How Sweet is Your Riesling? (part 2)

Many people avoid Rieslings because they don’t drink sweet wine.  However, Rieslings can be completely dry, extremely sweet, and everything in between.  The trouble is that it’s often difficult to tell how sweet any given bottle will be.  I've written before about the German system that can help with this, but now there's an even easier way!

The International Riesling Foundation has come to the rescue!  It has developed a sweetness scale that winemakers can include on their labels.  This scale is designed to “make it easier for consumers to predict the taste they can expect from a particular bottle of Riesling,” help consumers find wines they’ll enjoy, and thus help producers sell more wine.  The scale is entirely voluntary, but hopefully many producers will decide to participate.  (The scale was first available for the 2008 vintage.)

Wine Infographics

Edit:  Since my collection of wine cheat sheets is growing, I've added a label for them.  See them all here.
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I've been working on a follow-up to the article I recently posted about German Riesling, but between prepping for a new class I'll be teaching next year and deciding to hand-make some of my Christmas presents, that hasn't been finished yet!  In the meantime, I thought I'd point out a few helpful wine infographics.

I love everything from De Long.  (They have good Christmas gifts too.)  Their Wine Grape Varietal Table is a great way to get familiar with the many grape varieties available, and does an excellent job of explaining each grape's flavor characteristics, acid and tannin levels, and in which wines and regions it's usually found.  (I may hang this on the wall above my desk at home.)

I've recently discovered their Metro Wine Maps of California and France.  These provide a great way to learn about the appellations of those regions, and the maps include info on the grapes as well as local landmarks.  (The main thing keeping me from hanging the varietal table over my desk at home is that I can't decide if I'd rather have the French wine map.)

De Long also offers a handy vintage chart as a free pdf download in color or black and white.  This one is small enough to fold up in your pocket and take with you to the wine shop.  It covers all the years back to 1990.

Robert Parker offers a free vintage chart as well, but it's less visually appealing.  However it does go all the way back to 1970.

Enjoy!

A Little Chemistry Explains a Lot

I’ve mentioned before that the French Wine Society has great on-demand webinars for members.  I watched one this past week on the subject of wine aromas, and it was fascinating.  The most interesting thing I learned was a very simple fact about wine chemistry which explains a lot about aging and storing wine.

Acid + Alcohol = Esters

Wine contains molecules of acid and alcohol.  I’m no chemist, but basically those molecules are moving around and bumping into each to each other inside the wine bottle.  Eventually, they’ll start hooking up (wine can have that effect) and forming new, larger molecules.  These new molecules are called esters.  (I’ve mentioned them before.)

What Older Wines Have That Younger Ones Don’t

Esters give wine its aroma.  The longer the wine sits in the bottle and ages, the more esters (and aromas) are formed, and the more complex they get.  This is why older wines are so highly prized!  (Keep in mind that not all wines are capable of aging.  Only certain wines will continue to improve for more than a few years.)

Why Vibration Matters During Storage

While the wine is aging, in order for all these esters to be formed, the wine has to be kept still.  When it’s moved around or shaken, those esters fall apart and the complex aromas can be lost.  This is why limiting vibration is important.  So if you’re storing wine for an extended period of time, you need a cooler designed for wine, and not just a refrigerator.  And try to avoid moving the bottles around if you can.

The term bottle shock (there’s even a movie about it) refers to the effect that being jostled and moved around has on the wine.  For example, if a wine is opened immediately after being shipped on an airplane, it will not show its best.  It needs a little time to rest in order for those esters which were broken apart to reform.  And if it’s really shaken up, it may never be quite as good as it was.  This is because some esters are formed after the wine is in the bottle, but others can only form during fermentation.   So if you lose those, you can’t get them back.

It’s nice to learn that older wines have great aromas or that vibration is bad for wine, but I always want to know why those things are true.  I guess I just need to start studying chemistry.

An Unusual Use for an Award-Winning Texas Wine

The 2013 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo wine awards have just been announced.  TX Wine Lover has 2 good posts on the awards won by Texas wineries, here and here.  I'm excited to find that I have 4 or 5 of the medal winners in my stash at home, and I'm looking forward to drinking them!  But there's one medal winner that I have other plans for...

I love to cook, and I'm especially interested in the history of food culture and what we eat.  I even wrote a master's thesis on food in Shakespeare's works.  A few years ago my very cool, chef sister-in-law gave me a book of Roman recipes - Cooking Apicius.  The Roman recipes call for a host of unusual ingredients, including passum, a sweet raisined wine (made from semi-dried grapes).  The Romans drank and cooked with passum, and the earliest recipe for it comes from the 2nd century BC.

