Introductory Wine Topics - What, How, When, & Why

1. Intro to the intro
2. What it is and why we should drink it
3. History
4. What happens in the vineyard
5. What happens in the winery

From Dionysus vs. Diogenes: keeping emotion separate  from fact
Enjoying the sensual and psychic pleasures of moderate wine drinking requires no knowledge or skills other than bringing a glass to the lips and swallowing. The overall sensory experience of wine can be transformed, however, from a simple pleasure to a profound one with just a bit of knowledge about how humans experience "taste" and how wine can have so many flavor variations.

Thousands of books and articles exist about wine. Some are excellent; some are not. Wine is a combination of nature, science, and art. There is a tendency among wine writers to become emotionally involved and let personal impressions of the art get commingled with the facts of nature and science. Internally, the writer pits his Dionysus, the mythical god of wine, against his Diogenes, the seeker of truth. This can be very misleading and confusing to the novice.

What follows is an attempt to supply that very basic information on the subject of wine. I have attempted to be as straightforward, concise, and to-the-point as the subject matter allows. In this section I have tried to be emotionally detached and leave my opinions out, allowing you to form your own. Any mention of brands or specific types of wine are only in the context of historical significance and not to be taken as recommendations.

It is important to consider that research is ongoing. What is known of the nature and science of wine has changed a great deal, especially over the past thirty years, and it should continue to do so at an ever-increasing pace. If you think something is amiss in my writing, please contact me (beekman@conversent.net).

For more detail involving various aspects of wine, there are some excellent texts. My "desert Island" wine books are The Oxford Companion to Wine, impeccably edited by Jancis Robinson (encyclopedia-style reference with contributions from the best authors, experts and scientists) and The World Atlas of Wine, by Hugh Johnson.

Expertise in any subject is earned through a combination of study and practice. While mastering wine appreciation is no exception, it certainly doesn't seem like work; so, if you expect to become a wine expert, keep on reading and keep on tasting.

Why Wine? It's pleasurable, sensual, social, intellectual, healthful, and stimulating.
Wine is a pleasant stimulant to four of our five basic senses, as well as to the human spirit. Wine has a nearly limitless variety of flavors. Due to its origin as a product of soil, geography, climate and vintage conditions, grape variety, production technology and aging regimen, it offers more variations and possibilities for sensual appeal than possibly any other stimulus.

Wine is also stimulating to the intellect, since a true understanding of wine and its various aspects involves many areas for study. Although most of the literature about wine has historically come from the wealthy and educated, even the poor and illiterate partake of wine's pleasures; therefore, it is a democratic beverage. The grapevine flourishes in most of the temperate climates of the world and has been cultivated since before the earliest historical records. Wine has a broad commercial scope, involving one of every ten persons on earth, in one or more facets, from farming to production to distribution to regulatory agencies.

Composed of roughly 85% water, 12% ethyl alcohol, a touch of tartaric and several other acids, wine also contains various sugars, carbohydrates, less common alcohols, aromatic aldehydes, ketones, phenolic compounds, enzymes, pigments, many vitamins, some minerals and other substances yet to be identified. There are in all, over 300 separate ingredients identified in wine so far, more than half of them discovered since 1956.

The chemical composition of wine makes it a natural accompaniment to many foods, since the mild acidity of wine contrasts with the oily or fatty content of some foods. On the other hand, the carbohydrates, sugars, and alcohols in wine tend to complement these elements in other foods. Wine and food may taste good alone, but the end result of this contrasting and complementing is that most wines and foods taste especially good together. They synergize.

The healthful and nutritive properties of wine have been recognized by the medical profession for thousands of years. Hippocrates recommended specific wines to purge fever, disinfect and dress wounds, and as diuretics or for nutritional supplements around 450 B.C.E. The earliest known printed wine book was written by a French doctor around 1410 A.D.

Most of the pathogens that threaten humans are inhibited or killed off by the acids and alcohols in wine. Because of this, wine was a much safer drink than most available water until the 18th century and even later. For more fascinating information on the history of alcohol in Western Civilization, click here. Wine is a mild natural tranquilizer, serving to reduce anxiety and tension. As part of a normal diet, wine provides the body with energy, substances that aid with digestion, and a small amount of minerals and vitamins. It can also stimulate poor appetites. Many people think wine will make them gain weight, but studies have shown that when wine is served with a meal, the total caloric intake for the meal is usually less! Wine can also serve to restore nutritional balance, relieve tension, sedate and act as a mild euphoric agent to the convalescent and especially the aged.

Although wine may be the oldest remedy and prophylactic still in use, there was an entire generation of medical professionals, especially in America, that were trained during the historical period known as Prohibition. Medical texts for nearly twenty-five years were purged and censored of any mention of alcohol, including wine, for any application other than external. This medical generation in turn became educators to the following one, perpetuating medical ignorance of the potential benefits of wine.

Only when the news media reported the French Paradox did the public begin to consider wine as medicine rather than toxin. The typical diet of the population in Southern France includes a very high proportion of cheese, butter, eggs, organ meats and other fatty and cholesterol-laden foods. This diet would seem to promote heart disease, but the rate was discovered to be much lower there than in America; herein lies the paradox.

Regular moderate wine drinking was discovered to be the factor. Studies in England and Denmark found the occurrence of coronary disease to be much higher in heavy or binge drinkers and (surprise!) even higher in abstainers. Europeans generally drink wine with their meals, while Americans drink milk, iced tea, soft drinks or coffee.

The evidence suggests that red wine dilates the small blood vessels and helps to prevent angina and clotting. Regular moderate consumption of red wine may be a preventative against coronary disease. Wine also helps balance cholesterol towards the good type. For more detail on wine and health, click here, here, and here.

