[QUOTE=Christopher]
In general, how are Missouri wines different from California wines? It seems they don’t use the same grapes. Instead of Chardonay, they have Chardonel.
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I think I’ve only had 2 Missouri wines, both Chambourcin. As for the tastes, I personally couldn’t tell you the difference, but I see what you are getting at by naming the different varietals Chardonnay and Chardonel, so I’ll try to answer that.
In many parts of the Eastern US, French American Hybrids are planted instead of classic EU varietals, mostly for their cold weather hardiness and pest resistance.
Chardonnay is a classic EU varietal; it is a vitis vinifera cultivar. Vitis vinifera is susceptible to phylloxera (a root louse) and so in most parts of the world vinifera vines are grafted onto rootstocks that are native to North America (vitis rotundifolia, v. labrusca, there are several) in order to protect them.
Grafting is very different than hybrids.
Before grafting became the acceptable method of growing grapes for wine while protecting them from phylloxera, many people experimented with genetic crosses, or hybrids. French Hybrids were not popular in France, and I believe have since been banned, but they became popular in the Eastern US.
Chardonel is a genetic cross between Chardonnay and a hybrid varietel known as Seyval, which itself is a hybrid of Seibel grapes, which are hybrids nameed for the viticulturist Albert Seibel.
I have to say, all of these questions are great and my mind is definitely all over the place. Sorry if I don’t get to these in order! I’m kind of striking while the iron is hot I guess.
[QUOTE=Jinx]
Why does wine just come from grapes? What about other fruits, or would that be too sweet for true wine snobs? (And, why are wines as dry as the snobs themselves? What’s wrong with fruity?) - Jinx
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I think it’s a matter of definition, basically. Wine is the alcoholic beverage made by fermenting grapes. Other fruit “wines” are called apple wine or blackberry wine or whatever wine.
Sort of like milk = cow’s milk, but you can still get “goat’s milk”. If your store sold you “milk” and it turned out to be goat’s milk, you’d be pretty surprised, right?
[QUOTE=Nava]
One of my classmates, lucky her, got to do her “bachelor’s thesis” working for one of the biggest cavas in Spain. Her research involved the usage of additives to aid in “clearing” the wine.
Is there a way to tell which wines have been brewed really traditionally (i.e., no additives that hadn’t been invented before 1800) and which have modern additives? I’m asking both from a consumer’s point of view (how much can labels be trusted) and from a chemist’s.
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For the chemist’s point of view, I could not say if there was a way to determine which fining agents were used to create a particular wine. My quasi-educated guess would be maybe? or possibly even no.
Fining agents are kind of a hot topic in the industry right now, as the government is considering warning labels for alcoholic beverages that state something like ‘This wine contains known allergens.’ Which is absolutely false and misleading information. If the industry were to move to allergen warning labels, I personally believe the statement ‘processed with’ would be better, but even then, just like with the sulfite warning, I can imagine a backlash on the part of the unaware or undereducated wine consumer.
Fining agents are added to wines during production, where they bind with excess proteins. But they are not soluble and so are settled out and filtered out of a finished wine. No residual fining agent is left behind.
The most popular fining agents I know of today are:
Bentonite - a type of clay, which according to this site was named in the 19th century in Wyoming. But, it’s clay, so I don’t know if you’d consider that a pre-1800 ingredient or not. I imagine they did have clay back then though.
Gelatin
Isinglass - made from the air bladders of fish
Casein (milk protein)
Egg Whites
Charcoal
All pre 1800 agents I’d say.
The only one I’d think to be new is PVPP, or polyvinylpolypyrrolidone, which is basically a powderized plastic.
[QUOTE=The Cocky Watchman] psycat90 - I need help with white wine, I’m enthusiastic red drinker, but just can’t take white seriously. I can’t get past the fact that it is the defacto beverage of choice for the British female pub goer. Its my wife’s favourite drink (of course), and while I oftentimes nearly get to the point where I can say Ok, lets share a white over dinner, I’ve never made it.
