Love at first sip
November 6, 2003 | 12:00am
Apop, a splash, a whiff and a dash... of spirit down your throat, that is. That was the start of our a one-week love affair with wine – all sorts of wine at that.
A trip to the Hunter Valley Region of New South Wales in Australia was an eye-opener when it came to the appreciation of wines. We came to that wine region curious and a little apprehensive about what to expect. We saw what it was all about and slowly began to understand the whole process. Thus, we conquered our fears and corrected our misperceptions about this wonderful drink from Elysium.
Wines are a mysterious lot. From what archeologists know about it, grape wine was supposedly made at least 10,000 years ago by the Greeks. We all have heard of how a bunch of ripe grapes were left under the sun which, after a while, fermented into wines (if kids didn’t first find out about it and ate the grapes at its "raisin" stage). Unlike the ones that we love to pop into our mouths during Christmas noche buena and New Year’s Eve, wine grapes are very small, have thick skins, have more juice and flesh, and are peppered with more seeds than the usual. They contain more acids and, thus, the longer the wine keeps.
According to the winemakers at Tyrrell’s, one of Hunter Valley’s oldest vineyards, wine-making today isn’t much different from what they used to do more than a hundred years ago. Except for modern equipment used in extracting and fermenting the wine, the process still follow a standard procedure. In a nutshell, the grapes are harvested and cleaned of stems. These are then placed in a wide vat for the filtration process and mixed with a yeast culture.
"The yeast plus sugar (from the grapes) combination initiates fermentation which converts sugar into alcohol," says Tyrrell’s Murray Flanagan. Heat is generated and this causes the skin to dry out. Carbon dioxide also results from the heating and this causes the skin to rise to the top. Too much heat is bad news as the wine will ferment too quickly, giving you a wine that tastes "bleccchhh!"
Where does the ol’ feet drill come in? Well, that image of people stepping on large mounds of grapes to extract juice is best left in your imagination as most vineyards, except in very small towns in Europe, have given up that practice. These days, the most old-fashioned tool for releasing heat and gases, as well as extracting the wine, is a flat piece of wood.
"We push and break up and we stir the grapes to release extra heat and to extract the fruit, flavor, acid, tannin and most importantly, the color," Flanagan says.
Just remember: red wines come from red, blue and black grapes; white wines are extracted from yellow, green and white grapes. This process, though, must have become boring for some winemakers that they decided to complicate things a bit. So off they go making white wines from black and even red grapes. According to some, the trick is to take out the skin shortly before fermentation and this takes lots of precision.
Again, one must remember that there are about 8,000 varieties of grapes that can be fermented but there are only about 50 varieties that are known to produce great wines. These grapes all belong to the Vitis vinifera species, found in "two broad belts in the north and south of the equator" including France, Germany, Italy, the US, Spain, Algeria, South Africa, Chile, Argentina and Australia.
After extracting the skin, the wine is then placed into oak barrels as the wood allows oxidation to take place and helps give the wine a more distinct color and flavor. Red wines stay in the barrel for up to 18 months and whites, between three and 10 months after which they are placed in bottles to age some more. Experts say it’s a no-no to turn the bottles while being kept as this prevents the sediment from settling. Some would argue that turning the bottle keeps the cork from drying out and preventing oxidation. When air comes into contact with the wine, oxidation occurs and results in your ending up with vinegar. But since the bottle is full anyway, why bother when the liquid is in constant contact with the cork? Good point.
Winemakers have an interesting way of further refining the flavors and color of the wines. They add egg whites to soften the red wines and milk to clean up the color and take away some of the tannin from the white wines. Don’t try this at home, though, unless you want to end up with a curious tasting eggnog.
The fun part actually comes later when the bottles are finally uncorked. Three bottles of semillon, for instance, aged 2003, 1997 and 1993 will give you different colors, aromas and tastes. The 2003 semillon tastes very fresh and zesty, has some bubbles and is quite pale in color. Imagine munching on green apple – that’s a less than a year old semillon. The 1997 semillon, meanwhile, has a deeper yellowish color and a toasty smell. Ironically, semillons (or at least the ones we tried at Tyrrell’s) weren’t kept in oak barrels but instead went straight to stainless steel containers before being bottled. The toasty aroma, we were told, is a character that develops through bottle aging. The 1993 semillon, on the other hand, gave us a very pleasant surprise. Apart from its beautiful deep golden color, it smelled as if it was steeped in vanilla. Creamy and buttery... these were the closest description we could ever think of.