In the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Fourth Edition, published by the U.S. Food and Drug Admnistration, the official recommendation is "Advice for today: if you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation, with meals, and when consumption does not put you or others at risk." This is a weak and passive permission, rather than the ringing endorsement which wine deserves, according to the vast majority of medical and scientific evidence. It is, however, a progressive leap from the 1990 Guidelines, which said "wine has no net health benefit", the mental equivalent of saying "the earth is flat".

On the other hand, wine is not a cure-all and not all persons should drink wine. Alcohol in any form can have an adverse reaction when combined with certain prescription drugs. Red wine is suspected by some sufferers to trigger migraine headaches. Wine should not be given to people with inflammations of the digestive tract, peptic ulcers, liver disease, pancreatitis (but see this), kidney or urinary infections, prostrate disorders, epilepsy or alcoholism. Asthmatics can react to the sulfur in some wines, although this depends on both the sensitivity of the sufferer and the level in the wine. The vast majority of the population, however, can safely enjoy wine in moderation.



Taste: A User's Manual of physiology, physics and how to develop a wine palate
Wine tasting can be an occasional pleasant diversion or a time-and-resource-consuming passion. It can be conducted casually or formally. No matter what level of orientation or dedication is involved, some basic background knowledge and a logical approach can greatly increase individual enjoyment. Most American wine drinkers cheat themselves by not knowing how to taste; many talk the talk but fail to walk the walk, so a lot of ordinary-tasting wines gets sold at extraordinary prices.

Wine tasting is actually a complex proposition involving much more than simply sipping some fermented grape juice. There are many variable factors that affect an individual's perception of flavor in wine. There are chemical, physical, mechanical, physiological, and psychological variables.

The type and quality of the wine itself is only one aspect of tasting. Others are the size and shape of the wine glass...the individual's impartial physiological ability to smell and taste, as well as his individual flavor preferences...the temperature of not only the beverage itself, but also the ambient temperature and humidity of the tasting site...how hungry, tired and attentive the taster is can also affect relative judgment. For more information on the proper temperature at which to serve wine, click here.

To understand these variables, let's first look at the phenomenon of taste from a physiological standpoint. Flavor is not an experience limited to one sense, but a combination of experiences from the senses of smell, taste, touch and, to a certain degree, sight.

It is the sense of smell and taste that are truly most important to flavor. These are the chemical senses because their receptors are stimulated by chemical molecules, rather than by energy from light or sound. For a substance to be smelled, it must be volatile to a certain degree and its vapor able to dissolve in an aqueous (water) solution. The vapor molecules must contact the smell receptors on a membrane deep in the nasal passage. These receptors send messages about aromas to the brain over the olfactory nerve.

The nose can sometimes even beat the eyes in the race for setting up the tasting expectations. An aroma can carry from one room to another, beyond the line of sight. The sense of smell is approximately 10,000 times more sensitive than the sense of taste. As a result, what is termed flavor is composed of roughly 75% smell and 25% taste. Ever notice how bland foods taste when the nose is blocked by a cold? As little as one molecule in a million may be detected by the nose, but it takes a minimum of one part per thousand to stimulate the tongue. At the same time, there is a great variation between individuals in the elements to which they are sensitive. A person's absolute threshold is the smallest amount of stimulus it takes to produce a sensation.

Scientists have proven that the nose can detect and distinguish between thousands of different smells. Yet the responses to these smells are very subjective and differ from person to person. And describing a smell is extremely difficult.

Describing specific flavors of wine is not important to the average consumer; most decide that a wine simply tastes good or not. Critics and judges, however, need to learn and apply standards of terminology. Consumers can enhance their tasting experience by learning these terms in order to communicate better with their fellow tasters and, perhaps more importantly, their wine merchant.

Dr. Ann Noble, a professor of sensory evaluation at the University of California at Davis, has headed a project since the early 1980s developing an inexpensive and easy tool to aid in learning wine flavor terminology. The Aroma Wheel is a kind of pie-chart that lists, categorizes and groups hundreds of smells and odors that may be present specifically in wines. Dr. Noble's Aroma Wheel website explains how to get one and use it train your "nose and brain to connect and quickly link terms with odors...using materials available from the grocery store."

While smell is the most easily stimulated of the human senses, it is also the most fragile. Most of us have experienced detecting the aroma of cooking, maybe even from outside the house. In pursuit, we trace it to the kitchen where it becomes stronger. After standing there for a few minutes, however, the cooking odors may no longer be noticeable. This fatigue of the sense of smell is part of sensory adaptation: the self-adjustment to a constant level of stimulus in an environment, so that the individual retains sensitivity to changes. This adaptation also occurs for the sense of sight in a darkened theater or hearing in a noisy city.

While there may be a vast array of aroma categories, there are only four primary tastes: bitter, salty, sour and sweet. (The Japanese believe that there is a fifth primary taste) Combinations of these tastes, along with the aroma combinations account for flavor.

Different areas of the tongue are more sensitive to one kind of primary taste than another. Sweet tastes are mainly sensed near the tip. Salt is detected just behind, for about one-third of the tongue. Sour is mainly noticed along the middle fifty percent of the side edges. Bitterness shows up at the back quarter of the tongue, near where it opens to the throat. The center of the tongue contains a mixture of all these specialized taste receptors, but in a much lower concentration. Sensitivity also varies with individuals. It is possible, in fact to be taste-blind. A chemical called phenylthiocarbamide tastes extremely bitter to some persons and is quite bland to others.