We went to a few vineyards in Alsace - famous for white wine AFAIK - and the Rieslings, pinot gris etc still didn’t win me over. So, any suggestions for a un-missable, probably very dry, white that will help an un-reconstructed red drinker see the light would be most welcome
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I like John Mace’s answer here as well. NZ Sauv Blancs are great. My husband can’t stand white wine for the most part, he doesn’t like the smell of just about every white I open, with very few exceptions.
The one that he has liked more than any other is white Vinho Verde from Portugal.
I don’t have any specific brands to suggest, but I rarely spend more than $15 for a bottle of Vinho Verde and he’s liked them all. It’s a nice, clean, dry wine, with a hint of sparkle or spritz that livens it up. Maybe give one of those a try?
[QUOTE=psycat90]
The most popular fining agents I know of today are:
Bentonite - a type of clay, which according to this site was named in the 19th century in Wyoming. But, it’s clay, so I don’t know if you’d consider that a pre-1800 ingredient or not. I imagine they did have clay back then though.
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Interesting. I know of bentonite through work (an engineering firm), mostly through geotechnical applications. It swells on contact with water, so it is used to prevent water migration - say, along pipelines, or through dams.
How about Irish Moss? I used that when I used to brew beer.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
I think it’s a matter of definition, basically. Wine is the alcoholic beverage made by fermenting grapes. Other fruit “wines” are called apple wine or blackberry wine or whatever wine.
Sort of like milk = cow’s milk, but you can still get “goat’s milk”. If your store sold you “milk” and it turned out to be goat’s milk, you’d be pretty surprised, right?
[/QUOTE]
It is a matter of definition. But more along the why has that decome the standard definition, or why are grapes the perfect fruit for fermentation:
Grapes have a high concentration of fermentable sugar, a high nitrogen content, and the high acid levels and tannins that help prevent spoilage.
When making wine from other fruits, it is often necessary to add sugar, water, acid, or other ingredients to get a stable wine. With grapes, you really just need the fruit and the yeast (which is also found naturally on the grape itself.)
So, basically, it’s the perfect fermantable fruit.
Wines are dry because the sugars in the grape are converted into alcohol (yay!) Sometimes some residual sugar (RS) is left in a wine, so not all are dry, and there is nothing wrong with them. Nothing wrong with fruity either. There are some wines that, while fermented nearly bone dry, have such fruity aromas they seem to me to have more RS than they actually do. In other words, fruity doesn’t always equal RS or ‘sweet.’
Tapiotar - I don’t really know of any elderberry wine out there. I did see lots of blueberry wine in NJ.
AS far as the data on antioxidants, I’ll have to research and get back to you.
[QUOTE=Plynck]
Australia seems to be slowly heading toward screw tops for all wines. Is that a sign of things to come in this country? In other countries?
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I think it is. And it’s another hot topic. Right now the cork industry is playing the ‘green’ card to keep a stronghold as numero uno closure. And cork has proven it’s a great closure for wine, so I don’t see it going away anytime soon, but it does have a significant fault, and that’s TCA taint.
Screw caps all but eliminate TCA, and eliminate the need for a tool to open the bottle. A common misconception is that they are a cheaper package which really isn’t always true. Often times the glass (threaded) is more expensive than conventional glass, making any savings on a screw cap vs. natural cork minimal. The machinery required to run screw caps is also different, and a winery making the switch has a significant up front expense that it has to recover from over time.
There is just so much that goes into this question. It’s something I am still in the process of learning, but I can say with all honesty, that the more I learn about the production of wine, the more comfortable I feel making purchases of say over $40 a bottle for everyday drinking wines. I feel perfectly comfortable making $2.00 purchases as well, and enjoy them sometimes as much or more. I guess I’m just saying I can see the value in pricier bottles having a better understanding of the process required to achieve certain wines.
