Food Commodities 37

Wine

The fermented juice of a fruit, typically freshly gathered ripe grapes. The sugar in the fruit being converted into alcohol by the action of yeasts  in the process of fermentation.

History of Wine

The earliest archaeological evidence of wine oldest evidence of wine production has been found in Armenia(c. 4100BC), where the oldest winery to date was uncovered.

The altered consciousness produced by wine has been considered religious since its origin. The Greeks worshiped Dionysus or Bacchus and the Romans carried on his cult.Consumption of ritual wine was part of Jewish practice since Biblical times and, as part of the eucharist commemorating Jesus's Last Supper, became even more essential to the Christian Church. Although Islam nominally forbade the production or consumption of wine, during its Golden Age, alchemists such as Geber pioneered wine's distillation for medicinal and industrial purposes such as the production of perfume.

Wine production and consumption increased, burgeoning from the 15th century onwards as part of European expansion. Despite the devastating 1887 phylloxera louse infestation, modern science and technology adapted and industrial wine production and wine consumption now occur throughout the world.

The origins of wine predate written records, and modern archaeology is still uncertain about the details of the first cultivation of wild grapevines. It has been hypothesized that early humans climbed trees to pick berries, liked their sugary flavor, and then begun collecting them. After a few days with fermentation setting in, juice at the bottom of any container would begin producing low-alcohol wine. According to this theory, things changed around 10.000-8000 BC with the transition from a nomadic to a sedentism style of living, which led to agriculture and wine domestication.

Wild grapes grow in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the northern Levant, coastal and southeastern Turkey, and northern Iran. The fermenting of strains of this wild Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris (the ancestor of th e modern wine grape, V. vinifera) would have become easier following the development of pottery during the later Neolithic, c. 11,000 BC. The earliest discovered evidence, however, dates from several millennia later.

Oldest Discovered Winery 

The oldest-known winery was discovered in the "Areni-1" cave in Vayots Dzor, Armenia. Dated to c. 4100 BC, the site contained a wine press, fermentation vats, jars, and cups.

Archaeologists also found V. vinifera seeds and vines. Commenting on the importance of the find, McGovern said, "The fact that winemaking was already so well developed in 4000 BC suggests that the technology probably goes back much earlier."

The seeds were from Vitis vinifera vinifera, a grape still used to make wine. The cave remains date to about 4000 BC - 900 years before the earliest comparable wine remains, found in Egyptian tombs.

This is what CNN wrote: "Forget France. It turns out, the real birthplace of wine may be in a cave in Armenia."

Earliest Known Winery Found in Armenian Cave: James Owen from National Geographic News quotes archaeologist Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles: "The site gives us a new insight into the earliest phase of horticulture—how they grew the first orchards and vineyards". "It's the oldest proven case of documented and dedicated wine production, stretching back the horizons of this important development by thousands of years," said Gregory Areshian, co-director of the excavation and assistant director of the University of California Los Angeles's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.

Types of Wine

Types of white wine grapes

RIESLING

Old Vine of riesling

(Rees-ling)

Food-wine pairing: dry versions go well with fish, chicken and pork dishes.

Districts: the classic German grape of the Rhine and Mosel, riesling grows in all wine districts. Germany’s great Rieslings are usually made slightly sweet, with steely acidity for balance. Riesling from Alsace and the Eastern USA is also excellent, though usually made in a different style, equally aromatic but typically drier (not sweet). California Rieslings are much less successful, usually sweet and lacking in acidity for balance.

Typical taste in varietal wine: Riesling wines are much lighter than Chardonnay wines. The aromas generally include fresh apples. The riesling variety expresses itself very differently depending on the district and the winemaking. Rieslings should taste fresh. If they do, then they might also prove tastier and tastier as they age.

GEwÜRZTRAMINER

Gewürztraminer

(Gah-vurtz-tra-meener) A very aromatic variety.

Food-wine pairing: ideal for sipping and with Asian food, pork and grilled sausages.

Districts: best-known in Alsace, Germany, the USA West Coast, and New York.

Typical taste in varietal wine: fruity flavours with aromas of rose petal, peach, lychee, and allspice. A Gewürztraminer often appears not as refreshing as other kinds of dry whites.

CHARDONNAY

Chardonnay vine

(Shar-doe-nay) Chardonnay was the most popular white grape through the 1990’s. It can be made sparkling or still.

Food-wine pairing: it is a good choice for fish and chicken dishes.

Districts: chardonnay makes the principle white wine of Burgundy (France), where it originated. Chardonnay is grown with success in most viticultural areas under a variety of climatic conditions.

Typical taste in varietal wine: often wider-bodied (and more velvety) than other types of dry whites, with rich citrus (lemon, grapefruit) flavours. Fermenting in new oak barrels adds a buttery tone (vanilla, toast, coconut, toffee). Tasting a USD 15 Californian Chardonnay should give citrus fruit flavours, hints of melon, vanilla, some toasty character and some creaminess. Burgundy whites can taste very different.

SAUVIGNON BLANC

Sauvignon blanc

(So-vee-nyon Blah)

Food-wine pairing: a versatile food wine for seafood, poultry, and salads.

Districts: New Zealand produces some excellent Sauvignon Blancs. Some Australian Sauvignon Blancs, grown in warmer areas, tends to be flat and lack fruit qualities. Of French origin, sauvignon blanc is grown in the Bordeaux district where it is blended with semillon. It is also grown extensively in the upper Loire valley where it is made as a varietal wine.

Typical taste in varietal wine: generally lighter than Chardonnay — Sauvignon blanc normally shows a herbal character suggesting bell pepper or freshly mown grass. The dominating flavours range from sour green fruits of apple, pear and gooseberry through to tropical fruits of melon, mango and blackcurrant. Quality unoaked Sauvignon Blancs will display smokey qualities; they require bright aromas and a strong acid finish; they are best grown in cool climates.

Types of red wine grapes

SYRAH

Syrah vine 

(Sah-ra or Shi-raz) Shiraz or syrah are two names for the same variety. Europe vine growers and winemakers only use the name syrah.

Food-wine pairing: meat (steak, beef, wild game, stews, etc.)

Districts: syrah excels in France’s Rhône Valley, California and Australia.

Typical taste in varietal wine: aromas and flavours of wild black-fruit (such as blackcurrant), with overtones of black pepper spice and roasting meat. The abundance of fruit sensations is often complemented by warm alcohol and gripping tannins.

Toffee notes if present come not from the fruit but from the wine having rested in oak barrels.

The shiraz variety gives hearty, spicy reds. While shiraz is used to produce many average wines it can produce some of the world’s finest, deepest, and darkest reds with intense flavours and excellent longevity.

MERLOT

Merlot vine

(Mer-lo) Easy to drink. Its softness has made it an "introducing" wine for new red-wine drinkers.

Food-wine pairing: any will do.

Districts: a key player in the Bordeaux blend, merlot is now also grown on the US West Coast, Australia, and other countries.

Typical taste in varietal wine: black-cherry and herbal flavours are typical. The texture is round but a middle palate gap is common.

CABERNET SAUVIGNON

Cabernet Sauvignon

(Ka-ber-nay So-vee-nyon) Widely accepted as one of the world’s best varieties. Cabernet sauvignon is often blended with cabernet franc and merlot. It usually undergoes oak treatment.

Food-wine pairing: best with simply prepared red meat.

Districts: cabernet sauvignon is planted wherever red wine grapes grow except in the Northern fringes such as Germany. It is part of the great red Médoc wines of France, and among the finest reds in Australia, California and Chile.

Typical taste in varietal wine: full-bodied, but firm and grippingwhen young. With age, rich currant qualities change to that of pencil box. Bell pepper notes remain.

Vanilla notes if present come not from the fruit but from the oak treatment.

PINOT NOIR

Pinot noir

(Pee-no Nwar) One of the noblest red wine grapes — difficult to grow, rarely blended, with no roughness.

Food-wine pairing: excellent with grilled salmon, chicken, lamb and Japanese dishes.

Districts: makes the great reds of Burgundy in France, and good wines from Austria, California, Oregon, and New Zealand.

Typical taste in varietal wine: very unlike Cabernet Sauvignon. The structure is delicate and fresh. The tannins are very soft; this is related to the low level of polyphenols. The aromatics are very fruity (cherry, strawberry, plum), often with notes of tea-leaf, damp earth, or worn leather.

Yet pinot noir is very transparent to the place where it is grown. The staggering range of wines produced makes it pointless to define which personality is the best expression of the variety.

How Wine is Made ?

Depending on the grape, the region and the kind of wine that a winemaker wishes to produce, the exact steps in the harvesting process will vary in time, technique and technology. But for the most part, every wine harvest includes these basic vine-to-wine steps:

1. Pick the grapes
2. Crush the grapes
3. Ferment the grapes into wine
4. Age the wine
5. Bottle the wine

Wine Harvest 101: From Grapes to Glass

1. Pick the grapes

Most vineyards will start with white grapes and then move to red varietals. The grapes are collected in bins or lugs and then transported to the crushing pad. This is where the process of turning grapes into juice and then into wine begins.

