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Written expressly for beginning and advanced amateurs, this guide explores home winemaking in practical terms, focusing on the latest fermentation techniques of both red and white wine grapes. Detailed information on equipment, supplies, and mistakes to avoid will make getting started easy. Advanced winemakers will appreciate full explanations of sophisticated topics such as malolactic fermentation, extended maceration sparkling wines, and chemical testing. Also included in the new edition is information on the use of oak barrels. Unlike other winemaking manuals, this is devoted entirely to wine made with grapes instead of fruit wines.
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Uses of wine
Wine is a popular and important beverage that accompanies and enhances a wide range of European and Mediterranean-style cuisines, from the simple and traditional to the most sophisticated and complex. Red, white and sparkling wines are the most popular, and are also known as light wines, because they only contain approximately 10-14% alcohol. The apéritif and dessert wines contain 14-20% alcohol, and are fortified to make them richer and sweeter than the light wines. Although there are many classes of dinner wines, they can be categorized under six specific classes as follows:
Apéritif (or better known as "appetizer wines"): include dry sherry, Madeira, Vermouth, and other flavored wines, made to be consumed before eating a meal.
Red dinner wines: These wines are usually dry and go extremely well with such main-course dishes as red meats, spaghetti, and highly-seasoned foods. They should be served at a cool room temperature to bring out their aroma. The most popular red dinner wines are claret, Burgundy, Chianti, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Pink dinner wines (also called "rose wines"), a special class of red wines, can be served with almost any dish, but are considered best with cold meats, pork, and curries.
White dinner wines: Usually either very dry or rather sweet, these wines should be served chilled, and go well with white meats, seafood, and fowl. They include Rhine wines, Chablis and wine made from different grape varieties such as Chardonnay and White Riesling.
Sparkling wines: Usually served at any meal with any course, these wines are most frequently served at banquets, formal dinners and weddings. The most common sparkling wines are Champagne (white) and sparkling Burgundy (red). Although often served throughout a meal, sparkling wines do not generally pair well with main meals, and should be served as an apertif or with certain entrees.
Table wine: Table wine is not bubbly, although some have a very slight carbonation, the amount of which is not enough to disqualify them as table wines. According to U.S. standards of identity, table wines may have an alcohol content that is no higher than 14%. In Europe, light wine must be within 8.5% and 14% alcohol by volume. As such, unless a wine has more than 14% alcohol, or it has bubbles, it is a table wine or a light wine. In reality, the rise regions which easily ripen many table-wine grapes, a large portion of new-world Red wines have between 14 and 15.5% alcohol, yet are still certainly 'table wines' in the practical sense.
Dessert wines: Ranging from medium-sweet to sweet, these wines are classified under dessert wines only because they are sometimes served with desserts. Among these are port wine, sweet sherry, Tokay, Sauternes and muscatel.
Cooking wines: Typically containing a significant quantity of salt, cooking wine is wine of such poor quality that it is unpalatable and intended for use only in cooking. (Note, however, that most cooking authorities advise against cooking with any wine one would find unacceptable to drink.)
The labels on certain bottles of wine suggest that they need to be set aside for an hour before drinking (ie. to "breathe"), while other wines are recommended to be drunk as soon as they are opened. 'Breathing' means allowing a wine to aerate before drinking. Generally, younger wines benefit from some aeration, while older wines do not. The word, "younger", refers to the first one third of a wine’s life, which varies from wine type to wine type and from wine to wine. For most white wines, "younger" means up to one to two years, while for red wines, they could mean as little as a few months, for a Beaujolais Nouveau, up to ten years for a hearty Barossa Shiraz. "Older", on the other hand, refers to the last one third of their lives.
During aeration, the exposure of younger wines to air often "relaxes" the flavours and makes them taste slightly smooth and better integrated in aroma, texture, and flavor. Wines that are older generally fade (lose their character and flavor intensity) with extended aeration. Breathing, however, does not benefit all wines, and should not therefore be taken to the extreme. In general, wine should be tasted as soon as it is opened to determine how long it may be aerated, if at all. It should then be tasted every 15 minutes until the wine is, according to individual preference, ready to drink. As a general rule, younger white wines normally require no more than 15-30 minutes of aeration while younger red wines should be no more than 30-60 minutes. If in doubt, it is better to err on the side of too little aeration than too much. Note that 'aerating' a wine involves more than removal of the cork. For aeration to provide any benefit whatsoever, the wine must be decanted.
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How to make wine Home
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Wine making guide
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