For the cult wines and top crus, and older vintages, it is absolutely a matter of supply and demand that drives those $1000/bottle prices. If I had the funds, I’d consider an older vintage, but I just don’t see the need to pay $1000 for a bottle of wine that I’ll then need to store for 10 years.
But supply and demand factors into your everyday wines as well. The price of grapes will affect the price of the bottle of wine they go into, and right now Pinot Noir grapes are enjoying high prices per ton, while Merlot is suffering a bit.
Other factors:
Vineyard practices - Machine or hand harvest? Availability of labor? A well known growing region? A difficult location to work with (hillside, etc.) Pest and disease management systems or lack thereof, and lots of other things to consider.
Winery practices - Oak barrels? French? American? Hungarian? How many new, how many used? Storage for barrels, etc. Oak chips? No oak? And again, lots of other stuff in this category. Equipment used, etc.
General overhead costs - The longer a wine is stored in a facility, the more you need to factor into the final cost.
Packaging - All over the place. You can spend a nickel on a cork or you can spend 3 dollars on a cork. Some glass might cost $3.00 a case, some might cost $25.00 a case. Simple label? Fancy label? Contents case corrugated? Branded wooden box? You get the idea.
There is at least one German red wine with some popularity. Spätburgunder, which is a synonym for Pinot Noir. If I had to guess as to why, I’d say the climate is just better suited to the white varietals they are known for. But, I’ll see if I can find a more historically accurate answer. But it’ll have to wait until after class.
[QUOTE=psycat90]
It is a matter of definition. But more along the why has that decome the standard definition, or why are grapes the perfect fruit for fermentation:
Grapes have a high concentration of fermentable sugar, a high nitrogen content, and the high acid levels and tannins that help prevent spoilage.
[/QUOTE]
Do you know if that was the situation for the ancestral grapes or have we just selectively bred them to have those characteristics over the last 7,000 years or so since we’ve been making wine? I have to wonder if you took wild grapes, whether you’d have a fruit that was significantly better than everything else out there to work with.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Do you know if that was the situation for the ancestral grapes or have we just selectively bred them to have those characteristics over the last 7,000 years or so since we’ve been making wine? I have to wonder if you took wild grapes, whether you’d have a fruit that was significantly better than everything else out there to work with.
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Well, not an historian of course, but everything I’ve read and been taught so far points to “Yes” being the answer.
Just skimmed through a few chapters of Ancient Wine and it seems to support that.
But obviously grapes have since been bred for specific characteristics.
[QUOTE=bibliophage]
Could I reasonably expect to grow Phylloxera-resistant grapes in southern Maine that don’t have the nasty labrusca foxiness? If so, which varieties would be suitable?
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I’ve never been to Maine, but, I do believe it’s cold in winter, not sure what it’s like in summer. I’m guessing hot and humid?
The phylloxera resistance part is easy, just use rootstock, which most vineyards do nowadays anyway. The trickier part is finding a vinifera grape that will grow well in the particular climate and not be susceptible to rot, diseases, frost, etc. As you probably know, it’s those French American Hybrids and Native American species that give that ‘foxiness’ to wines made from them.
It’s kind of an exciting time in the US for viticulture, because I think we are really only just now beginning to fine tune what vinifera grape varietals grow well in certain areas.
Not expert advice, and there is so much more to consider for specific areas, but as a wild guess, I’d think Pinot Noir and Chardonnay could do well in the area, especially if grown to produce sparkling wines. Riesling might fair pretty well too. These 3 are pretty cold hardy along with being more resistant to rot in humid weather.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
If you don’t like white wine, then there’s not much to be done. And it seems you have some psychological barrier as well-- like a lot of guys won’t order a chocolate martini or a cosmopolitan. If that’s the case, then why bother?
