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Facts About Wine
By Gus Clemens
See some sediment? Don’t panic, can be good
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Sometimes you may notice a “sludge-like” residue in wine in the bottle or at the bottom of your glass. Yikes!
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Cellar or open now? For most, right now is good
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When should you drink a wine? Right away, wait a while, or after cellaring for years?
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Price makes a difference in the wine you enjoy
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Research shows that, unlike most beverage products, price loyalty is much stronger than brand loyalty when you buy wine.
Coke drinkers seldom are persuaded to drink Pepsi because Pepsi is on sale. Wine is different. What you are willing to pay is major factor in what you like and what you buy.
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Wine made in Texas no longer is a novelty item
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Wine is booming in the United States, and Texas yearns to be part of the story. The Lone Star State already is the fifth-largest wine producing state.
Before firing up your Texas braggadocio machine, however, be mindful that Texas and 48 other states remain vinicultural Lilliputians compared to California’s Brobdingnagian wine industry.
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U.S. closes on France as world’s top wine market
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If you sense more friends enjoy wine today than ever before, you are correct.
The U.S. wine market is one the fastest growing in the world, accounting for 12 percent of global wine consumption. U.S. recently passed Italy as second-largest wine consuming country in the world; we are closing on France. France! Who knew?
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Enjoy wine? Give thanks for grapes and trees
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Most wine, especially reds, are product of two plants: grapevines and trees, usually oaks.
It is a natural marriage—grapevines are forest dwellers in their natural environment.
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Wine alcohol levels can be hot debate, taxing story
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Blame global warming, blowzy American tastes, Robert Parker: alcohol levels in wine are rising.
As grapes ripen, they accumulate sugar—which converts into alcohol during fermentation. More sugar means higher alcohol. Today, grape growers produce riper, sweeter grapes than ever before.
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Extreme Value
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If you are over 30, you probably equate wine quality with wine price. Wine makers love you, really love you.
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Tempranillo
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Spain! Blood in the sand on a sunny afternoon. Explosive passion. Bold, reckless courage amid urgent, masculine strums of a guitar and taunting clicks of flamenco heels.
Surely Tempranillo, Spain’s signature wine grape, personifies hyper-macho assertiveness.
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Elegant spit part of the charm at a wine tasting
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Generally, people regard wine drinkers as somewhat refined, maybe even effete and hoity-toity, the sort of people you don’t imagine openly spitting in public like déclassé snuff dippers or baseball players.
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Wine rube avoidance
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Wine rube avoidance
Drinking wine should be fun, not an exercise in snobbish one-upmanship.
Still, when enjoying wine you don’t want to sound stupid, so here are some basic tips to avoid coming across as wine rube.
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Grenache
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Grenache resembles an actor who just misses in a solo leading role, but consistently shines in an ensemble cast.
Best known today for its role in France’s southern Rhône, Grenache debuted in Spain, where it is known as Garnacha and often blends with Tempranillo.
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Four Ws of wine Part #2
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W’s determine wine’s destiny
What grapes were used? Where were they grown? When were they grown? Who made the wine?
This week: when and who.
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Four Ws of wine Part #1
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W’s determine wine’s destiny.
What grapes were used? Where were they grown? When were they grown? Who made the wine?
This week: what and where.
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Sulfites
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"Contains sulfites"—sobering warning found on almost every wine label.
Cause for alarm? Yes, for very severe asthmatics—but many foods cause them problems. One dried apricot has 10 times the sulfites as one glass of wine.
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Saber champagne
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For beverage so elegant, it is ironic optimum way to open champagne is pedestrian. Drape towel over cork, grip towel and bottle neck together, work cork so it eases into towel. No danger of cork flying, no fizz spews out of bottle—at the price of good stuff, why squander a single bubble?
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Decanting
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To decant or not to decant. That is the question. Is it nobler of the vine to suffer the slings and arrows of tannic tightness, or to take up arms against it with a sea of aeration, and—by so opposing—soften them?
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Elements of Wine - Fruitiness
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Wine has five components that determine taste and quality: alcohol, acid, tannin, sweetness/dryness, fruitiness. This week, final component: fruitiness.
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Elements of Wine - Sweetness/dryness
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Wine has five components that determine taste and quality: alcohol, acid, tannin, sweetness/dryness, fruitiness. Previously alcohol, acid, and tannin; this week sweetness/dryness.
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Elements of Wine - Tannin
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Wine has five components that determine taste and quality: alcohol, acid, tannin, sweetness/dryness, fruitiness. Last weeks alcohol and acid; this week tannin.
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Elements of Wine - Acid
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Wine has five components that determine taste and quality: alcohol, acid, tannin, sweetness/dryness, and fruitiness.
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Elements of Wine - Alcohol
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Wine has five components that determine taste and quality: alcohol, acid, tannin, sweetness/dryness, fruitiness. Know these and you can hang with wine snobs (if that’s your thing). More important, you can enhance your enjoyment of wine.
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Fred Franzia
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Fred Franzia drives fellow winemakers crazy mad. At the same time, he makes wine drinkers who value value wines crazy happy.
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World Grape Production
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Which countries plant most acres of grapevines, produce the most wine, and harvest the most grapes? Prepare for surprises.
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Bottle Openers
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Given wine's history, you'd think best way to pull cork was solved. Not so.
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Vintage - Part 2
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Old wine seller maxim: “Best vintage is the one you have to sell.”
Modern winemaking reduces importance of vintage—harvest year—as quality indicator, but does not render vintage meaningless.
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Vintage - Part 1
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Grapes are an agricultural product-world's most planted fruit crop. As every farmer and backyard gardener knows, weather affects quality.
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Glassware
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Because smell is an important part of wine enjoyment-likely the most important-wineglasses are specially shaped to present a wine's "nose" (bouquet). Swirl the wine to expose it to air and release aroma, then put your nose into the glass and experience the wine's individual smell.
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Wine Tasting
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There are three elements to formal tasting of wine: look, smell, taste.
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Wine Drinking Temperatures
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Wine experts say Americans serve white wines too cold and red wines too hot.
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Carlos Rossi
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San Angeloans buy more Franzia House Favorites boxed wines than any other wine. Carlo Rossi jug wines are another top seller.
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Bottle Closure
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Historically, "pulling cork" is iconic to the wine experience. "Pulling plastic" and "twisting screw cap", not so much. Closure opens up a wine world quandary.
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Wine Storage
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Heat, temperature fluctuation, and light are wine's enemies, and things you need to consider if you don't consume wine shortly after purchase.
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Cork
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Traditionally, wine is a marvelous marriage of two plants: wine grapevines and cork oak trees.
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Wine Color
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Wine color tells how the wine was made, and it can tell how old the wine may be and its quality.
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Storing Leftover Wine
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What do you do when you don’t finish a bottle of wine?
The problem arises when you taste several wines or simply don’t want to drink an entire bottle by yourself or with a friend.
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