The sense of touch figures in the overall flavor impression by conveying temperature, texture and pressure, the feeling differences that exist between cold carbonated cola and hot coffee, between chocolate pudding and crunchy chocolate cookies. One of the most prominent elements of wine "flavor" is tannin, more touch rather than taste. Tannin leaves a puckery, astringent feeling on the tongue, gums and cheeks and can sometimes also taste bitter. Tannins are one of the few flavor elements in wine that cannot be smelled.

Cold wine gives a taste impression that is less sweet and more acid and astringent than the same wine at a warmer temperature. This is one reason to serve fruity wines chilled and dry, astringent ones near "room" temperature. Alcohol also is mainly experienced as touch. When the proportion is too high for the other flavor elements, alcohol gives a "hot" feeling in the back of the throat.

This idea of sight affecting flavor is not hard to grasp if one thinks of some food which looks unappetizing, but then tastes very good. The reverse is also true. How often is an item selected from a cafeteria line that appears very tasty but turns out to be bland or worse? This expectation based on appearance often sets up our taste buds. In wine, this sight prejudice leads us to expect that transparent and bright wines will be good-tasting, and wines that are cloudy or dull in color will not. Although this does not necessarily hold, still our sense of sight sets us up psychologically for gustatory enjoyment or disappointment.

Color can be an indicator of what the nose and the mouth might expect. Clues as to the grape varietal identity and the age of wine can be revealed by its hue and transparency or opacity. White varietal wines may appear from very pale greenish and brightly clear (suspect youth and bone dryness) to deep golden brownish and approaching translucence (probably well-aged, possibly nectar-like). Red varietals run from brickish red and nearly transparent (may be older, mellow) to deep opaque bluish-purple (expect young, brash, tannic). Bright pink rosé or blush wines are often youthful, while orangey-bricky ones are usually past their point of prime drinkability.

Although they may appear to be in a range of either red-purples or green-yellows, wine grapes are referred to as black (noir ) or white (blanc ). Pinot Noir, Grenache and Mourvedre tend towards a garnet or brickish tone. Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera can make wines so inky-purple they could refill fountain pens. The hues of the black grapes are consistent but they become nearly transparent when made into rosé or blush-style wines. Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc tend to be green. Semillon and Viognier are generally more yellow. Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris (Grigio ) can have a light tannish-grey cast if allowed to fully ripen before made into wine. Most unnamed varietals fall in between these color ranges.

Evaluating the physiological factors and chemical properties helps devise methodology to get the most from tasting wine. The taster can control serving parameters to intensify the experience and consider and be aware of elements which are beyond control but nonetheless affect the tasting occasion.

First, to make sure enough vapor is present to get a strong sense of the wine's smell, use a glass shape that can concentrate the molecules, filled only one-third full or less to allow space for the vapors to be contained. Tilting the glass over an opaque white surface and observing the liquid's edge is the best way to judge hue and clarity. Next, swirl the wine to toss some of those molecules into the air and to increase the size of the liquid surface area from which the molecules can escape. Then take a big, deep sniff of the wine to reach the deep-seated nasal receptors and cross the threshold of sensitivity. That first impression of a wine is really important. Close the eyes and concentrate to form an initial judgment before fatigue and adaptation sets in.

Put enough wine, one-half to a full ounce, in the mouth and slosh it around to make sure each specialized area of the tongue has a chance to judge the wine's elements. Feel the viscosity and tannins. Allow the wine to settle in the lower jaw, letting it warm slightly while pursing the lips to breathe in a small amount of air. Continue sucking in air, making a slurping sound as the wine and air mix. This volatilizes the wine and sends it to the back of the nasal cavity, intensifying the smell and flavor experience. After swallowing, notice which flavors and feelings are left and how well they linger.

A wine palate is part ability and part experience. The individual's preferences for and sensitivity to smell and taste elements, along with the memory of their taste history, combine to form the palate. In developing this personal wine palate, remember to consider the temperature, the texture and the feel, as well as the flavors. Learn to recognize flavor elements besides judging them. Use the swirl, sniff and slurp method to enhance your tasting ability. When you find yourself absent-mindedly swirling, sniffing and slurping your milk glass, coffee cup or soda can, you have reached the first level of expertise and commitment to appreciating fine wine.

History: wine's social impact through time
Fossil vines, 60-million-years-old, are the earliest scientific evidence of grapes. The earliest written account of viticulture is in the Old Testament of the Bible which tells us that Noah planted a vineyard and made wine. Honey and grain are older as cultivated fermentable crops than are grapes, although neither mead nor beer has had anywhere close to the social impact of wine over recorded time.

An ancient Persian fable credits a lady of the court with the discovery of wine. This Princess, having lost favor with the King, attempted to poison herself by eating some table grapes that had spoiled in a jar. She became intoxicated and giddy and fell asleep. When she awoke, she found the stresses that had made her life intolerable had dispersed. She returned to the source of her relief and her subsequent conduct changed so remarkably that she returned to the King's favor. The King shared her discovery with his court and...

It is certain that grape cultivation and wine drinking had started by about 4,000 BC. The first developments were around the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia, near present-day Iran. Texts from tombs in ancient Egypt prove that wine was in use there around 2700 to 2500 BC. Priests and royalty were using wine, while beer was drunk by the workers. The Egyptians developed the first arbors and pruning methods. Archeological excavations have uncovered many sites with sunken jars, so the effects of temperature on stored wine were probably known.

Wine came to Europe with the spread of the Greek civilization around 1600 BC. Homer's Odyssey and Iliad both contain excellent and detailed descriptions of wine. Wine was an important article of Greek commerce and Greek doctors, including Hippocrates, were among the first to prescribe it. The Greeks also learned to add herbs and spices to mask spoilage.

