Les Climats of Burgundy Map

A fantastic tool to verify that your local retailer is telling you the truth when they say the bourgogne they sold you sits on the fence post of Montrachet.

Amarone has been "made" a DOCG

Amarone, Italy's newest DOCG!

It's like being let into THE FAMILY. Is it necessary? I personally know plenty of people who are willing to pay for Amarone without the pink neck tie around the bottle.

Is there anything noble about a process? I'd say yes in the case of Vin Santo, Recioto, Madiera, Tokay, and endless other wines but I worry about a region being elevated while the production has increased 650% in the last decade.

Amarone, with all due respect, it just seems a little funny.

The Best Wine Rating System of all Time!!!

FLYING SQUIRREL HEART!!! Best wine rating system ever or Best wine rating system currently in use? You decide!



Hardy all I can say is well done sir!

2009 Nebbiolo Harvest in Barolo at La Serra

This video was posted on the berry brother's piedmonte blog which is really well done and worth your time.

Recent encounters with amazing old Borgogno Barolo have left me haunted!

Neal Rosenthal on his book

Reflections of a Wine Merchant

The Current State of Champagne

Alice Feiring's focused beam of truth has locked on the "economic crisis" currently effecting champagne. I don't know about you but the next time I'm in NYC I'm getting a burger and a $60 bottle of Krug.

Grafting vines in Montalcino, Italy

This video was made and first published by The Montalcino Report.

Gamay is the new Black

GAMAY IS THE NEW BLACK

I'm not sayin' you heard it here first but everybody is talking about Gamay! Gamay has always been a grape that hasn't been treated seriously. Crush it, ferment it as quickly as possible, and pour out just as fast was the model. That alter ego of Gamay is fading with time and a completely more earnest style is replacing it. Pay attention, the new gamay is worth it. Just ask the French government. Decanter magazine recently reported the French government has decided to develope a new program to study the terrior of Beaujolais and reclassify based on potential quality.

Two worthy New York Times articles that answer long asked questions

Does the size of the ice you use and how you shake your cocktail matter? "Dilution has become a dirty word."




What is the Traditional Oregon Pinot Noir style really?

Do you agree? I do with the former and not completely with the latter. Never the less these are worth your time.

The Renaissance of Tokay

The Renaissance of Tokaji from Wilson Daniels on Vimeo.

a video produced by wilson daniels

Nerds know things you don't: Cornell Wine Studies

I read Cornell's studies because they're brilliant. This is the kind of reading that's worth printing out and sitting down with to really take your time disgesting.

You can get a free membership to Cornell's hospitality school website here.

Wine List Character Associated with Greater Wine Sales

Managing a Wine Cellar Using a Spreadsheet

Map of France's A.O.P. Wine Regions

Oak Wine Barrel Diagram

The Anatomy of a Grape

The Anatomy of a Grape

Pinot Noir Winemaking 101 decision Chart from Oregon Pinot Camp

A few wine terms worth knowing

Saignée
Saignée (the French word for the medieval medical process of bleeding) is used when a winemaker desires to impart more tannin and color to a red wine. The process involves the removal of some almost-colorless juice from the must in the fermenter at a very early stage – it is also known as “bleeding” the fermenter. The red wine is intensified as a result of the bleeding because the volume of juice in the must is reduced relative to the surface area of remaining grape skins. And in some senses, the must involved in the maceration is concentrated. (Typically, the removed juice is fermented separately, producing a rosé wine as a byproduct.)

Destemmers
The winemaker may choose to have some or all of the clusters go through a destemmer that removes the individual berries from the stem. Those clusters go into a destemmer or destemmer-crusher. This is simply a device that tumbles the entire clusters inside a perforated drum, allowing the berries to fall through the perforations and the stems to exit separately out the other end into a bin for disposal. In some machines, the berries then pass between two long, soft rotating cylinders with a variable slot that serves to “pop” varying percentages of the berries before exiting the bottom. Gentleness, capacity, and ease of cleaning are the primary differences in these machines. Some winemakers choose to use a percentage of un-destemmed whole clusters in their fermentation. This is achieved by bypassing the destemmer and simply dumping the chosen amount of clusters directly into the fermenter.

SO2
SO2 is added to almost every must and wine and is one of the most basic and important quality control measures available to the winemaker. SO2 acts as both an oxidase enzyme inhibitor and as a microbial growth inhibitor. SO2 is added to the must early (within minutes or hours) to prevent browning and to inhibit native flora. If the native bacteria and yeast grow out of control, the result can lead to higher volatile acidity (VA), off flavors and aromas, and possibly fermentations that stop with sugar still in the wine (stuck fermentation).

