What is Beaujolais Nouveau?

Ever heard of Beaujolais Nouveau?  Well, its name literally mean 'new Beaujolais' and it really is 'new.'  

On the third Thursday of each November, France releases Beaujolais Nouveau wine to the world. The 'new' part of this wine is due to the fact that the grapes used to make this wine are picked from the vineyards just a couple of months prior to its release!  Yes, just of couple of months! That's compared to most wines that spend a year or more going through the fermentation and aging process before being bottled and shipped to market.  But Beaujolais Nouveau gets from the vineyard to you in about two months!

Word has it that this wine was originally produced for the harvest workers in France to immediately thank them for all their hard work just after harvest was complete. But now its production is somewhere between 30-60 million bottles so that the entire world can enjoy.

This wine is named for the village of Beaujeu in France, which is a small region just south of Burgundy. And there is a celebration in France each year, the 'Les Sarmentelles' festival to celebrate the release of Beaujolais Nouveau that includes music, dancing, fireworks and plenty of wine.

This wine is produced entirely from handpicked Gamay grapes and because it is so new, it is very fresh and fruity. Many describe Beaujolais Nouveau as having flavors of candied cherries, strawberries, red plum, bananas and even bubble gum!  When was the last time you heard of a wine having flavors of banana and bubble gum?  

Many may say that Beaujolais Nouveau is "not very good," but you have to look at the fact that millions of bottles are sold worldwide and that Beaujolais Nouveau is meant to be enjoyed, not critiqued.  What you will find is that this wine is low in tannin (doesn't make you mouth feel dry) and has high acidity (mouth watering) and is great with foods.

So go out to a local wine store and pick up a bottle or two of Beaujolais Nouveau.  It's not going to be the best wine you've ever tried, but it will be an experience. And raise your glass to the French harvest workers and, for that matter, all vineyard harvest worker around the world. Rather than critique it, just enjoy it!  Cheers!

Try a Different Wine this Year with Your Turkey

As American's approach Thanksgiving, we have our traditions. And, tradition often dictates what wines will be served with our Thanksgiving meal.  

Conventional wisdom says that with the traditional turkey you must serve a white wine.  And white wines do go well with turkey.  Traditional white wine choices include:

• Gewürztraminer - One of the Thanksgiving favorites. This is a highly aromatic wine with floral touches and spice notes such as cloves and nutmeg.
• Riesling - This has spicy, fruity flavors with touches of peaches or apricots and a floral fragrance that compliments the meal well.
• Sauvignon Blanc - Light and crisp, with grassy or herbaceous flavors and higher acidity.  This wine goes well with all the rich foods on the table.
• Pinot Grigio - Light and zesty with flavors of lemon, melon and peach.
• Chardonnay - A common choice, but best to go with the lighter and fruiter un-oaked versions that work best with all the flavors on the Thanksgiving table.

And, rosé and sparkling wines are also natural pairings with turkey. 

But turkey, by itself, is a pretty neutral meat.  And therefore, you can pair your wines just as easily with all the fixings that go along with the turkey. And red wines will often work exceptionally well with your meal.  Just as cranberry sauce goes on the table, a nice fruity red wine is a great choice:

• Beaujolais - Light, dry and fresh with fruity flavors. And you can serve it slightly chilled.
• Pinot Noir - Another lighter red with flavors of cherry, raspberry and strawberry. If you are in the French wine isle, this is called a red Burgundy. And this too can be served slightly chilled.
• Carignan - This red wine is a bit higher in tannins and acid, with flavors of dark and black fruits, pepper, licorice, and spicy, savory aromas.
• Rhône Blends - Rhône wines focus on Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre grapes, producing medium-bodied spicy blends.
• Zinfandel - Here's a red wine that can really work with a Thanksgiving meal. Lots of intense, plummy, jammy flavors with spicy or peppery notes.

One note with the red wines, avoid the dry and tannic ones (e.g., Cabernet Sauvignon) which can get lost in the presence of all the fruit, sugar, and salt on the Thanksgiving table.

So this year try at least one non-traditional wine with your Thanksgiving meal. But, most importantly, drink what you enjoy most!  Cheers!

Oak and Its Effect on Wine's Flavor

Last time we discussed how all the fruit flavors get into wine. We discussed that wines don't actually contain fruit other than grapes, but the grapes, the soil they are grown in, the fermentation process, and the aging process can impart other fruit flavors.