The foundation and strength of viticulture in Western Europe are primarily due, however, to the influence of the Romans. Starting about 1000 BC, the Romans made major contributions in classifying grape varieties and colors, observing and charting ripening characteristics, identifying diseases and recognizing soil-type preferences. They became skilled at pruning and increasing yields through irrigation and fertilization techniques. They also developed wooden cooperage, a great advance for wine storage which had previously been done in skins or jars. The Romans may have been the first to use glass bottles as well, as glassblowing became more common during this era.

By the first century AD, wine was being exported from the Empire (Italy) to Spain, Germany, England and Gaul (France). It wasn't long before these regions began developing their own vineyards and the Roman Emperor forbid the import of French wines to eliminate their competition with the local wines. Over the next few centuries, France would become dominant on the world wine market. Monastic wineries were responsible for establishing vineyards in Burgundy, Champagne and the Rhine Valley. Sacramental usage preserved the wine industry through the dark ages.

By 1152, during the reign of Henry II, Britain had become the principal customer of Bordeaux. The end of the Hundred Years War in 1453 left the city of Calais as the only French territory still under British control and trade between England and France nearly cut off. So the English "discovered" and developed a great love of Port.

Exploration, conquest and settlement brought wine to Mexico, Argentina and South Africa in the late 1600s. Although there were many attempts to plant European wine vines in the North America, none were successful. Each vineyard planted would die off within one or two seasons. No one apparently sought to determine why, even though there was no difficulty encountered in Mexico and California. The answer would ultimately prove fatal for all the vineyards of Europe.

In 1769, Franciscan missionary Father Junipero Serra planted the first California vineyard at Mission San Diego. The first imported French wine vines (vitus vinifera) in California were planted in Los Angeles in 1833 by Jean-Louis Vignes. In the 1850s, the colorful Agoston Harazsthy, a Hungarian soldier, merchant
and promoter, made several trips to import cuttings from 165 of the greatest European vineyards to California. Some of this was at his own expense and some through grants from the state.

Harazsthy is considered the Father of the California Wine Industry. He founded Buena Vista winery and promoted vine planting over much of Northern California. He dug extensive caves for cellaring, promoted hillside planting, fostered the idea of non-irrigated vineyards and suggested Redwood for casks when oak supplies ran low. He also is given credit for importing Zinfandel among his cuttings, although this is unproved.

In 1860, Dr. Jules Guyot published the first of three treatises describing regional traditional vinicultural and viticultural practices as well as his own observations and arguments on the economy of grape growing. Before these documents, viticulture was a practice that had been apprenticed from generation to generation for over 5,000 years.

In 1863, species of native American grapes (which include vitus aestivalis, v. amurensis, v. arizonica, v. berlandieri, v. candicans, v. cinerea, v. cordifolia, v. labrusca, v. monticola, v. riparia, v. rotundifolia, v. rupestris), were taken to Botanical Gardens in England. These cuttings carried a species of root louse called phyloxera vastatrix which attacks and feeds on the vine roots. Native American varieties had developed an immunity by evolving a thick and tough root bark, so that they were relatively resistant to damage. The vinifera vines had no such evolutionary protection and phyloxera ate away at their roots, causing them to rot and the plant to die, forcing the pest to move on to another live host.

By 1865, phyloxera had spread to vines in Provence. Over the next 20 years, it spread to and decimated nearly all the vineyards of Europe. Many methods were attempted to eradicate phyloxera: flooding, where possible, and injecting the soil with carbon bisulfide, had some success in checking the louse, but were costly and the pests came back as soon as the treatments stopped. It was finally realized that the native American vines were resistant. So, there began a long, laborious process of grafting every wine vine in Europe over to American rootstocks. It was only in this manner that the European wine industry could be retrieved from extinction.

There was some debate generated by this replanting that the quality declined in "post-phyloxera" wines. Whether this was indeed the case and whether this was due to the rootstocks themselves or the relatively sudden and nearly universal youth of the vines or some other concurrent factor is unknown and may never be proven.

During the period when the Europeans were contending with phyloxera, the American wine industry was ironically flourishing. By 1900, America had a fully developed and proud commercial wine producing business. Leading brands from California, New York, Ohio, Missouri and New Jersey were appearing on many of the best restaurant wine lists alongside French, German and Italian listings. Barrels of California wine were being regularly exported to Australia, Canada, Central America, England, Germany, Mexico and the Orient. The quality of American wines was excellent by international standards, as testified to by the three dozen medals won by them at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

The destruction of the American wine industry would come not from an entomological pest, but from a political one. While it took a hundred years instead of 20 to complete its course, the results were even more devastating. It didn't spread from vineyard to vineyard, but from town to county to state to the entire nation. The first Prohibition law went on the books in Indiana in 1816, forbidding the sale of any alcohol on Sunday (still enforced to this day). By the 1840s, towns and counties in Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and Ohio had gone legally "dry". In 1880, Kansas became the first entirely dry state, followed by Iowa, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia. Although the laws allowed winemaking for sale elsewhere to continue, most could not compete without selling their wines locally and closed their doors and abandoned their vineyards.

The Drys went so far as to have any mention of wine expunged from school and college texts, including Greek and Roman classic literature. Medicinal wines were dropped from the United States Pharmacopoeia. They even tried to prove that praises for wine in the Bible were really referring to unfermented grape juice. Thirty-three states had gone dry at the outbreak of World War I. Wartime Prohibition was enacted in 1919, followed by the Volstead National Prohibition Act and the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, forbidding the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors."

