Do you have a question about wine?

We bet Karen has the answer. Just send your question to us. We may even reprint it with the answer in an upcoming WineSpeed. Make sure you are subscribed.

  •  
Share

“Hey Karen, I am currently moving into a new home. The area devoted to wine storage has fluorescent lighting in it. Will this damage my wine? Should I consider replacing the lighting?”

— Quinn N. (Lancaster, PA)

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

Share

“Dear Karen: How accurate are the alcohol levels listed on a wine’s label? The alcohol listed on the label of our favorite wine never changes. But it seems like it should change because some vintages are warmer than others. Thoughts?”— Tina and Collin W. (Houston, TX)

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

Share

“Hi Karen: I have just come back from a weekend of visiting some wineries in California. Driving around, I saw a lot of vineyards with a kind of banner stretched horizontally along the vines. What is that?”—Kerri L. (Laguna Beach, CA)

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.

Share

“Dear Karen, I sometimes see the word bench as part of a wine region’s name. When it comes to wine, what’s a bench?”— (Mike A. Traverse City, Michigan)

 

 

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

Have a wine question for me? Great. I love questions, and I’ll do my best to get you the right answer. Send your question to [email protected]

Share

“Hi Karen, About 10 years ago I purchased three bottles of 1971 Beaulieu Cabernet Sauvignon for my wife’s 50th birthday celebration. Hoping against hope that a 50-year Napa Cab might still have some goodness. I’m sure she’ll recognize that it’s the thought that counts, but do you, in your professional opinion, think they may still have a little something left? I bought them from the winery in Rutherford and have stored them appropriately.”—Scotty V. (Papillion NE)

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!!!

Share

“Hello Karen, If a person is allergic to fish, will drinking a wine that was filtered using fish bladders cause a reaction?”—Sue C. (Baxter, MN)

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.

Share

“Your piece on the very old vines in Australia [WineSpeed: August 7, 2020] made me wonder about how “old vines” are defined. I am curious if the vines on the island of Santorini in Greece, which have very old roots, count as old vines?”—Eleni Papadakis (Portland, OR)

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.

Share

“Hello Karen, what are the best wines to pair with oysters.”—William S. (London, England)

Hi William: I have three votes: Champagne, Chablis, and white Bordeaux. In the case of Champagne and Chablis, many of the best the vineyards contain copious amounts of limestone. Limestone itself is formed in part from the fossils of marine skeletons; and thus, the wines that come from vines grown in limestone soils often have a minerally, oceanic tang that is exquisite as a counterpoint to oysters. I also love brisk, complex white Bordeaux. Oysters are harvested off the Atlantic coast just west of Bordeaux and so for centuries, the combination of white Bordeaux and oysters has been a classic in the brasseries and bistros of Paris.

Share

“Dear Karen: What’s your opinion of wines bottled with screw caps vs corks?” Terry S. (Alexandria, VA)

Hi Terry: While the thwock of a cork being removed from a bottle is one of the best sounds I know, the fact is that wrestling with a cork isn’t very much fun. Some might say it’s a small price to pay for tradition, and I get that. But removing a cork requires considerable pulling force, and not everyone has the bicep power to make it easy. Screw caps on the other hand are effortless for everybody, which is why I like them. Yeah, they don’t look as prestigious, but at this point there is no question that screw caps seal wine perfectly well. In fact, sometimes too perfectly. My one worry with screw cap closures is reduction—that is, an initial skunky smell to the wine in the bottle because it’s lacked exposure to a small amount of oxygen. I’m finding this with a lot of screw-capped rosé wines coming on the market right now. That said, not all screw caps are of the same quality, and the better ones do allow for a miniscule amount of oxygen to avoid reduction. (If you do get a “reduced” wine, decant it or swirl it vigorously in the glass and let it sit for a few minutes. Sometimes the off-aroma will go away). Lastly, the original impetus for screw caps came as a result of the high percentage of “corked” wines, (wines ruined by TCA—trichloroanisole, a non-toxic chemical biproduct of sanitizing natural cork with chlorine). In the 1980s, 8 to 10 percent of wines were corked. Today, the percentage of TCA-affected wine is vastly lower—about 1%.

Share

“Hi Karen, Do the bubbles in Champagne have any impact on the flavor of the wine, or are they just textural?”—Michael M. (New York, NY)

Michael, great question. The bubbles (all one million of them in every glass) certainly give Champagne an extra dimension of texture and make it super lively on the palate. But bubbles also contribute to the overall flavor by magnifying a Champagne wine’s aroma. (Flavor is the unified perception of smell and taste). As bubbles form and rise to the surface of the liquid, tiny droplets of wine are released into the air, projecting the wine’s aroma to your nose. Even when the wine is on your palate, the bubbles help project its aromas to your retronasal passages, thereby amplifying the wine’s smell, and hence its flavor.

Share

“Just to say how much I enjoy WineSpeed—thank you—and to ask you if and how you prepare your palate prior to tasting wine.”  —Douglas R. (Wimbledon, England)

Douglas, your question prompted me to think about what I actually do, and I realize I do three things:

  1. I make sure I haven’t eaten anything that would compromise my palate. Was there garlic in the pasta at lunch? Or onions on the hamburger? Some foods can alter your palate for hours after you eat them. (See Karen’s Risky Relationships blog above on the 8 killer foods to avoid.)
  2. I think about what I’m about to taste and think about everything I know about that subject. Then I ask myself what should I expect to find in the wines I’m about to taste. I don’t go into a tasting of rieslings with the same expectations as I do a tasting of Argentine malbecs. Or a tasting of Burgundies with the same expectations as for Oregon, or even California, pinot noirs.
  3. I prepare myself to concentrate. I imagine this is a bit like an athlete in the minutes before they start a race, or walk onto a tennis court, or walk out onto a soccer field.

After those three things are done, I dive in!

Share

“Hi, Karen. I’ve read that wine that is shipped should “rest” for a month to settle down, even if it is ready to drink. My limited experimentation with California Pinot Noir suggests that wine is indeed better when rested, but after two months. Am I imagining things, or is there truth to this rule of thumb?” –Victor N. (San Francisco, CA)

Hi Victor:  Great question. Especially since, these days, we’re all inclined to grab a corkscrew the minute wine arrives on our doorsteps. The helpfulness of “resting” depends on two things. 1) Was the wine just recently bottled? After being bottled, wines often go into a kind of “dumb stage” where they taste very muted. A wine that’s just been shipped only adds to the chances that the wine’s flavors are shut down. Most wineries post a “bottled on” date on the tech sheet for the wine and you can find that on the winery’s website. 2) What type of wine is it? You mention pinot noir, and pinot is known to be temperamental. Of all wines, I’d worry about pinot noir, sangiovese, nebbiolo and grenache the most. I don’t have any scientific evidence to support this by the way. Just experience. Lastly, just how long should you let a wine rest if you think it will benefit from resting? Two months (as you mention) is too much delayed gratification for me. I’ve heard many winemakers mention two weeks. That seems like a safe bet. Happy tasting!  –Karen