Wine Word of the Week: Chaptalization

Inspired by this article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week, I've decided the word for the week will be chaptalization.

A relatively rare process, it is one by which the winemaker adds sugar (or honey, in the case of the ancient Romans) to fermenting wine in order to raise the alcohol level--not the sweetness. This is typically done in cool climates, where the grapes might not reach their full maturity, and thus ideal sugar levels. Without ripeness and sugars, there won't be enough material for the yeasts to convert to alcohol at the proper levels. Some winemakers say for certain vintages chaptalization is necessary to stabilize the wine--others say it can cause an imbalance. It depends on the harvest year and the climate. It's a fairly common practice in Champagne, Austria and Germany, less so in the New World, though it is used in New Zealand and Oregon.

How to use this term: to look ridiculously pompous at wine tastings. "Oh my gawd, Buffy--this Beaujolais Nouveau is 16.5 percent alcohol. They must have used chaptalization."

NB: The process is named after Jean-Antoine Chaptal, "Napoleon's minister of the interior, who gave it the French government's official endorsement and promoted it in his 1801 book 'Traite Theotique et Pratique Sur la Culture de la Vigne.'"

The Horror!

Spilling red wine on your (or God forbid, a dear friend’s) beige carpet, white couch, tan trousers or ecru silk blouse creates a special kind of freak out. I have this on my mind because I’m attending an event in April and wearing a beloved ivory satin dress, and I’m worried someone will dump a glass of red wine down my back. This may seem paranoid, but I had someone spill half a glass of wine (thankfully white) down my décolletage at a winery opening not three months ago.

For today’s posting, I would like to discuss how to get red wine stains out of fabric and carpet. I hope that anyone who has their own formula for red wine removal will post it here for general benefit.

Fail safe: Wine Away is perhaps the most necessary tool in a wine enthusiast’s toolbox, other than a good corkscrew and decent glassware. I once dropped a bottle of wine, which smashed next to my foot, and entirely soaked the leg of my tan trousers with Syrah. I sprayed Wine Away on it, and the wine and any stain disappeared. It’s really quite a remarkable product. I plan to keep a small bottle in my clutch during the said ivory dress event.

An old wives tale, which actually seems to work, is to combat red wine with white. It does seem to be true that white wine stops red wine stains from setting. So, if you spill red wine, the trick is to blot (don’t rub) as much red wine as possible off the fabric, then soak the area with white wine—if you happen to have an open bottle available. Club soda seems to work the same way as white wine. Once you have removed as much of the red wine as possible, in many cases pouring club soda on the stain will keep it from setting into the fibers. Then you can saturate the area with Woolite or another gentle cleaner to get the rest of the stain out.

I haven’t tested this myself, but I hear that pouring table salt on red wine soaks up the wine and stops the stain from forming. Apparently if you soak up the excess red wine, dump salt on the stain and leave it overnight, then vacuum off in the morning (this must work best for carpet), the stain will be gone.

I’ve had some success with hydrogen peroxide as well—which also works well on blood stains, incidentally. If the stain hasn’t set, saturating the area with hydrogen peroxide is a good bet.

I suggest stocking up on Wine Away, Woolite, club soda and cheap white wine if one is planning to throw a party. And if you have a propensity to trip, stumble or gesticulate with wine glasses (much like myself)—keep a small bottle of Wine Away in your purse (or man bag).

Wine Word(s) of the Week: Residual Sugar (RS)

Once again, my wonderful friend Scriptoress asked an excellent question about how to talk about sugar levels in wine. While brix refers to the sugar levels in grapes before, during and after harvest, the way to discuss the sweetness in a finished wine is to talk about residual sugar (RS).
Sugar remains in wine, usually, in one of two ways. One is by choice--a winemaker can change the temperature of a wine--either cooling or heating the wine--during fermentation to kill or stall the yeast from converting the sugars into alcohol. Another is naturally, resulting in stuck fermentation. Due to natural temperature changes, or just chance factors, the yeast may stop converting. At that point, the sugar you have is what you get in the finished product.
Thus, the sugars that remain in the wine after the fermentation process finishes are the residual sugars, which cause the sweetness in wine. Dry wines will have no or close to no residual sugars, dessert wine will have a high level of RS.

Love is in the Air, and Wine is in the News

When I checked my email this morning, I was figuratively clobbered over the head by the vast amount of articles about Valentine's Day wines. That's what I get for having so many Google Alerts set up. For your enjoyment, I've created a list of the best articles pertaining to V-Day wines:

Ray Isle of Food + Wine magazine, one of my favorite wine writers, published an article today about wine and chocolate pairing, which is a notoriously difficult process. Contrary to popular belief, wine and chocolate isn’t the perfect pair--Ray gives some great tips on how to make it work.