Through a loophole allowing each home to "make 200 gallons of non-intoxicating cider and fruit juice per year," thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens became home winemakers and bootleggers. Prices for fresh grapes shot up, because of the increased demand and a railroad shortage of refrigerated freight cars in which to ship them. Growers began replanting fine wine variety vineyards to juice grape varieties that shipped well. Planted acreage nearly doubled from 1919 to 1926. Vineyard land went from $200 an acre in 1918 to $2,500 an acre in 1923. Prosperity for the growers lasted five years. In 1925, the railroads finally had enough cars, too much fruit was shipped and it rotted on the Eastern docks. In 1926, vineyard land went back to $250 per acre. The massive plantings produced a constant surplus of California grapes that persisted until 1971.

By the time of National Repeal in 1933, the industry was in ruins. Although some wineries managed to survive by obtaining permits to make wines used for medicinal, sacramental and non-beverage additive purposes, production dropped 94% from 1919 to 1925.

Even after Repeal, several states stayed dry: Kansas until 1948, Oklahoma until 1959 and Mississippi until 1966. Seventeen states established monopoly liquor stores with limited selections and plain-as-dirt merchandising that discouraged respectable housewives from shopping. There remain local prohibitions that are arbitrary, inconsistent and foolish, such as streets lined on one side with taverns and "package stores" door-to-door where the dry boundary runs down the middle of the road. Today 10 percent of the nation's area and 6 percent of the population remain dry.

Anticipating Repeal, speculators and quick-buck artists soon flooded the legal market with quickly and poorly made wine. Dilettantes published books and articles warning Americans about rigid rules that must be followed to serve the proper wine with the proper food from the proper glass at the proper temperature. Faced with bad-tasting products with which to risk committing social blunders and while remaining uncertain about the social acceptance of any alcohol, most Americans stayed away. Hard drinkers stuck to hard liquor.

The only group of wines that sold well were the fortified dessert wines. Taxed at the lower rate of wine as opposed to distilled spirits, but with 20 percent alcohol, this group made the cheapest intoxicant available for derelicts and winos. Before 1920, there were more than 2,500 commercial wineries in the United States. Less than 100 survived to 1933. By 1960, that number had grown to only 271. The most famous and popular brand of American wine prior to Prohibition was "Virginia Dare." For an fascinating account of the origin of this brand and the founder's struggle to survive, Google North Carolina vineyard and winery history.

Before 1920, table wines accounted for 3 of every 4 gallons shipped. After 1933, fortified wines were 3 of every 4 gallons shipped. It wasn't until 1968 that table wines sales finally overtook fortified wines, regaining the status of the most popular wine category.

Prohibition left a legacy of ruining a fledgling wine industry and boosting the success of Organized Crime. The "Grand Experiment" implanted moral ambiguity and disrespect for authority in an entire generation of Americans, while depriving them of potential health benefits and bringing the character and term "wino" into the streets and the lexicon. The one positive remainder is Congressional hesitance to pass Constitutional Amendments.

The forces of prohibition are not dead yet. They are more insidious, combining moralists with economic factions to enact punitive taxation and obstructionist legislation, such as preventing direct sales to consumers via the InterNet. In spite of these workings, table wine has grown in popularity in America, although ever so slowly. U.S. per-capita consumption still lags far behind most of the countries of the Western Hemisphere.


Viticulture: an annual cycle of basic wine grape farming
The grape vine is the source of all wine. It is a very adaptable plant, growing in a wide variety of soil types, from light sand to packed clay, and flourishing around the globe between 20° and 50° Latitude, north or south of the Equator. While there are hundreds of wild and cultivated species of the grape genus Vitus, it is only the cultivated species vinifera that produces fine wine.

Although vines could grow from the fruit seeds (or pips), the vitus vinifera vine has been very highly bred over the years and seeds rarely turn out like the parents. The modern wine vine begins as a cutting from healthy plants. These slips are usually grafted onto rootstock that has been specially cultivated to combine growth vigor with resistance to disease. They are then put into sand for one season. This is called bench-grafting. Some vineyards are planted using the cultivated rootstocks directly and, after one season to establish the root system, are then field-grafted. With either method the new vines are carefully nurtured to create a root system and develop a strong, woody stalk for the first two to five years after planting without bearing a crop.

Young vines with shallow root systems are particularly vulnerable to floods, drought and fertilizers. If the surface soil is not too wet, too dry or too fertile, the roots will grow deeper and deeper in search of nourishment. This is important to establish stable, healthy vines.

There are many pests and diseases that can attack and kill grape vines. Red spiders, moth grubs and various mites, bugs and beetles can all prey on the plant above ground. Most of these may be controlled with either sulfur sprays, or by newer "green" methods, such as introducing predacious insects and protective cover crops between vine rows. In climates with summer rainfall, molds such as oidium, mildew and white, grey and black rot may be prevented by regular sprayings of a solution of copper sulfate, slaked lime and water (Bordeaux mixture).

After the roots and stalk have developed, the untended vine would grow wildly, spending most of its energy on spreading its shoots and tendrils. If left to nature, a single vine could cover as much as an acre of ground, with the roots developing wherever the branches touched earth. In ancient times, this was allowed, a practice called layering. The only cultivation then was to prop up the vines to prevent the fruit from rotting or rodents from eating it. The Romans even planted elms in the vineyards, simply to support the vines. It wasn't until the recommendations of Guyot and the massive replantings due to phyloxera that vineyards typically had an orderly, row by row appearance.

With time, it was discovered that better-quality fruit will grow on vines that are pruned back to distribute the bearing wood evenly over the vine. So, in the winter months, when the leaves have dropped and the vines are empty of sap, they are pruned back almost to the main stem. In the Northern Hemisphere, this begins in December in warmer climates or as late as February in the coldest vineyards.