The impact of SO2 additions is strongly affected by the pH of the must. If tartaric acid additions have been made, the acidity and pH will change, affecting the activity of the SO2. Almost all of the SO2 added to the must will be bound up during the fermentation and eliminated at pressing. It is almost always added again at the end of malolactic fermentation to protect the young wine from oxidation during the aging process.

Yeast and Yeast nutrients
Once a suitable environment has been created in the fermenter, yeast can be added to start active fermentation, or yeast will not be added at all if the winemaker has decided to let the ferment go native. There are many types of commercial yeast available to winemakers, all with their own special characteristics, from aromatic enhancement to high alcohol tolerance. The timing and quantity of yeast additions affects how quickly the fermentation starts and how rapidly it progresses.

Yeasts require a wide variety of nutrients to grow and perform their job of converting sugar to alcohol. Acid, high temperatures, and alcohol stress the yeast and can lead to off aromas and yeast death. Grape musts can vary dramatically in the level of these nutrients and are often deficient in one or more essential elements. An analysis can be done to determine whether and by how much the must is deficient in the major nutrients required for yeast to grow and complete fermentation. Once fermentation begins, the required amounts of nutrients can be added to the must. This practice ensures healthy fermentations that go to dryness and produce low amounts of off aromas such as sulfides.

Roto-fermenters are horizontal, closed tanks that can be rotated to mix the cap with the must in a pre-programmed manner. They require minimal attention and are easy to empty, but are very expensive to purchase and can lead to over-extraction.

Pigeage (literally “by foot”). In a shallow tank this involves walking on the fermenting must to mix the cap. In larger tanks, it involves immersing most of your body in the wine and mixing in any way possible as you swim or crawl around. A very low-tech approach, it is the most personal cap management tool.

Fining and Filtration
Fining and filtration are tools for clarification and for tannin and flavor modification of wine. Wines can have a high volume of suspended solids that will not clarify by settling and need to be removed prior to bottling. Some wines have bitter and unpleasant tannins or other negative flavor compounds that need to be removed or modified. The decision to fine or filter a wine depends on the specific problem that needs to be addressed. The choice of what to do is often based on small experiments called bench trials. The winemaker takes small samples of wine and adds various fining agents or combinations of fining agents to determine their effectiveness in solving the problem. That information is then used to treat the entire lot. The most common fining agents are egg whites, gelatin, milk and whey, and isinglass (protein from the air bladder of a sturgeon). These are often effective in extremely small doses, measured in ounces per one thousand gallons.

Bitterness is one of the more common problems addressed by adding fining agents. As wines age and develop, tannin molecules connect into chains of varying lengths. Some of these are perceived as bitter or astringent and can be removed by adding specific proteins to the wine. Unfortunately, there is no laboratory test to analyze exactly what tannins are causing the problems or what treatments are most effective in their removal. Luckily there are a wide variety of fining agents and the best treatment can be determined by bench trials using specific agents at varying doses. Although effective in removing undesired tannins, fining a wine always removes some positive flavor components. The goal in fermenting, pressing and aging is to end up with all of the extracts and flavors that the winemaker wants and nothing extra. That way, nothing will have to be removed. In certain circumstances filtration is necessary. White wines are commonly filtered.

Corked: The movie

Because every once in a while you need to laugh at yourself.



This must see mocumentary was brought to my attention by Burgundia.com

Map of Napa Valley Wineries

A full list of the Napa sub-AVA descriptions from the Napa Vintners Association.

John Cleese: Wine for the Confused

A fantastic video for the wine beginner or anyone who puts more trust in a narrator with an English accent. Click on the top right box on the screen to see a full screen view of this Cleese masterpiece.

Notice the gods in the beginning of the movie? The final man showed is a new world Pinot Noir maker who makes wines that are benchmark examples of what new world pinot can be. I'll give you another hint, he's a man who doesn't mince words when it comes to sharing his opinion on what it takes to make world class wine.

Any clue who he is?

2004 Burgundy Vintage

Here is a piece from the Burgundy report that I find interesting.

I must say that I've notice a more rustic edge to the 04's that seems to be showing itself more and more as the wines age however I've just assumed the wines were showing their age due to the vintage character. As a man of little money and less years of collecting burgundy under my belt this has been something that attracts me to the vintage. On the whole the wines of 2004 are showing more interesting layers right now than any other recent vintage since 2001 for the money.



What recent vintage do you prefer drinking?

Ub40 - Red Red Wine
by djoik

An interview with Hugh Johnson by Decanter Magazine

Find the original post here.



Johnson and Jancis Robinson's Wine Atlas is a must have book for any wine lover.