine’s liveliness, snappiness, and freshness. Acidity also frames the fruit and gives the wine a sense of precision and clarity. When high acid white wines are paired with proteins such as chicken and fish, the acidity can really cut through the flesh and fat in every bite, leaving the mouth refreshed and salivating for more.
The so-called three-tier system can be thought of as the overall architecture for alcoholic beverage sales in the United States. The system—convoluted and confusing—separates producers, wholesalers, and retailers. The result is a complex patchwork of rules which individual states enact and enforce. The three-tier system was instituted at the end of Prohibition in 1933. In ceding control to the states, the federal government sidestepped the controversial and volatile issue of how alcoholic beverages should/could be sold. The result has been an enormous spectrum of varying approaches, from states with relatively liberal policies to states with constrictive retail monopolies.
Good question, Sheila. The British often call red Bordeaux “claret.” The word comes from the French clairet, which originally referred to a light red wine (to distinguish it from Port). Today, of course, the top red Bordeaux are anything but light in color or in body. The late wine writer Steven Spurrier suggested that “elegance,” “fragrance of bouquet,” and “lift” were defining characteristics of good claret.
—Karen
Very good question Quinn. Certain types of light can definitely affect aging and long-term wine quality. Ultraviolet light can damage wine overtime breaking down certain molecular structures causing wines to age prematurely. A wine damaged by light is said to be “lightstruck,” and it will taste dull and flat. To avoid light-strike, most red wines are bottled in darker brown or green glass. Red wines of course are generally aged longer than white and rosé wines and therefore need protection from UV exposure. LED lighting is best for wine storage areas since LED lights emit very low levels of light and radiation in comparison to other types of light. —Karen
Dear Tina and Collin, Well, you’ve put your finger on a very interesting issue. By law, wine producers must list the amount of alcohol a wine contains on the wine’s label. Most wines contain somewhere between 12.5 and 15 percent. But if you were hoping to use the percentage listed as, say, a guide to drinking at the lower end of the spectrum, you’re a bit out of luck. To begin with, wineries sometimes need to print their labels (which list the alcohol level) even before a wine has even been made. Second, enforcement in both Europe and the United States is not particularly stringent allowing winemakers to estimate (and often understate) the alcohol and be done with it. But, in the United States, even for producers who adhere strictly to the rules, the rules themselves have considerable wiggle room. In the U.S. wines containing 14% or less alcohol, can be labeled plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. So that light, elegant wine you bought which was labeled 12.5 percent alcohol could actually contain 14 percent. For wines over 14 percent alcohol, a 1 percent variance is allowed. So a wine labeled 14.5 percent alcohol, could actually contain 15.5 percent. No wine (except for fortified wines) is ever over about 16.5 percent alcohol because at that concentration, yeasts die from the very alcohol they are making, preventing them from making more.
—Karen
Hi Kerri. That is shade cloth, one of the most effective methods of reducing the impact of too much sun on grapes. Hiding the clusters behind shade cloth can minimize sunburn and dehydration by up to 40 percent, and can reduce the temperature of the space around the grapes by as much as 8 degrees F. The shade cloth, which is affixed to the trellis at the height of the grape clusters, is made from UV treated high density polyethylene, and protects the grapes from ultraviolet, visible spectrum, and infrared light. Shade cloth is expensive (wrapping a one-acre vineyard can cost $700 or so), but for a winery making expensive wine, losing 10 to 15 percent of the crop due to sunburn and dehydration is even more costly. Wine made from sunburned grapes feels very coarse on the palate, and wines made from dehydrated grapes have all the charm of prune juice.
Hi Mike. Right you are. In particular, the names of many of the appellations in Ontario, Canada, end with the word bench — There’s Twenty Mile Bench, Beamsville Bench, Short Hills Bench, plus several others. And — there are benches along Lake Okanagan in British Columbia, Canada, too. The geology can get pretty complex here, but essentially a bench is a lateral outcropping that runs (like a giant step or a terrace) across a sloped area interrupting the steep decline in elevation. Benches are usually formed by erosion, weathering, or successive deposits often left behind by a river or a retreating glacier. In Ontario, the benches that run parallel to the Niagara Escarpment are protected from strong cold winds and drain potentially damaging cold air away from the vines. In the hottest months of summer, the benches’ elevation catches cool breezes, and in winter, warm air over the adjacent lakes helps to moderate the climate. So in short, a bench is often an ideal place for a vineyard.
—Karen
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Hi Scotty, It’s great that you bought three bottles. Napa Valley cabernets DO generally age well; I’ve had some fantastic Napa cabernets from the mid-1970s. Additionally, back in the 1970s, Beaulieu was making very fine wine. But your wine is now 50 years old and it would be an achievement for any wine to age beautifully that long. My advice is to set your expectations correctly. The wine is probably a bit frail and it has of course lost all of its primary fruit. Open one bottle carefully (don’t decant it) and try it right away before it gets a lot of air, then watch it open up over the next thirty minutes to an hour. It might collapse after that. If the first bottle is over the hill, you’ve got a second and third chance at something exquisite. Good luck!!!
Hi Sue: You must be referring to isinglass, a gelatinous protein material obtained from the air bladders of sturgeon and other fish. Isinglass is sometimes used as a fining agent (filtering is a different process) to clarify and/or soften the texture of wine. Every study I know of says that protein coagulants such as isinglass completely bind, like velcro, to unwanted tannins and other particles in the wine, and then together the substances precipitate out of solution, so that the wine can be racked off of them. So it seems unlikely that fining of this sort would produce a reaction.
On the other hand, allergic reactions are serious and the best recommendation would be to consult a doctor. Note that many winemakers prefer not to fine their wines at all, believing that this process removes natural flavor and texture.
The vines on the volcanic Greek island of Santorini are trained into kouloura (wreaths or baskets) to protect the grapes from fierce winds and unrelenting sun (the grapes hang inside the baskets). The vines grow, wound into bigger and bigger baskets, for an average of 80 years, whereupon the vine is “revitalized” by decapitating it just above the ground. When dormant buds begin to grow from the roots, a whole new top begins. A vine may be revitalized up to 5 times in its life. That’s 5 x 80 years, or a root system that’s at least 400 years old. Eleni—thank you! We should have noted this in our piece.
Final thought: after Eleni wrote in, I began to wonder if a root system (as opposed to the whole vine) qualified as an old vine. I asked Dr. Carole Meredith, Professor Emerita, Department of Viticulture and Enology, University of California at Davis. Said Dr. Meredith, “My own opinion with regard to the Santorini vines is that, assuming the vines are on their own roots (as I believe the Santorini vines are) and not grafted to a rootstock, I would consider these old vines. The fact that the above-ground portion is [pruned] every few decades is no different than for any other old vine that is pruned every year. The fruit-bearing shoots are always going to be young on any grapevine.” So there we have it.