Pruning is an art of delicate balance; too much will cause small, uneconomical crops; too little will cause over-cropping and low-quality fruit. Pruning also facilitates cultivation, disease control and harvesting, when the vines are trained to a grow in a particular shape. Modern trellising methods vary by variety, geography, geology, harvesting methods and wine-making style! Two, three or four-wire, vertical, lateral, cordon and other configurations of trellis may exist in neighboring vineyards. There are stakes made of wood, metal and those combining the two materials. The different patterns primarily affect exposure to sun and wind and accessibility of fruit for hand or machine harvesting. There are only two basic pruning methods: cane-pruning and spur-pruning, also known as head-pruning.

Spur-pruned (head-pruned) vines are usually found in older vineyards. Spurs are the canes (branches) trimmed back to only a pair of buds. Each bud will become a shoot which grows to a cane that bears the crop. In the winter after the harvest, the top cane is removed and the bottom cane trimmed back to a two-bud spur.

Spurs are often distributed around the head of the vine, like spokes around a wheel. The top is left open for sun-exposure. These vineyards can only be hand-harvested. Some head-pruned vines are converted after a time to grow on trellis wires.

In the cane-pruning method, from one to four, one-year-old canes, each with six to fourteen fruit buds, are trained along the trellis wires. Because one-year-old canes must be used to bear the fruit each year, the cane-pruners therefore must train the current fruiting canes and at the same time consider which spurs to train for next season's fruiting canes. In France, a single cane with a single spur is known as Guyot simple pruning and two canes and spurs, the Double Guyot, because Dr.
Guyot was so influential in promoting this method.

By March, the pruning is nearly finished and the vinyardists take cuttings to make bench-grafts and root them in sand. They also begin cleaning and repairing tractors and machines that they will be using all spring and summer. It is also time to order Bordeaux mixture needed for spraying as protection against mildew and other diseases and pests. As spring continues, the vines emerge from dormancy. Sap begins to rise and brown sheaths, which have covered the buds, fall off. Now comes the first working of the soil, deeply, to aerate it. If the vines' bases were covered for frost-protection, they are now exposed. The remnants of pruning are burned and any rotten vine-stakes replaced.

With temperature warming in April, bud-break may begin the vegetation growth cycle. Frost danger is now at its height. Smudge-pots, wind-machines and frost-protection sprinklers must be repaired and readied. The soil is worked again to keep down the weeds. Suckers are removed from the vines about every ten days to encourage the sap to rise in the vines.

In late May or early June, when the daytime temperature reaches 60-65° F, the flowering will begin. An early flowering usually signals a very good quality vintage. The warmer and calmer the weather, the better; rain or hail can be disastrous now. After flowering, the shoots are thinned, the best shoots tied to the wires. Within a few weeks, the blossoms are replaced by minuscule berries.

In damp climes, spraying with Bordeaux mixture begins mid-summer. Weeds are plowed or hoed and long shoots trimmed every two to three weeks. Later the crop sets and green grape varieties turn translucent, black grape varieties will begin to turn color. This signals the wine-maker to prepare his equipment for the harvest. It is time also for bird control in the vineyards.

One-hundred days after flowering, the grapes should be ripe. The harvest may start mid-August in warm areas to late-September in the coolest ones. It usually continues for two to three weeks. When it is over, the pressed grape skins are mixed with fertilizer and spread over the vineyards. In the existing vineyards, the soil is plowed back up around the vine-bases for frost-protection. In the northern hemisphere, vines are dormant from November to March. Cover-crops may be planted between rows to help prevent erosion. As long as the weather remains dry, any land scheduled for planting the following spring may be deep-plowed. The vines are now immune to nearly all harm except for an unusually severe and deep frost. When the ground is dry and the severity of winter weather past, pruning will begin again for the next season.


Winemaking: nurturing the natural process
By definition, wine is a drink made by the partial or complete fermentation of the juice of fresh grapes. Grapes are the only fruit with a high enough level of sugar and with the proper balance of acid and nutrients to sustain a natural fermentation to dryness with stable results. Other fruits or berries may be fermented, but without additions of sugar, acid, or various yeast nutrients, they are soon to spoil.

Although the biochemistry of fermentation was mysterious until the late nineteenth century, the results of the process were known to man for over 5,000 years. Fermentation was thought to be a spontaneous act of Nature, merely set up by man. The grapes were crushed to release the juice into a fermentation vessel. When the fermentation was complete, the wine was pressed by some mechanical means to separate the liquid from the stems, skins, pips and pulp. It was then stored to age and clarify until it was drunk. While modern technology and methods may have refined and enhanced it, this is still the basic process today.

Any chemical reaction that releases gas is a fermentation. Fermentation is a natural process. Left alone, a grape would ripen until the skin broke and the juice fermented. The bloom, that hazy coating on ripe grapes, is actually a collection of single-celled plants called yeast. There are approximately 6,000 yeast cells per ounce of fermenting must. When the yeast comes in contact with the grape juice, it begins to feed on it. An enzyme (zymase) within the yeast converts sugar in the grape juice to roughly equal parts of alcohol and carbon dioxide and releases energy in the form of heat. This process will continue naturally until the sugar is used up or, more likely, until the yeast cells are no longer able to tolerate the level of their waste products of alcohol, carbon dioxide and/or heat.

It is noteworthy there were no significant changes in the methods and practices of viticulture and enology from about 1,000 BC until about 1860 AD. Certain events did occur, primarily regarding wine storage, which together marked the beginnings of serious wine collecting. An English print from 1778 is the first known evidence of a corkscrew. In 1797, it was first noticed at Chateau LaFite that wine that aged in bottles improved. A few years later, in 1815, came the first documented Declared Vintage of Port.

Other than small improvements such as using more metal and less wooden parts in presses and equipment, the French vignerons of 1850 knew little more of the scientific principals involved than did the ancient Romans.