It turns out that Bruno and George's "Other Than Standard" Raisin Wine from Sour Lake, TX (near Beaumont) is a great substitute for passum, and it just won a bronze medal in the raisin wine category.  I bought it last year at Spec's for about $12, but I don't see it on the Spec's website today.  I hope they haven't stopped carrying it.

As for how it tastes, the Bruno and George website compares it to a tawny port, and I would agree, although I don't believe it's fortified like a port.  It's very sweet, with aromas and flavors of raisins, dried cherries, toasted nuts, and caramel.  At 16.2% alcohol, it's strong, but not as strong as port.  I prefer it chilled, and it would be tasty with anything you'd pair a tawny port with - sipped with a not-too-sweet dessert, with dark chocolate, poured over vanilla ice cream, or enjoyed in a more European style with an appetizer of foie gras or cured meats.

If you've never had a raisin wine, give it a try!  It's a wine experience both new and very, very old.

Great Educational Resource: The French Wine Society

I've been brushing up my French wine knowledge lately, because I may have the opportunity to teach a class on French wine soon.  If you're interested in learning about French wine, the French Wine Society website is a great resource.  Here's an overview of what is offered free and what is offered to members.  (Membership is $100/year, which is a bargain if you're serious about your French wine education.)

The site offers:

• Self study programs (with or without certification exams)
• Online study programs (with or without certification exams)
• A listing of in-person local classes by approved providers (with or without certification exams) -- in our area these are provided by the Texas Wine School
• Study trips to French wine regions

If you are a member, you also have access to:

• Live 1-hour webinars, offered monthly and taught by French wine experts, with the opportunity to ask questions
• Archive of all past webinars to view on demand (currently there are 49 available)
• A Pronunciation Guide for each wine region (Ecoute et répète!)
• A Knowledge Database with over 60 downloadable maps and other educational resources
• 10% off anything you purchase on the website (study materials, online courses, exams, even membership renewal)

I love having all this information at my fingertips whenever I want it, so I can learn as it's convenient for me.  Spend a few minutes exploring the French Wine Society website, and get inspired to study French wine!

The Southern Rhone Valley and Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a difficult meal to pair wine with.  Turkey calls for a white or a light red.  Heavier stuffings or dressings that involve bacon or sausage might do better with a medium-bodied red.  Sweet cranberry sauce needs something with lots of fruit character or some residual sugar.  And what if you don’t know what your relatives are bringing? 

The classic advice (and it is good advice) is to get a couple of wines that go pretty well with everything.  Pinot Noir and Riesling usually fit the bill.  They have a good amount of acidity.  They have a light- to medium-body.  And Rieslings usually have some residual sugar to balance the cranberry sauce and candied yams.

But today I was thinking that wines from the southern Rhone would be good at Thanksgiving.  Probably because I had just been to a master class on 2 southern Rhone appellations, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Tavel, led by James King of The Texas Wine School.

It’s a shame the southern Rhone Valley is unfamiliar to so many American wine drinkers.  If you like medium- to full-bodied reds, with lots of red fruit, moderate tannin, and often a hint of herbs and spice, the southern Rhone should be on your radar. 

The most common appellation you see from this region is Cotes du Rhone.  The primary grape here is Grenache (Garnacha in Spain), but others are blended in as well (Syrah and Mourvedre are the usual suspects).   Cotes du Rhones are fruity, and usually not too heavy on the tannin.  They could work at Thanksgiving, especially if your turkey is roasted with lots of herbs, or smoked, or fried.

Grenache is also the main grape in Tavel.  Tavel is the only French appellation which produces rosé wine exclusively.  These wines are dry, usually fruity, with some mineral characteristics, and plenty of acidity.  A few years ago I enjoyed a 2008 Brotte Tavel Les Eglantiers, purchased at Spec’s for around $14.  The current vintage for sale is 2010 or 2011.  The 2008 had lots of fruit and some floral aromas, plenty of acidity, and should give you an idea if you like the style of Tavel or not (although, as I learned today, there can be significant differences between one vineyard and another, and one producer and another!).   Tavels are food-friendly and strike the balance between red and white when you’re not sure which you’ll need. 

So if you’re feeling brave, try out a new wine at Thanksgiving this year.  Pick up a Cotes du Rhone or a Tavel, and see how you like it!