Man vs. Machine: The grapes are either cut from the vine by human hands with shears or they are removed by a machine.

Hand harvesting is more labor intensive but can offer superior results for small wineries.

Night Harvest vs Day Harvest: The grapes are either picked during the day or at night to maximize efficiency, beat the heat and capture grapes at stable sugar levels.

Night harvesting is common in warm climate regions.

At this point in the process, the grapes are still intact with their stems—along with some leaves and sticks that made their way from the vineyards. These will all be removed in the next step.

A basket of Vignoles grape, a rare hybrid grape of unidentified origin that grows well in cool climate regions.

2. Crush the grapes

No matter how or when the grapes were picked, they all get crushed in some fashion in the next step. The destemmer, which is a piece of winemaking machinery that does exactly what it says, removes the stems from the clusters and lightly crushes the grapes.

These Chardonnay grapes are being sorted on a ‘sorting table’ before going into the destemmer and crusher at Donnafugata Winery in Sicily.

White grapes being put directly into a crusher where they are separated from the skins and seeds for the entire fermentation process.

White Wine: Once crushed, the white grapes are transferred into a press, which is another piece of winemaking equipment that is literal to its name. All of the grapes are pressed to extract the juice and leave behind the grape skins. The pure juice is then transferred into tanks where sediment settles to the bottom of the tank. After a settling period, the juice is then “racked”, which means it’s filtered out of the settling tank into another tank to insure all the sediment is gone before fermentation starts.

This is what the bottom of the grape crusher looks like as the juice is squeezed out.

Red Wine: Red wine grapes are also commonly destemmed and lightly crushed. The difference is that these grapes, along with their skins, go straight into a vat to start fermentation on their skins. This is what imparts the red color into red wine, otherwise, red grapes would also make a white wine.

Red grapes wait to be crushed and put in fermentation tanks.

Here’s what the juice from white grapes look like prior to fermenting and becoming wine. It’s quite frothy and will range in flavor from sour to sweet —depending on the grape.

3. Fermenting Grapes into Wine

Simply put, fermentation is where the sugar converts into alcohol. There are plenty of techniques and technologies used during this process to accompany the different kinds of grapes. To keep things simple, this stage mainly includes:

• red and white wines: yeast is added to the vats so that fermentation can take place.
• red wines: carbon dioxide is released during fermentation which causes the grape skins to rise to the surface. Winemakers must punch down or pump over the “cap” several times a day to keep the skins in contact with the juice.
• red wines: the grapes are pressed after fermentation is complete. After racking to clarify the wine, the reds will spend several months aging in barrels.

A view from above looking into a large fermentation tank in Portugal.

Some winemakers use yeast nutrients to bolster the fermentation. This is a bucket of white grape juice, yeast and a yeast nutrient called Diammonium Phosphate. The winemaker waits 20-30 minutes for the mix to start bubbling and then adds it to the fermentation.

4. Age the wine

Winemakers have lots of choices in this step, and again they all depend on the kind of wine one wants to create. Flavors in a wine become more intense due to several of these winemaking choices:

• Aging for several years vs. several months
• Aging in stainless steel vs. oak
• Aging in new oak vs. ‘neutral’ or used barrels
• Aging in American oak barrels vs. French oak barrels
• Aging in various levels of ‘toasted’ barrels (i.e. charred by fire)

Stainless steel tanks are readied for harvest by Tavis Harris, the enologist at Stone Hill Winery, Hermann, Missouri.

The barrel aging room at Dinastia Vivanco in Rioja smelled richly of vanilla and spice.

5. Bottle the wine

When the winemaker feels a wine has reached its full expression in aging, then it’s time to bottle the wine for consumption. And the rest is history, my friends.

• Some white wines are ready to be bottled after a few months.
• Most dry reds need 18-24 months of aging before bottling.

Bottling lines can be completely automated or done by hand. 

How to used Wine

Not only used in beverage wine can be used in food to enhanced the flavor. The alcohol in the wine evaporates while the food is cooking, and only the flavor remains. Boiling down wine concentrates the flavor, including acidity and sweetness. Be careful not to use too much wine as the flavor could overpower your dish. For best results, wine should not be added to a dish just before serving.

Sources

@ Webster's New World Dictionary of Culinary Arts by Steven Labensky, Gaye G.Ingram, Sarah R.Labensky
@ Larouss'e Gastronomique by Prosper Montagne
@ http://winefolly.com/review/how-wine-is-made-in-pictures/
@ http://www.frenchscout.com/types-of-wines
@ where the oldest winery to date was uncovered.
@ https://whatscookingamerica.net/WineInCooking.htm