The scientific basis of fermentation was first explained by Louis Pasteur. In 1857, he proved fermentation was caused by living organisms and he developed a germ theory of fermentation in 1861. He was the first  to isolate and distinguish types of yeast (saccharomyces apiculatus and saccharomyces elipsoideus). Pasteur found that some yeasts are efficient converters of sugar to alcohol and some are not. Some yeast will stop at about six percent alcohol and some continue until a level of sixteen or seventeen percent. Even among efficient types, there are several different strains and each viticultural region seems to have a specific native strain. He also noted that high temperature kills off yeast.

This discovery made it possible to sterilize the must, killing off the wild strains by heating it to below the boiling point and then inoculating the pasteurized must with the best strain, so that it has no competition. Modern wine techniques do not use Pasteurization, but may add a small amount of sulfur to prevent the wild yeast from starting up.

Like all living things, yeast cells have a primary drive to reproduce. In the first and most vigorous stage of  fermentation (2 to 4 days), the yeast action is mainly to produce more yeast. This is the aerobic (contact with air) fermentation. The anaerobic (without air) fermentation follows and produces most of the alcohol. Under optimum conditions, a wine fermentation will last approximately three weeks, but this may take as much as several months, for no apparent reason. Fermentation can continue until the wine is dry (without residual sugar), or stopped at some mid-point to make wines at levels of sweetness ranging from the barest hint to extremely sweet. This can be accomplished by either adding alcohol to raise the level to 15% or more (as in port or sherry ), adding sulfur dioxide or sorbate (sorbic acid), chilling the must and filtering out the yeast cells or by simply filtering out the yeast cells, using a sterile filter.

With a very few exceptions, all grapes have clear juice, whether the skins are white (green) or black (purple). Pigmentation (anthocyanins) comes from the skins. White wine can be made from black grapes by simply pressing the grapes and separating the clear juice from the pigmented skins before fermentation. This is the basis of "White Zinfandel" table wines and "Blanc de Noirs" sparkling wines. The longer the contact between skins and must, the more color is extracted from the skins into the must.

To make most white wines, winemakers crush and press the juice from the grapes and add sulphite (75-150 parts per million) to the must to kill the wild yeast and bacteria and prevent oxidation. The stems, skins, pips and pulp are separated from the juice. One variation has the fruit go directly into the press, without going through the crusher, to avoid some degree of oxidation. In another variation the grapes, after crushing, go into a settling tank where they are chilled and may sit for up to 24 hours of skin contact before being pressed.

Juice separated before the press is called free-run. It is of higher quality, with less bitterness and oxidation. The leftover skins, pips and pulp is called the marc, which is pressed. The resulting juice usually has a lower fixed acidity, but higher volatile acidity, as well as higher tannin than the free-run. Both the speed and the pressure of the press affect the quality. Sometimes the marc is pressed first with a modern bladder-type cylindrical press and then with a traditional basket press. Some portion of the pressed wine may be added back to the free-run, but most often is used for bulk wine production or distillation. It is interesting to note that whites are pressed as unfermented must, while reds are pressed after they have fermented into wine. One ton of grapes will yield from 155 to 195 gallons of must, with 120 to 160 gallons being free-run juice. The leftover cake of solids is often returned to the vineyard and ploughed back into the soil.

After inoculating with a selected yeast culture, the must is allowed to ferment for from 2 to 45 days at a temperature usually between 45° and 65° F. Stainless steel tanks or oak barrels of various sizes are the most common vessels for fermentation. Tanks made of materials such as concrete and redwood are not as easy to clean or to temperature control, but are still in use at some wineries. The lower the temperature, the longer the fermentation continues and the more fruitiness in the resulting wine. A fermentation allowed to get too hot produces off flavors and can get stuck. Over the years, temperature control was accomplished by fermenting small batches in a cooled environment, pumping the must through a heat-exchanger, or inserting refrigerated coils in the tanks.
 
Stainless steel equipment has three major advantages over any other type of equipment. First, it is chemically neutral, neither adding nor taking away flavors in the wine. Second, it is easily fitted with temperature controls, including jackets through which refrigerant can be pumped, thermostats, internal stirring components and computerized controls that can maintain the temperature of the must within one or two degrees. Third and most significant, stainless does not provide a medium for bacterial growth and can be easily cleaned and sterilized to avoid contamination.

For most red wines, winemakers crush, add sulphites to kill wild yeast, and then inoculate the grapes with laboratory-bred strains of yeast. They allow the juice to ferment in contact with the skins and pulp for 2 to 5 days at temperatures between 70° and 80° F (Pinot Noir is allowed to go to 95° F). During this initial period, color is extracted from the skins as more sugar is converted to ethanol.

The skins and solids in the must will float to the top of the fermenter, forming a cake that the carbon dioxide cannot escape from. This leaves only the portion of juice underneath the cake in contact with the skins. Methods used to break up this cake and insure more color extraction include punching down by hand several times a day, pumping-over the juice to the top of the cake using a must pump, or stirring by some other mechanical means, including the relatively new roto-tanks that turn the entire contents over, like a cement mixer. After enough color and tannin are extracted, the must is pressed and the juice separated for clarification, finishing and aging.
 
A secondary “fermentation,” called malolactic fermentation, takes place in most wine. This is the conversion by bacteria (lactobacillus) of some of the malic acid naturally present in grapes into lactic acid. Malolactic has the effect of "softening" the wine, taking some of the sharp edge off. It can also enhance buttery flavors in white wines such as Chardonnay. This is desirable with certain wines, undesirable with others and can occur naturally. Sometimes wineries inoculate new wine with a malolactic culture and heat up the wine slightly to encourage it. Some wineries do all they can to avoid it. Before the arrival of modern sterile filtration, an occasional wine would wait until it after bottling to begin "ML." The bottled wine would become cloudy and fizzy, sometimes developing enough pressure to blow the cork or break the bottles, with the flavor of sour milk. Before they understood ML, traditional vintners knew to wait to bottle their wines until after spring when the wine would warm up and ML would often occur naturally.