How to Tell if German Wine is Sweet or Dry

German wine, which is primarily made from the Riesling grape, has a reputation for being sweet, but in reality it ranges from fully dry to fully sweet.  But if the bottles don’t tell you how sweet they are (and they usually don’t), how do you find the one you want?  A little background knowledge of the German quality system, the fermentation process, and some simple math.

Sweetness Levels

Wine sweetness levels in general are usually classified on the following scale:

• Dry – not sweet at all (most wine falls here)
• Off-dry – just a little sweet (a lot of Rieslings are here)
• Medium-sweet – pretty darn sweet (Moscato d’Asti is usually classified here)
• Sweet (or fully sweet) – very sweet, like dessert (non-sparkling Moscato is often here, along with Port and Ice Wine)

Germany and Wine

Germany is the coldest wine region on Earth.  It is so cold that grapes sometimes have difficulty ripening.  Consequently, the Germans label their wines by how ripe the grapes get.  Ripeness is measured by “must weight,” which is just a fancy way of saying how much sugar the grapes have in them at harvest time. 

When the wine is fermented, it’s the sugar in the grapes that turns into alcohol.  So “must weight” can easily be translated to potential alcohol.  We say “potential” alcohol, because here winemakers have a decision to make.  They can let ALL the sugar in the grapes ferment into alcohol and create a dry wine.  Or they can stop the fermentation at any point, leaving the remaining sugar unfermented (called “residual sugar”), and creating a wine with some degree of sweetness (and less alcohol). 

Sugar/Alcohol Levels

Below are some of the names you’ll see on the labels, listed with their potential alcohol levels.  Not every bottle will be labeled with one of these names, but most of them will.  (Note:  These numbers are approximate, since each German wine region has its own unique requirements.

• Kabinett – 9.5% alcohol
• Spatlese – 11% alcohol
• Auslese – 13% alcohol
• Beerenauslese – don’t worry about potential alcohol – this one will always be sweet
• Eiswein – always very sweet
• Trokenbeerenauslese – always very sweet

The Formula!

(  % Potential Alcohol   -   % Alcohol by Volume  )  x 2     =   % Residual Sugar

You know potential alcohol from the list above.  The winemaker is not required to tell you whether his wine is sweet or not, but he IS required to tell you how much alcohol is in it!  You can find the alcohol by volume (ABV) on the bottle.  By subtracting the numbers, you can tell whether the winemaker has fermented all the sugar out of his grapes, or has left some in the wine. 

Sometimes the winemaker will label the wine as sweet or dry, “troken” (dry) or “halbtroken” (off-dry) in German.  Then you don’t have to calculate; you know about how much sugar the wine will have:

• Troken – dry, with a maximum of 1.8% residual sugar
• Half-Troken – off-dry, with a maximum of 3.6% residual sugar

But how much sugar does it take to taste sweet?

Perception of Sweetness by Percent

Here is a chart to show you about how sweet a certain percentage of sugar will taste.  I’ve posted it before, but it’ll be useful here.  (Keep in mind that individual perceptions vary.)

Let’s take this formula for a test drive.  You see a Spatlese that says it has 8% ABV.  You know that if this wine is classified as a Spatlese, the grapes had a potential alcohol level of around 11%.  Therefore:  11% minus 8% equals 3%.  3% times 2 is 6%.  6% sugar puts this wine just into the medium-sweet range. 

Pick up a bottle of German Riesling this week and let me know if this helped!  Try it with spicy Asian food! 

Some Riesling producers around the world are starting to put a sweetness scale on their labels to help with this issue, and I’m planning a post on that next week.  

Saving Your Leftovers (or, how Bear Dalton convinced me I'd been preserving my wine wrong for years!)

This week in the Rice continuing education class, Bear Dalton discussed wine preservation issues.  If having leftover wine seems strange and confusing to you, consider Bear’s approach:  “If you have leftover wine, I’m assuming you opened more than 1 bottle.”  I like that. 

Having taken a lot of other classes, I was familiar with the usual wine spoilage concepts and storage options for leftovers, but Bear took things a step further with some new information that convinced me I’ve been preserving my wine wrong for years!

Most wine drinkers know that if you don’t finish the bottle the night you open it, you need to do something to keep it fresh.  But why does wine spoil anyway, and what’s the best way to preserve it?  Let’s review why the wine spoils, some options for saving it, and then pick the best approach, with Bear’s help.   

