Wine 101
Some basics every sipper should know.
What is Wine?
At its core, wine is nothing more than a fermented juice. Most wine is made from grapes, but it doesn’t have to be.
After being harvested with the sugar content, or Brix measurement, the winemaker desires, the grapes are crushed to release the liquid stored within it’s pulp. The liquid, or juice, is made up of water, sugars and acids. Yeast is typically added to the juice to initiate the fermentation process. The yeast will consume the sugar and alcohol is produced.
If it was only that easy…
Some interesting details of wine making:
Red wine is made with skins to get it’s color
White wine can be made from red grapes
Rose is made by removing the skins when the color is right
Sweet wines are made by stopping fermentation before all sugars have been converted
Ice Wines are made by freezing the grapes to concentrate the sugars
What is champagne?
Technically, Champagne is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, which demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, specific grape-pressing methods and secondary fermentation of the wine in the bottle to cause carbonation.
Sparkling wine that is fermented in the style of champagne but is not from the Champagne region of France is called Methodé Champenoise.
Preseco, and other bubbly wine that we have grown to love is made via mechanical process to manually add CO2 and create bubbles.
Vintage
The term “vintage” is one of the most common terms in wine. In short, the word refers to the year in which the grapes for a particular wine were harvested.
It sounds straightforward, but the vintage is actually one of the most consequential aspects of the winemaking process. A given year’s weather patterns—the amount of rain a region received, the range of temperatures, not to mention hail, frost or wildfires, for example—can greatly affect the quality and quantity of wine made from that harvest.
Most still wines come from a single vintage, meaning the wine inside the bottle was made using fruit harvested in that given year. In some cases, still wines might be made using a blend of different vintages, and these tend to be mass-produced or branded wines.
Conversely to still wines, most fortified and sparkling wines tend to be a blend of wines from different years’ harvests. This is called non-vintage. For these particular styles of wine, the aim is to create a consistent house style, particularly important in Champagne.
Unlike beer or whisky production, where multiple batches can be made at any time throughout the year, a winemaker has only one harvest and thus one opportunity to make their wine, and their living, for that year.