Wine can be aged in barrels of oak or other woods to impart and mature flavors. Wooden barrels leech tannins into wine and can also impart "smoky" flavors if the barrels have been toasted, short of actual charring. Different wood species from different forests impart differing flavors and to a degree of strength depending upon the age of the barrel, relative to how much use it has seen. The newer the barrel, the stronger is the oak flavor. Flavor can also vary, depending on the manner of cooperage, or barrel-making. Wooden barrels also allow a very small amount of oxidation that mellow a wine. Some loss incurs through evaporation and wine in barrels must be topped occasionally with more wine.

The public is unwilling to accept cloudy wine or wine with crystals or other particles in it, so various methods are used for "cleaning-up" and finishing wine after fermentation, either before, during or after aging. These processes also insure a level of stability or shelf-life for wines shipped to retail or restaurant outlets where the bottles may spend some time "on the shelf" before purchase and consumption. Clarification methods are similar for both white and red wines. All methods of clarification remove unsightly particles from wine, but may also strip wine of pleasant flavor elements or color.

The oldest method of clarification is racking. This is simply siphoning off the relatively clear wine after the lees have settled to the bottom, leaving them behind to discard. The lees are the insoluble matter including cellulose, dead yeast cells, bacteria, dirt and dust, tartrates, and pectin. Racking may be done several times before a wine is bottled.

Cold stabilization may also be considered a form of racking. This process removes excess tartaric acid that may form potassium bitartrate crystals, which can show up in bottled wine or on corks. Although these tartrates dissolve easily and are edible (common cream of tartar, used in cooking) and harmless, they can cause alarm to the uninformed consumer who thinks there is "broken glass" in his wine. Cold stabilization is accomplished by allowing the wine to warm up to some degree and then chilling it down to about 40° F. The tartaric acid crystallizes in the tank and the wine drawn off.

Fining is adding a substance to the wine that precipitates out, taking undesirable elements with it. Some fining agents (physical) work by attracting particles by their opposite electrical charge and some (chemical) by forming chemical bonds with hydrogen elements in the undesired particles. Fining agents include egg white, milk, blood, gelatin, carbon, casein (the principal protein constituent of milk and cheese) and isinglass (an extract of sturgeon bladders). Fining can lower high levels of tannin, remove haze and reduce color. Heat stabilization is another goal accomplished by fining, using bentonite (a clay of hydrated magnesium silicates) to remove protein, which may cloud a wine.

Filtering is passing the wine through a filter that is small enough to remove undesirable elements including yeast cells, yet large enough not to trap the molecules of aroma, flavor and tannin. The development of micropore filter systems has allowed much more flexibility to winemakers to make stable wines of varying styles. This is especially significant in allowing residual sugar to remain in the wine at low levels that previously would have been endangered by the possibility of revived fermentation.

Before bottling, the winemaker conducts blending trials, combining small samples of cuvées or batches of wine from different grape varieties, or vineyards, or of different vintages in varying combinations until the wine tastes best. When the final blend is determined, the "recipe" is made and the wine is blended accordingly and bottled.

Bottling equipment can vary from the primitive, using siphon hoses, funnels, hand corking and labeling machines, to the modern, very sophisticated, sterile "hospital conditions" of a totally automated bottling line. Either process must include methods for sterilizing the bottles, standardizing the fill level, inserting the corks, covering them with capsules or foils, attaching the labels and boxing the bottles for storage or shipment.

Until the Industrial Revolution, the growth of the wine industry was almost entirely territorial and hardly at all technical. In 1957, Industrialist-Diplomat James D. Zellerbach opened a new winery in Sonoma, dedicated to and named after his wife Hannah and modeled in great detail after the architecture and methods of Clos de Vougeot in Burgogne ("Burgundy"), France. Hanzell was the first winery to use stainless steel for fermentation and to import French oak barrels, both of which are common elements of modern winemaking.
 
Mechanical advances such as field crushers, bladder and roto presses, stainless steel tanks, micropore filters, refrigeration, vacuum-bottling and other devices and methods have all evolved in the past four decades. These inventions have primarily had the effect of allowing the winemaker to have more control over the process and to gain a measure of consistency. This control has stimulated the industry to examine, experiment and perfect their techniques and methods.

"Modern" methods are often simply extensions of circumstances that have occurred naturally over the history of "primitive" wine making, such as inducing malolactic fermentation. One fairly recent technique is cold-soaking (also called pre-fermentation maceration) the fruit in tanks chilled to 45° or below for several hours or days to postpone the start of alcoholic fermentation. This technique mimics what may happen during particularly cold harvest seasons. The chilling seems to enhance color and preserve more of the fruit character in the wine before the alcohol reaches a level that causes a high extraction of tannin. This technique is becoming quite common with Pinot Noir because without it Pinot Noir's tend to be light in color.

It may be that the finest wines are produced with the natural or wild yeast that balances the various alcohols, which may be more desirable. Natural yeast fermentation also carries the risk that the fermentation will not continue to a stable level of alcohol (above 11%) or that the vinegar yeast will take the process beyond wine and into salad dressing. In any case, man is rediscovering Nature to be the greatest wine maker of all.

 If you have a question that has not been covered in this section, ask us by e-mail (beekman@conversent.net). We'll try to send you a straight answer. Beware that we have strong opinions and there are many other opinions out there.