Another white, chardonnay, has flavors more akin to sweet yellow fruits like peach, melon, mangoes while pinot noir reds have more acid than other varieties and taste like strawberries or a combination of other berries. Shiraz, another red, is usually described as peppery, spicy, earthy and even leathery. A cabernet sauvignon is even described as smelling and tasting like chocolate and/or mint. All it takes is a lot of practice and keen observation.
You may be wondering where all these fruity, spicy flavors come from. That’s just what’s so mysterious about grapes for it takes on the flavors and characteristics of different fruits just by undergoing the aging process. An earthy shiraz, for instance, seems to have absorbed the flavors of the soil it was planted in. A chardonnay developed by Rothbury’s Estate, for example, smelled as if a bouquet of honeysuckle flowers were dumped into the barrel during the aging process.
According to Graeme Bashford of the Australian Wine Society, who invited the Hunter Valley Wine Society-Philippines founding members for this "crash course" in wine, people should get confused with terms such as dry, tannin, palate, and so on. A dry wine, for instance, usually consists of 13 percent alcohol and 0 percent sugar while a sweet wine has 11 percent alcohol and 7 percent sugar. Dessert wines, on the other hand, are a different matter. It has 20 percent sugar which is a lot, compared to regular wines.
Australian winemakers, in contrast to the so-called purists, are much more open to combining two or more varieties of grapes and coming up with "newer" wines. Thus, more freedom in experimenting with the flavors, alcohol content, among others, of the wine.
When it comes to food, the general rule is to have white wine with white meat, and reds with red meat. But, according to veteran winemaker Karl Stockhausen, it’s all a matter or personal preference. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to matching wine and food. But there are, of course, guidelines for those who need them. For instance, chardonnay is supposed to be great with seafood and creamy pastas; semillon with oysters, roasted almonds, cold chicken salad; Riesling with Asian dishes, seafood; sauvignon blanc goes well with asparagus, raw vegetables, prawn risotto; shiraz with roast meat dishes with heavy sauces and cheeses; cabernet sauvignon tastes great with roast beef, casserole, and chocolate; merlot with lamb and antipasto; and pinot noir with roasted duck, or any dish with oyster sauce. The best way to clean the palate when drinking different types of wines is by having lots of water, or eating dry bread or apple.
The next time you drink wine, take a moment to admire its color, put your nose near the edge of the glass and try to determine what kind of fruit or plant aroma is there, take a small sip, swirl the liquid around your mouth, swallow and let the flavors come back to you. Believe you me, you’re apt to discover some very fascinating things in the process.
A trip to the Hunter Valley Region of New South Wales in Australia was an eye-opener when it came to the appreciation of wines. We came to that wine region curious and a little apprehensive about what to expect. We saw what it was all about and slowly began to understand the whole process. Thus, we conquered our fears and corrected our misperceptions about this wonderful drink from Elysium.
Wines are a mysterious lot. From what archeologists know about it, grape wine was supposedly made at least 10,000 years ago by the Greeks. We all have heard of how a bunch of ripe grapes were left under the sun which, after a while, fermented into wines (if kids didn’t first find out about it and ate the grapes at its "raisin" stage). Unlike the ones that we love to pop into our mouths during Christmas noche buena and New Year’s Eve, wine grapes are very small, have thick skins, have more juice and flesh, and are peppered with more seeds than the usual. They contain more acids and, thus, the longer the wine keeps.
According to the winemakers at Tyrrell’s, one of Hunter Valley’s oldest vineyards, wine-making today isn’t much different from what they used to do more than a hundred years ago. Except for modern equipment used in extracting and fermenting the wine, the process still follow a standard procedure. In a nutshell, the grapes are harvested and cleaned of stems. These are then placed in a wide vat for the filtration process and mixed with a yeast culture.
"The yeast plus sugar (from the grapes) combination initiates fermentation which converts sugar into alcohol," says Tyrrell’s Murray Flanagan. Heat is generated and this causes the skin to dry out. Carbon dioxide also results from the heating and this causes the skin to rise to the top. Too much heat is bad news as the wine will ferment too quickly, giving you a wine that tastes "bleccchhh!"
Where does the ol’ feet drill come in? Well, that image of people stepping on large mounds of grapes to extract juice is best left in your imagination as most vineyards, except in very small towns in Europe, have given up that practice. These days, the most old-fashioned tool for releasing heat and gases, as well as extracting the wine, is a flat piece of wood.
"We push and break up and we stir the grapes to release extra heat and to extract the fruit, flavor, acid, tannin and most importantly, the color," Flanagan says.
Just remember: red wines come from red, blue and black grapes; white wines are extracted from yellow, green and white grapes. This process, though, must have become boring for some winemakers that they decided to complicate things a bit. So off they go making white wines from black and even red grapes. According to some, the trick is to take out the skin shortly before fermentation and this takes lots of precision.
