Читать книгу Wine Tasting Book for Beginners: Ultimate Wine Tasting Guide - Rebecca Inc. Thomas - Страница 6

If you didn’t already know, wine is made by fermenting grapes with yeast. The yeast chemically modifies the sugars in the grapes to become alcohol.

Because of several other chemical properties of grapes, they don’t require any additives for fermentation. So to speak, they naturally ferment. However, all grapes are not equal.

Generally, your output is directly affected by your input (type of grapes). If you want, you can mix several different kinds of grapes to get a unique flavor.

Wine seems to have originated around 6000 BC in Middle Eastern countries in the area of Iran, Georgia, and Israel.

Another thousand years before then, grapes and rice were being mixed together and fermented to create what serves as the ancestor of what we know today as rice wine.

European wine is much younger, only beginning circulation around 4500 BC, though the calculation of that date is heavily susceptible to human error.

Greece was among one of the earliest sites to contain traces of depictions of alcohol, and this may be where the system of crushing grapes was developed. After the discovery of wine, it gained strong footing in spiritual practices.

The ancient Egyptians often incorporated the alcoholic beverage into their ceremonial processions, and it is an integral part of mass for the Roman Catholic Church even today. Despite widespread acclaim, wine has experienced some road bumps during its large history.

At one point, it was even outright forbidden, but that sentiment faded away when distillation opened the door for therapeutic wine uses.

Types of Grapes

As we’ve already discussed, there are numerous “species” of grapes, each giving the wine a particular flavor. The most common variety of grape used in wines is Vitis vinifera. Using this particular grape, there are multiple possible outcomes. They are Chardonnay, Merlot, and Pinot Noir.

You’re most likely to find the Vitis vinifera species growing naturally in the Rhone Valley or Bordeaux, both located in France.

That two wines are of the same vintage are not necessarily the same species. This implies that wines from the same vintage can also be created from a mixture of multiple species of grapes.

This process ends in what is known as hybrid wines. One such example is Concord grape can be bred from a wide array of grape species, as follows: Vitis labrusca, Vitis rupestris, Vitis aestivalis, Vitis riparia, and Vitis rotundiafolia.

They’re primarily grown in North America and are likely the variety you’ll find for sale at the market.

These types of grapes are also what you can expect to find in secondary products such as juices and jellies.

How Wine is Classified

Different regions have different systems for grouping different wines. Based on that sentence alone, there’s a lot of differentiation to be expected! Many of these differences are on account of government regulations meant to both inform and protect consumers.

The European system of classification is region-based; that is, wines imported from other countries are labeled as such.

Most other non-European countries prefer to classify wines based on physical properties. That is, what kinds of grapes went into the production of the wine.

The Merlot and Pinot Noir discussed earlier are two wines that fermented using different grapes.

Although Europe seemed to initially be a minority in terms of the methodology of their wine classification, more and more are we seeing other countries adopt systems based on region rather than the species of grape.

This system has been expanded on to include not just the name of the country, but the name of the vineyard as well. Some of those locations include Napa Valley, Willamette Valley, Barrosa Valley, and Marlborough.

The least popular of the classification systems was used periodically by non-European valley regions and organized wines based on their quality.

Each attempt to implement the system has been met with poor reception.

Vintage Wine

Grapes for vintage wines are harvested and fermented with the explicit purpose of being preserved for long periods of time. Because they are circulated once a year, the flavor and color can differ across vintages.

Vintage wines are especially popular among connoisseurs who wish to preserve their wines either to increase market value or to pass down indefinitely throughout the generations. Most collectors, however, hope to drink their vintage wine during their lifetime, and preserve them only until special occasions.

Non-Vintage Wine

Non-vintage wines are produced by companies who have no interest in annually fermenting grapes from the same generation. Because they’re more formulaic in their concoction, they tend to maintain consistent flavors throughout the years of their production.

For this reason, they also tend to sell in higher volume.