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post provide this great article about food pairings and Valentine's Day wines. They also provide a link to Eat Something Sexy, a website maintained by a Cordon Bleu trained chef who specializes in food aphrodisiacs.

I may not be a fan of Charles Olken, but his love of brut Rosé sparklers endears him to me somewhat. His article about his wine picks for Valentine's Day gives some reviews of both domestic and imported sparkling wine.

Laurie Daniel of the San Jose Mercury News gives a great primer on Port, and her shopping suggestions for Valentine's Day.

The Napa Valley Register published a humorous article today about doing Valentine's Day on a budget in Napa (perhaps an oxymoron?), but the tips are universal.

Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune and OC Register writes about dessert wines, which are truly underappreciated by American drinkers.

Happy Singles Awareness Day everyone. Go drink some wine.

Wine Word of the Week: Brix

One of the more fabulous wine-related terms (pronounced like “bricks”) brix quantifies the sugar levels in wine grapes. Grapes must be harvested at the ideal sugar levels in order for proper fermentation during the winemaking process.

Wine Tasting

Semi-fictional reader question:
“Ok, you’re starting to convince me that wine really isn’t as scary as it’s portrayed in popular culture. Now what? What do I do to learn about and taste wine?”

I know I’m not keen to shell out a huge amount of money to learn about wine...or really for anything. I’ve purchased a few books and have been lucky enough to work in the wine industry where instruction is inevitable—but the most helpful aspect of my wine education has been to just taste wine. That’s something everyone can do easily and without a lot of expense.

Winemakers want you to taste their wine. Wine is a product that tends to build great consumer loyalty, so the more people who sample it, the greater the potential fan base. Free tastings, or those with a nominal fee, are readily available all over the country.

http://www.localwineevents.com/ is a great resource. You can sign up for daily or weekly updates to alert you to what wine events are happening in your city. Many of the events listed are on the pricey side, but the website often includes free tastings.

Grocery store tastings
Illegal in many U.S. states, but quite popular in others, grocery store tastings are a great way to sample affordable wines. Try checking your local Whole Foods, Wild Oats, PCC, Metropolitan Market, and other higher-end or natural foods stores for their wine programs.

Wine shop tastings
This is probably your best bet for tastings. Your local small wine retailer, or even larger wine merchant, almost certainly puts on weekly or monthly tastings—and they’re probably free. Staff at these stores are usually knowledgeable, and the probability that the person pouring is a representative from a winery, or the winemaker, is fairly high. Just be sure to go with an open mind, and not just to drink.

Regional events
Wine regions like Burgundy, Bordeaux, Paso Robles, Washington State, and sundry Australian groups travel all over to grow their consumer base. Typically they produce events for wine trade like restaurateurs, sommeliers and wine buyers, but often there is a component for wine enthusiasts. Local wine retailers will know about these tastings, and often they’ll be included on wine websites.

Winery tours
Chances are there’s a winery near where you live. Even if you’re convinced your palate is built only for Australian Shiraz, trying a Muscadine wine from Georgia, a Riesling from New York or a Lodi Chardonnay will give you a more well-rounded appreciation of all wines. Find out what wineries are near you, and take a few hours of a weekend to check a couple out. You may be surprised by what you find.

Need help finding a winery near you? It may be worth joining WineAmerica Trailblazers. For a yearly fee, you have access to the website which has lists of wineries by state, as well as other resources.

Another fun way to learn: http://tv.winelibrary.com/. Some people find this guy, Gary Vaynerchuk, rather annoying. I find him pretty hilarious and passionate about wine. This is definitely worth a look.

Valentine's Day Approaches

One week until Valentine’s Day, and many people still haven’t picked out a gift for their significant other. Or, if you’re super single like me, what to send your other single friends to console them during this travesty of a holiday.

Anyway, forget the jewelry, boys, and toss that cologne, ladies, because wine is the best Valentine’s Day gift!

For your husband or wife
Save: A bottle of wine from the year you were married. A nice French bottle is a classic touch, though a bottle from your own area is always fun—wine is made in all 50 U.S. states, and in most regions of the world.
Splurge: A trip to wine country. Like I mentioned above, there are wineries in all the states of the Union. Some are harder to come by (in, say, Alaska), but most states have wine trails, and most countries have wine regions (even India and China, by the way). A day trip is a fun way to spend time together, and a weekend is an excellent way to relax.
Hotels located in or very near wineries are fun. Some suggestions:
Washington—Cave B Inn; Inn at Abeja
California (Santa Rosa)—Vintner’s Inn
Georgia—Chateau Elan
Remember—it still costs less than a tennis bracelet.