Acid 101

Acid is probably the most important component of wine that the casual drinker doesn’t know about.  It’s crucial to the wine’s balance and flavor profile throughout the life of the wine, from the time the grapes are ripening on the vine to when you’re picking which wine to go with dinner.  (It also impacts how long the wine can age, but that’s another discussion.)  You may love the taste of it (like me), or you may prefer less of it.  Here’s some basic information that should help you to discover your own wine preferences and match them with food successfully! 

Where does it come from?

All grapes naturally contain some amount of acid.  As the grapes ripen, sugar levels increase and acid levels decrease.  Ideally, the grapes will be harvested at the precise moment when this acid/sugar balance is perfect for winemaking.  (Remember that some or all of the sugar will convert to alcohol during fermentation.)  In top quality winemaking, nothing is done to change the acid and sugar levels after the harvest.  Everywhere else, sugar or acid may be added to correct an imbalance.

The primary acid in grapes is malic acid, which is the same acid found in green apples.  Most red wines and some whites go through a process called malolactic fermentation, during which the malic acid is converted to lactic acid.  The lactic acid is smoother and less harsh.

How does it impact the wine?

When you taste wine, the acid creates a mouthwatering sensation.  If you take a sip of a crisp white wine, swish it around in your mouth, then swallow completely, you will probably notice a sudden rush of saliva in your mouth, particularly under your tongue.  This is caused by high acid levels.  The more your mouth waters, the more acid is in the wine.  Super high acid levels can even make your tongue feel prickly, like you’re drinking soda.

The acid/sugar balance is so important at harvest because it is also key to the final product.  Sweetness reduces the perception of acid, and acid reduces the perception of sweetness.  In other words, a sweet wine needs strong acidity to balance the sweetness.  A highly acidic wine will often benefit from a little extra sugar.  The amazing part is that if you compare 2 wines with the same level of sugar, but different acid levels, the 1 with more acid will taste less sweet, while the one with less acid will taste sweeter (maybe even cloying). 

 Where can I find it (or avoid it)?

The Great Bottle Closure Debate

The debate over bottle closures will likely be reinvigorated this week, as Italian authorities have recently approved the use of synthetic corks and screw caps on DOC and DOCG wines (the top 2 quality levels).  Here’s the article from Decanter:  “Italy approves synthetic closures for DOC, DOCG.”

I thought I’d provide a brief overview of some pros and cons of different bottle closures.  Personally, I prefer natural cork or screw cap, but I certainly wouldn’t refuse to buy or drink a wine just because of the closure it uses.  A screw cap doesn’t necessarily indicate a bad wine, and a natural cork doesn’t necessarily indicate a good wine.  The biggest issues with using an alternative closure on a DOCG wine, like a fine Chianti, will be oxygen and aging potential.

Natural Cork

The pros are that natural cork is a renewable resource (it comes from the bark of the cork tree and can be removed without killing the tree) and is biodegradable.  It also allows wine to age slowly over time, because its porous nature lets a small amount of oxygen circulate through.  This is key for fine wine that is meant to be aged.

The primary con is cork taint (TCA).  Depending on which study you believe, cork taint affects between 1% and 7% of all wines that use natural cork.  Cork taint creates musty, moldy, or damp cardboard smells in the wine and diminishes the fruit character.

Synthetic Cork

The main reason to use synthetic cork is that the possibility of cork taint is greatly reduced or eliminated.  Some also argue that these corks don’t dry out like natural cork, but I’ve read differing opinions on that question. 

Oxygen exchange presents a significant issue with synthetic corks.  Some types seem to let in more oxygen than natural corks, and others much less.  Too much oxygen will age or spoil the wine quickly.  Too little, and the wine could suffer from reduction, which is a wine fault that occurs when there’s not enough oxygen present.  I usually assume a wine with a synthetic cork is not meant to be held for very long before drinking.  The aging issue highlights why the above article is so important, since fine Chiantis are often cellared for a number of years.  At the least, the winemakers would need a good understanding of exactly how porous the synthetics are before using them.

Screw Cap

Screw caps used to be an indication of a cheap, poor quality wine, but that is changing.  Many quality wine producers in Australia and New Zealand are now using these closures on their wines.

The screw cap offers the same protection against cork taint as a synthetic cork, combined with easy opening.  Oxygen exchange is an issue here too though.  Screw capped wines can become reductive, and of course, a screw cap would not work for a fine wine that’s meant to age.

Further Reading

I’ve only hit the high points on these issues.  If you want to get into more detail, here are some resources: