Answer: True.
In cold climates, such as the Mosel Valley of Germany, rivers reflect sunlight and heat during the day, warming vines. At night, they slow the cooling process because water retains heat longer than soil or air. The presence of rivers can make viticulture possible in cold climates where it would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible.
Answer: False.
French wine laws are famously restrictive, dictating everything from how the grapes for the wine must be grown to which grape varieties can be grown. But while the regulations may stipulate certain aging requirements, there are none that require French winemakers to use French oak versus, say, American or Hungarian.
Answer: True.
Cava is not an actual place (like Champagne), but rather a type of wine. It is governed by rules set forth by the Cava DO (Denominación de Origen) and can be made in any of eight Spanish wine regions. Even though more than 95 percent of Cava is made in an area southwest of Barcelona in the Penedès, Cava can come from regions hundreds of miles away (like Valencia, Extremadura, and Rioja).
Answer: False.
The production of Château d’Yquem is famously one glass of wine per grapevine. The volume of liquid is tiny compared to higher yield vineyards around the world, which can average anywhere from two to ten 750 ml bottles of wine per vine. Many factors affect yield, such as grape variety, climate, vineyard location, and the condition of the grapes when they are picked. Château d’Yquem, for example, is made from shriveled grapes affected by the “noble rot” of Botrytis cinerea.
Answer: False.
White Malbec is not a grape, but it is a new type of Argentine white wine. It is made from red Malbec grapes, using the direct press method of pressing whole cluster grapes to extract juice, which is drained off the skins immediately. As a result, the wine appears to be white, though the color may vary from white to copper.
Answer: True.
In 1933, the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, which repealed Prohibition, granted states the authority to regulate alcoholic beverages through licensing. The new regulatory system became known as the three-tier system. The system—convoluted and confusing—separates producers, distributors, and retailers. The result is a complex patchwork of rules that individual states enact and enforce. 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.
Answer: False.
Not exactly. While wines called frizzante and wines called spumante both sparkle, they are not the same. Frizzante wines are those that are lightly sparkling (between 1 and 2.5 bars of pressure in the bottle) according to EU regulations. They are also taxed as still wines. Spumante, by contrast, are fully sparkling, with a pressure of at least 3 bars in the bottle. Moscato d’Asti from Piedmont is an example of a frizzante wine. Wines from Piedmont called simply Asti, or Franciacorta wines from Lombardy, are both spumante wines.
Answer: False.
Chardonnay is well established in Champagne today, but it is a relative newcomer. According to On Champagne, by Essi Avellan, MW, the grape arrived around 1850. By comparison, Pinot Noir arrived (from Burgundy) in the 1500s and by 1860 was the most planted grape in the region. Chardonnay’s heyday happened in the 1920s with the creation of blanc de blancs Champagne, the first of which was produced by Maison Salon. While wine drinkers commonly think of the Champagne region as having three varieties—Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay—five others (planted in tiny but growing amounts) are officially authorized for use: Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and the new variety Voltis.
Answer: True.
Grown mostly in the region of Apulia, in southern Italy, Primitivo came to Italy via Croatia, where it’s known as Tribidrag or Crljenak Kaštelanski. In the 1990s, DNA typing at Univerisity of California, Davis revealed that American Zinfandel is identical to Italy’s Primitivo. This discovery allowed Italian producers to legally label their Primitivo wines as Zinfandel, capitalizing on Zinfandel’s popularity. The pendulum later swung in the opposite direction, as some American producers labeled their Zinfandel wines as Primitivo. Meanwhile, the linguistic origin of the name Zinfandel remains a mystery.
Answer: True.
Delicatessen is a hybrid of the grape varieties R.W. Munson and Delicious and is known for its tolerance to heat and drought. Pioneering viticulturist Thomas Volney Munson created Delicatessen in 1902. Munson, who studied wild grapes native to North America, catalogued more than 300 grape varieties. Most importantly, his work helped to save the European wine industry in the 19th century, after phylloxera destroyed more than 6 million acres of vineyards. Vintners grafted European (Vitis vinifera) grape varieties onto Munson’s hybrid rootstocks, which were tolerant of the ravaging insect. Today, viticulturists are reviving Munson’s work and studying heritage grapes for their potential in adapting to climate change. We’re not sure why Munson named one of his hybrids Delicatessen. Personally, I like the ring of “Pastrami on Rye.”