For your lover
Save: Reasonably priced sparkling wine. Inexpensive and sexy. I recommend Domaine Ste. Michelle Luxe (about $20).
Splurge: Expensive Champagne. Expensive and sexy. I recommend Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Champagne (about $90). Not only does it have an amazing flavor profile and minerality, it’s also pink.

For your new girlfriend or boyfriend
Save: There’s nothing cozier than a glass of port or sherry in front of a roaring fire. Encourage some snuggling with a bottle of Barnard Griffin 2005 Reserve Syrah Port ($16.99).
Splurge: Make your own wine together at a local crushpad or microwinery. Cleaner and easier than getting a puppy, and an excellent way to bond, crushpads are located in most parts of the U.S. Plus, if you break up, it’s easier to split cases of wine than share doggie custody.
Live in or near San Francisco? Try Crushpad.

For your single friends
Save: A bottle of Mad Housewife, Il Bastardo, or possibly R Winery's Bitch Grenache or Evil Cabernet Sauvignon. Remind them why it’s good to be single sometimes.
Splurge: Personalized bottles from Northwest Cellars in Seattle, WA. Don bottles with a particularly attractive picture of your group of friends, a photo of Matt Damon, or a reminder like “It’s better to go alone than badly accompanied.” The possibilities are endless.

Wine Word of the Week: Fermentation

Spoiler alert: for those of you who are particularly squeamish, learning about the winemaking process may ruin wine for you. If you know you’re one of those people, you may want to stop reading.

Wine is awesome--and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. That grapes may be turned from fruit into a beverage with flavor and aroma complexity that can include leather, tobacco, petrol, black pepper, lavender, peach, apple, pear, pineapple, and horse butt (seriously) is truly awe-inspiring. The process by which wine is made is one of the many small miracles of our world. The process is a complex one, with many variables—below I’ve tried to give a brief overview of fermentation. I welcome any additions, comments and questions. Fermentation processes will vary by region and varietal.

So, the grapes are harvested and delivered to the winery (a separate post is needed this part of the winemaking process). The grapes are then fed or dumped into a crusher/destemmer, which removes the stems (obviously) and crushes the grapes for the first time. Depending on the winemaker’s choices, all the grapes will be crushed, or just some, or none (as for carbonic maceration). What comes out of the crusher/destemmer is now called must. The must is either left with the skins and seeds in large vats or plastic bins to produce red wine, left for a short time to produce rosé, or, in the case of white wines, pressed off immediately.

In the case of red wine, the must is left for a period of between several days and several weeks to fully realize the tannins from the skins and seeds. At this point the fermentation process usually begins for red wines. For white, the must is put through a presser, and the juice is transferred to stainless steel or concrete vats or storage bins. When the wine is pressed out will depend on the winemaker’s decision.

Fermentation is, simply put, the process by which sugars become alcohol. This process is done through yeast and bacteria. Basically, the yeast eats the naturally-occurring sugars, and the by-product is alcohol. There are typically two kinds of yeasts used for this process: native yeast and cultured yeast.

Native yeasts are naturally occurring—they can be found on the grapes, in the air, or even in the winery. Many winemakers, especially old-school European winemakers, consider the native yeast to be part of the terrior, and will not use cultured yeasts. Cultured yeasts are, just like they sound, yeasts specially selected and prepared for the winemaking process.

Temperatures are carefully controlled during the fermentation process. White wine is usually fermented between 64-68 °F (18-20 °C), and reds at 85 °F (29 °C). If the temperatures go up, some of the flavors and alcohol are lost, if the juice gets too cold, the yeasts will die or go into shock, resulting in “stuck fermentation”—meaning the fermentation process will stop, and the sugars in the wine will remain. This, incidentally, is how White Zin was “discovered.”
For most red wines, and infrequently for whites, another process will begin: malolactic fermentation. This is the process by which malic acids (think tart green apples) will turn into “softer” lactic acids (think dairy). Although this process can happen naturally (as with native yeasts) more often than not a winemaker will add malolactic bacteria to the wine. The bacteria will eat the malic acid and leave the lactic acid. Mmm…bacteria. Don’t worry--by the final process the yeasts and bacteria will no longer be present.

At this point, essentially, the winemaker carefully watches and tests the alcohol levels, amongst other factors, until he decides the wine is ready to be finished—or the yeast stops working on his own. At this point the aging process begins. But that’s another story.