But the fact is, there are certain foods that just don’t pair well with red wines-- especially spicy foods (Mexican, Asian, whatever). Order yourself up some spicy Thai food, and I dare you to find a good red wine that goes well with it. OTOH, a good Riesling, or a Sauvignon Blanc, will pair very nicely as the extra residual sugar will cut through and stand up to the spiciness. Almost any SB you get from the Marlborough region of New Zealand is going to be good (Monkey Bay, Nobilo, Kim Crawford*, to name a few I usually keep around).
If you want to stick with the strictly dry Chardonnays, then try something from Monterey in CA-- I like the J. Lohr Riverstone. Drink it on a hot summer day, where a powerful red might not quite fit the bill.
*I think that was psycat’s pick for the SDMB wine club several weeks ago.
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Thanks John Mace and psycat for the white recommendations - most indian restaurants near me are byob so I’ll give the SB a whirl with a spicy dish.
[QUOTE=psycat90]
Wine snobbery as a socially acceptable way of getting drunk.
That is actually something I’ve never even considered, but I suppose it is not beyond the scope of some people. I don’t know really.
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I ask because I was just on a wine tour and it was just strange. It was like a bunch of college frat kids in the bodies of 50 year old women. Each loved complaining about the quality of the wine but everyone seemed to have no qualms about exhausting their entire allotment at each winery we visited. That’s when I got to wondering, “Are these people here to enjoy wine or are they here to DRINK?” It was strange.
[QUOTE=ouryL]
Is an Enologist the same as an Oenologist/Œnologist?
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[QUOTE=psycat90]
Yes. It is the American English spelling. Same thing.
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Thank goodness. After posting I had second thoughts about whether we should be discussing the production values of “The Joshua Tree” and The Talking Heads.
[QUOTE=Cyberhwk]
Each loved complaining about the quality of the wine but everyone seemed to have no qualms about exhausting their entire allotment at each winery we visited.
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Like that joke referenced in Annie Hall:
First woman: Oh, the food here is terrible.
Second Woman: Yes, and the portions are so small.
With respect to your original comment about wine and social acceptance, my own thoughts: I have found that I like character in my alcoholic consumption. Quality over quantity. And a crafted beer is more “filling” than a lite beer, so I will stop after one or two while others are still pounding down lite beers. I prefer the taste of a distilled liquor neat (or at best with water) to a cocktail, so again it is easy to stop after one or two.
With wine on the other hand - I find that the better the wine, the more likely I am to pour another and yet another glass. And sometimes even if it ain’t so good. Maybe not exactly the same as your fellow tourers, but I do think that it is easy to fall into the mindset of wanting more. And better. It’s funny, I’ve never been the sort of person to get home planning on a drink, but over the last year or two I have included wine as an integral part of my meal planning for the week. A lot of alcoholic beverages have their own snobs (craft beers, scotch, etc.), but wine has the perceived characteristic (mostly true in my mind) of being one of the staples (or at least joys) of everyday life.
ETA: Thanks, psycat90 for answering these questions.
[QUOTE=bibliophage]
Could I reasonably expect to grow Phylloxera-resistant grapes in southern Maine that don’t have the nasty labrusca foxiness? If so, which varieties would be suitable?
[/QUOTE]
Another question: since the nastiness of foxiness is an [incorrect] opinion, is it possible to make a labrusca wine that doesn’t taste like cough syrup, while still retaining some of the sweetness and flavor of the grape? If so, could you point one out (or anyone reading this thread)?
[QUOTE=Jinx]
Why does wine just come from grapes? What about other fruits, or would that be too sweet for true wine snobs? (And, why are wines as dry as the snobs themselves? What’s wrong with fruity?) - Jinx
[/QUOTE]
Only wine made from grapes has any complexity. Blackberry wine tastes like blackberries, strawberry wine tastes like strawberries, but grape wine has a multitude of flavors.
I want to know if there’s a guide that cross references similar wines. I want something that will tell me that California variety X is similar to Chilean Y or Italian Z