Answer: False.
Natural sunlight is best for analyzing wine color. When natural light is not an option (such as in a wine cave), incandescent lighting with a bulb that simulates natural lighting is much better than fluorescent lighting. Fluorescent light tends to flatten colors and make white wines appear yellower and red wines appear less red.
Answer: True.
As the alcohol level increases in a wine, aromatic fruity compounds are masked. High alcohol effectively disguises one of the main pleasures and attributes of a wine—how it smells.
Answer: False.
Clear glass wine bottles actually cost more (as much as two times more) than those that are green or brownish in color. That’s because the glass needs to be processed more to remove all pigment from the glass (clear bottles therefore also use more energy). In particular, wine bottles used for rosé wines are often quite expensive since consumers want to be able to see the pretty pink color.
Answer: True.
True. Although the history of Chinese in Napa Valley has largely been erased, a significant number of Napa Valley’s vineyard and winery workers in the decades after the Gold Rush (1948—1859) were Chinese immigrants. There were small “Chinatowns” in St. Helena, Calistoga, and in the town of Napa. Chinese workers cleared land, planted vineyards, built wineries, excavated caves by hand, and harvested grapes. By the early 1880s, as the Chinese population in the Napa Valley grew, so did anti-Chinese sentiment. Chinese workers—paid a fraction of what white workers were paid—were accused of taking winery jobs from white workers. In 1882, the federal law known as the Chinese Exclusion Act forbade all Chinese immigration to the U.S. for more than a decade. (An earlier U.S. law—the Paige Act of 1875—banned Chinese women from coming to the U.S., under the rationale that the absence of women would be a deterrent to Chinese men planning to emigrate). By 1900, with racial bias against them at an all-time high, most of the Chinese in Napa Valley had fled. With the exception of old ledgers from a few wineries built in the 1800s, virtually no trace of Chinese history in Napa Valley remains. A new book documenting the role Chinese immigrants played in Napa history—Chinese in Napa Valley: The Forgotten Community that Built Wine Country by John McCormick (The History Press, 2023)—has just been published.
Answer: False.
The term “old vines” or velles vinyes in Catalan, is heavily regulated; vines must be planted before 1945 to legally use the term on the label—a situation that is verified with aerial photographs taken in 1945! The wines’ concentration is a result of painfully low-yielding, head-trained (that is, un-trellised) vines that protrude, gnarled and contorted, from the region’s poor, stony, slate-laced soil called llicorella (“licorice”) because of its blackish color. The vines themselves are so small they have sometimes been referred to as “bonsai vines.” Days here are intensely hot; nights, very cool. In this dry, infertile, unforgiving landscape, few crops other than grapevines and olive trees have ever survived.
Answer: True.
A typical can of hard seltzer contains 12 ounces and has approximately 100 calories. A typical serving of wine is 5 ounces, and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has approximately 120 calories (if it’s white) and 127 calories (if it’s red).
Answer: True.
Answer: According to Statista, in 2021 the U.S. consumed 872 million gallons. France was the second leading consumer of wine worldwide, having downed 665.7 million gallons. The U.S.’s number-one position is of course somewhat misleading…since on a per capita basis, according to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, the U.S. comes in 18th!
Answer: True.
True. Despite the German sounding name, Gewürztraminer is Italian in origin, and is thought to be indigenous to the Alto Adige region of northern Italy. The prefix “gewürz” means spice in German, though the meaning is more along the lines of outrageously perfumed than anything that might come out of a kitchen spice rack. The grape is not actually a distinct variety but rather a pink-berried, highly aromatic clone of Savagnin, one of the ancient so-called “founder varieties.”
Answer: False.
False. A bond is a federal permit to commercially produce and store wine. A bonded winery is a commercial enterprise that produces and stores wine under a bond that guarantees payment to the federal excise tax.
Answer: False.
The first phrase is true, but the second is not. The juice of all grapes, red and white, is almost colorless (with a few rare exceptions). If the juice from red grapes is fermented without the red grape skins, white wine can be made. (One example is a Champagne made from Pinot Noir grapes). But if the skins are white and the juice is necessarily white, a red wine cannot be made.