Again, one must remember that there are about 8,000 varieties of grapes that can be fermented but there are only about 50 varieties that are known to produce great wines. These grapes all belong to the Vitis vinifera species, found in "two broad belts in the north and south of the equator" including France, Germany, Italy, the US, Spain, Algeria, South Africa, Chile, Argentina and Australia.
After extracting the skin, the wine is then placed into oak barrels as the wood allows oxidation to take place and helps give the wine a more distinct color and flavor. Red wines stay in the barrel for up to 18 months and whites, between three and 10 months after which they are placed in bottles to age some more. Experts say it’s a no-no to turn the bottles while being kept as this prevents the sediment from settling. Some would argue that turning the bottle keeps the cork from drying out and preventing oxidation. When air comes into contact with the wine, oxidation occurs and results in your ending up with vinegar. But since the bottle is full anyway, why bother when the liquid is in constant contact with the cork? Good point.
Winemakers have an interesting way of further refining the flavors and color of the wines. They add egg whites to soften the red wines and milk to clean up the color and take away some of the tannin from the white wines. Don’t try this at home, though, unless you want to end up with a curious tasting eggnog.
The fun part actually comes later when the bottles are finally uncorked. Three bottles of semillon, for instance, aged 2003, 1997 and 1993 will give you different colors, aromas and tastes. The 2003 semillon tastes very fresh and zesty, has some bubbles and is quite pale in color. Imagine munching on green apple – that’s a less than a year old semillon. The 1997 semillon, meanwhile, has a deeper yellowish color and a toasty smell. Ironically, semillons (or at least the ones we tried at Tyrrell’s) weren’t kept in oak barrels but instead went straight to stainless steel containers before being bottled. The toasty aroma, we were told, is a character that develops through bottle aging. The 1993 semillon, on the other hand, gave us a very pleasant surprise. Apart from its beautiful deep golden color, it smelled as if it was steeped in vanilla. Creamy and buttery... these were the closest description we could ever think of.
Another white, chardonnay, has flavors more akin to sweet yellow fruits like peach, melon, mangoes while pinot noir reds have more acid than other varieties and taste like strawberries or a combination of other berries. Shiraz, another red, is usually described as peppery, spicy, earthy and even leathery. A cabernet sauvignon is even described as smelling and tasting like chocolate and/or mint. All it takes is a lot of practice and keen observation.
You may be wondering where all these fruity, spicy flavors come from. That’s just what’s so mysterious about grapes for it takes on the flavors and characteristics of different fruits just by undergoing the aging process. An earthy shiraz, for instance, seems to have absorbed the flavors of the soil it was planted in. A chardonnay developed by Rothbury’s Estate, for example, smelled as if a bouquet of honeysuckle flowers were dumped into the barrel during the aging process.
According to Graeme Bashford of the Australian Wine Society, who invited the Hunter Valley Wine Society-Philippines founding members for this "crash course" in wine, people should get confused with terms such as dry, tannin, palate, and so on. A dry wine, for instance, usually consists of 13 percent alcohol and 0 percent sugar while a sweet wine has 11 percent alcohol and 7 percent sugar. Dessert wines, on the other hand, are a different matter. It has 20 percent sugar which is a lot, compared to regular wines.
Australian winemakers, in contrast to the so-called purists, are much more open to combining two or more varieties of grapes and coming up with "newer" wines. Thus, more freedom in experimenting with the flavors, alcohol content, among others, of the wine.
When it comes to food, the general rule is to have white wine with white meat, and reds with red meat. But, according to veteran winemaker Karl Stockhausen, it’s all a matter or personal preference. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to matching wine and food. But there are, of course, guidelines for those who need them. For instance, chardonnay is supposed to be great with seafood and creamy pastas; semillon with oysters, roasted almonds, cold chicken salad; Riesling with Asian dishes, seafood; sauvignon blanc goes well with asparagus, raw vegetables, prawn risotto; shiraz with roast meat dishes with heavy sauces and cheeses; cabernet sauvignon tastes great with roast beef, casserole, and chocolate; merlot with lamb and antipasto; and pinot noir with roasted duck, or any dish with oyster sauce. The best way to clean the palate when drinking different types of wines is by having lots of water, or eating dry bread or apple.
The next time you drink wine, take a moment to admire its color, put your nose near the edge of the glass and try to determine what kind of fruit or plant aroma is there, take a small sip, swirl the liquid around your mouth, swallow and let the flavors come back to you. Believe you me, you’re apt to discover some very fascinating things in the process.
BrandSpace Articles
<
>
