What Your Parents Never Told You About Wine?

What Your Parents Never Told You About Wine?

Wine is potable alcoholic beverage obtained from the fermented juice of fresh grapes . Wine is made from grapes generally, vitis vinifera. It is fermented without adding sugar, acid, enzymes. The yeast consumes sugar in grapes and converts it to carbon dioxide and ethanol. Wine making is very traditional art. Vitis vinifera is the grape species suitable for making wine. Only small area of world is suitable for wine producing as two climatic conditions are required for best grapes production ;- cool and moderate winter and enough sun to ripen the grape.world class wines are produced by France , Soviet republic, Spain, Australia.

The climate, nature of soil , yeast used , ageing , storage temperature , skill of wine maker and Method of wine making directly affects quality of wine. Similarly, the size of wine also affects as smaller the size of grape , the more concentrated will be it's flavour. Also skin colour gives wine red and rose colour.

WINE PRODUCTION PROCESS

Wine making is an art and the process of making wine can be Summarized in six distinct process and steps :

1. Harvesting

2. Crushing

3. Fermentation

4. Clarification

5. Aging

6. Bottling

The first step in wine making is Harvesting. It is the grape size, skin , colour and acid which makes wine delicious. The sweetness and Acidity of grapes should be balanced. Harvesting can be done by either hand or machine but hand is preferred. After harvesting , the grapes are taken to winery and sorted. All rotten grapes and under- ripe grape are removed.

After Harvesting and sorting , the next step is crushing. The grapes are crushed to extract juice from them. Traditionally, crushing was done with feet but this is changed today. Modern winery used mechanical presserures which crush the grape and make must. Must constitute of seed , solids and skin of grapes. Now in this process one Important activity is done which is if we are making white wine the seed, skin and solids are separated quickly and if we are making Red wine the skin, seed ,solids are keep for long period of time for additional flavour.

After crushing , the next step is fermentation. In fermentation , yeast is added which converts sugar into alcohol . Fermentation starts after 6 to 12 hour of adding yeast. It takes a week or month for total/complete fermentation. Now this is the step which determines dry or sweet wine we are making . If we are making dry wine we continue fermentation till all sugar is converted into alcohol and if we are making sweet wine the fermentation is stopped in between to prevent entire sugar converting to alcohol.

After fermentation ,the next step is clarification . We have to remove dead yeast and tannins for which we use filters or fining process. Some wine maker adds clay also. The unwanted particle will get sticked to wine which will be removed during storage from bottom of tank.

Now our wine is cleared , We can instantly bottled or we can age the wine. For aging we use oak barrels or stainless steel tank. Oak barrels is preferred much as it gives smooth and vanilla flavor to wine along with good colour and flavour. White wines are stored in stainless steel tank.

Similarly, charcoal also can be used to filter/clarify wine and sulphur dioxide is added mostly to all wine to destroy unwanted bacteria and control oxidation.

CLASSIFICATION OF WINE :

1. Table wine

2. Sparkling wine

3. Fortified wine

4. Aromatized wine

Table wine :- They are also called still wines and they don't have carbon dioxide in them with alcoholic strength ranging between 9 % - 15 % by volume. Table wine can be dry or sweet and available in various types like Red wine , white wine and Rose wine. The key difference among them is red wine is made with black grapes and colour red comes from skin of grape. White wine is made from white (green) grapes. Rose wine is light red or pink in colour . Though black grapes is used ,the fermentation process is shorter than red wine to make rose wine.

Sparkling wine :- sparkling wines have carbon dioxide which is either naturally produced while fermenting or injected during bottling. The sparkle is from carbon dioxide and alcohol volume range from 9% to 14 % . Champagne is perfect example of sparkling wine.

Fortified wine :- It is a type of wine in which brandy is added. They are simply wine with spirit added to it. The alcoholic volume usually ranges from 15% to 21% . Fortified wine are usually two types, Dry fortified wine and sweet fortified wine and the most popular of them are: sherry , port and Madeira. Sherry is Spanish while Port is Portuguese. Port has higher alcohol by volume than sherry while Madeira is Portuguese made frotified wine in Madeira islands.

Aromatized wine :- They are flavoured wine with addition of herbs, spices, barks, honey, fruits and flower. The wine are prepared after fortification with brandy and again is blended for style . The alcohol volume ranges from 9% to 17 % . They are mainly used in making cocktails in Bar . One famous Aromatized wine are vermouth . Vermouth is is made from different herbs and available in four colour; red , white , gold and pale.

(Note : Whike making vermouth , herbs like cinnamon, cloves, oregano , juniper and more are used)

Varieties of grapes for wine making

For red wine :-

Shiraz - Australia

Pinot Noir - France , Australia

Meunier - France

Merlot - France

Gamay - France

Barbera - Italy

Cabernet sauvugnon - France

Grenache - Spain , France

For White wine :-

Muller - Germany

Cabernet - France

Semillon - France , Australia

Pinot Blanc - France

Colombard - France

Chardonnay - France

Riesling - Germany

Saint Emillon - France

Muscadet - France

Storage of wine

There are various rules to be followed while storing wine which are :-

Do not shake wine bottles before opening

If a bottle of wine is opened and cannot be finished in one sitting, refrigerate it as soon as possible after closing bottle or the air will start reacting with wine.