Understanding the components and balance in your glass.

If you look at the basic description of wine, you will come across to; Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grape juice.

Surely it is not this simple as there are a lot of elements and acts have impact on the taste, quality,  style and price of the wine.

Whenever I was studying my Wset Level 3 course , I remember one day in the classroom I just stepped back for a  moment and realised how much I was mesmerised with the journey and the evolution of wine. From a little bud to the delicious nectar in the bottle. With all the impacts of the nature, the sun,  the wind, rain, rocks, and then the huge factor of humans, how they train their vines, how-and- where they do the fermentation, how they mature it, playing with different adjustment techniques..

At the end, that bud of the vine plant is being converted into a tasty beverage carrying unique characteristics.

Naturally this is a huge journey and it will be impossible to fit all the aspects into a few paragraphs.  So each month I will try to talk about little steps about this amazing journey. When you start to learn about wine you will be surprised how many different subjects, disciplines, you will start to deal with; viticulture, vinification, science, history, geography, even politics, religion, sociology, business etc..

Grapes

Wine is made from grapes. There are thousands of grape varieties growing all around the world. Firstly, the grapes that are being used to produce wine are different than table grapes. These are far smaller than the grapes we just eat, with being smaller each grape holds more concentrated flavours. Also, they have thicker skins so that delivery of flavours and tannins will be stronger. Wine grapes have seeds which contains bitter oils and imparts flavours and tannins. Lastly, wine grapes have more sugar as we need sugar for the fermentation process. Now we know why we can’t make wine from the grapes we get from our local supermarket. Those are table grapes which are larger so that we can eat with ease. They have less sugar so we will not go into a sugar coma.

Vitis Vinifera is the name of the common grape vine. There are thousands of varieties of Vitis Vinifera grapes. But not all of them are suitable for wine production. These species and variants are native to Eurasia, Mediterranean, Central Europe, North Africa and north part of Iran. Vitis Vinifera has been used to make wines for centuries in these regions.

There are some species from North America as well which are seldomly used to produce wines. This is because of their high profile of unattractive aroma characteristics. But there are some serious benefits of these species, like being resistant to some pests and diseases. One of the most  well-known American species is  Vitis Labrusca.

All these different species table or wine grapes are relatives through genus Vitis but still there are variations in their characteristics. There are some different ways to explain why this happens.

During growth period there can be some mutations in the vineyards for various reasons but mostly for the vine to protect itself from the hazards. So, the genetic characteristics change and shows difference to the parent vine. For example, Pinot Blanc variety is a mutation of Pinot Noir.

Crossings are the new varieties that are existed by using two varieties of the same species (e.g.  both Vitis Vinifera – or Vitis Labrusca ) this can happen naturally or conducted by humans. Cabernet Sauvignon is a cross created by using Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc which are both Vitis Vinifera.

At this point lets mention hybrids which are similar to crossings but in this case two different Vitis species are used to create  a new kind . One main reason to do this practice is to find new varieties resistant to Phylloxera. Vidal Blanc is one of them.

And there are clones, which are the different variations of a similar grape . This happens with taking a cutting from a grape , graft it on a different rootstock and put a genetic make-up to the new grape. So still identical to parent but with an bronzer or foundation.. Air-brushed variety!!!

All these varieties are created naturally or by humans to protect the vines and the fruits from hazards or pests as well as adding different aroma and flavour characteristics to the grapes.

Next month; what does a grape need to grow?