Another way that flavors can be added to wine is through oak aging.  Oak barrels add additional quality, character and smoothness to wines and can create flavors of vanilla, butterscotch, coconut, toffee, caramel, butter, mocha, coffee and smokiness. 

The vanilla flavor in wines come directly from compounds in the oak itself. But often the interiors of wine barrels are 'toasted' over an open flame. This process affects the degree of flavor added to the wine. Barrels may be toasted light, medium or heavy. Light toasting of the barrels results in wines having flavors of butterscotch, toffee, caramel, coconut, and butter. Wine flavors of mocha, coffee and smokiness are brought out of the oak by heavier toasting of the barrels. 

Oak barrel aging is used for most red and white wines of the world. But, it comes with a cost.  French oak, which is considered the 'gold standard' of oak barrels, can cost $800 to $4000 dollars each.  And an oak barrel is only able to add flavors to wines through two to three uses. After that, oak barrels become 'neutral' and are simply used as vessels for storing wines with little or no flavor being added. Oak barrels from the U.S. cost $350 - $500 each and, like French oak, only impart flavor during their first two to three uses.

One oak tree can only produce enough wood for approximately two barrels, or 50 cases of wine. And, when aging wine in a barrel, the wine only comes in contact with the oak on the inside of the barrel. So, winemakers seek alternative ways of getting oak flavors in their wines. Options include adding oak chips, oak cubes or oak staves directly into the wine as it ages in stainless steel tanks. This allows the entire surface area of the oak to be in contact the wine and is much less costly than barrels.

So start paying attention to these wonderful flavors in your wines. And remember, all the flavors are coming from grapes, yeast and sometimes oak.  Cheers!

How Do All Those Flavors Get Into Wine?

Last time we took a quick run through how wine is made. And you may have noticed that there are only two ingredients in wine: grapes and yeast.  Yet, white wines can be described as having flavors that include lemon, lime, grapefruit, apple, peach, pear and orange.  And red wines can be described as having flavors of cherry, raspberry, strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, plum and fig.  And then there are descriptions of vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, chocolate, tobacco, leather, and even tar, just to name a few.  But, if wine is only made from grapes and yeast, how do wines get all those other flavors? 

To answer this, we need to review taste, smell and flavor. First, let's start with taste.  If you recall, the taste buds on your tongue are able to distinguish sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. You also have nerves in your mouth that give you additional senses such as temperature and texture or feel.  These nerves can yield sensations of smooth, creamy, or dry, for example.  So these are the senses inside your mouth.  

Then secondly, and most importantly, is smell or aroma. Aroma is what is detected in your nose and nasal passages.  As you eat or drink, aromas pass up through your nasal passages where you get additional information about what you are consuming.

And finally flavor is how the brain puts together the senses of taste and smell.

So then back to wine. When you sip a wine you are getting information from your tongue, nose and nasal passages. And while there are only the four tastes being detected by your tongue there are a multitude of aromas being detected by your nose and nasal passages. The aromas get released by the wine through the alcohol, which is lighter than air, and evaporates easily from your glass.  Your brain then puts together the information on the tastes and smells of the wine and equates them with tastes and smells that you already know. Thus, those amazing little grapes are able to cause your brain to sense additional fruit flavors without even a trace of the fruits actually being in the wine.

Aging wine in oak barrels also adds many other dimensions to the flavors in wines. And we'll discuss those next time.

But for now, remember the four S's of wine tasting (1) Swirl your wine in the glass to release all the aromas, (2) Smell the wine's bouquet, (3) Sip the wine and leave it in your mouth briefly, and then (4) Swallow (or Spit) and experience the wine's lingering 'finish.'  Then try to name all the wonderful fruit flavors that you experience. All just from grapes! Cheers!

The Grapes are Harvested! But How Do They Become Wine?

Vineyards have been busy the last couple of months with harvest.  Once the grapes have been determined to be at just the right ripeness, it's a big rush to get them off the vines and out of the vineyard. And then the magic begins. Turning bunches of grapes into fine wines.  But, how does that happen?

It starts as soon as the grapes reach the winery where the grapes may be de-stemmed or left in whole bunches, depending on the grapes being used and the winemaker's desired outcome. In either case, the grapes are sorted to eliminate any that don't meet the winemaker's standards and to remove any leaves or other foreign matter that might be mixed in with the grapes.  

Now, the biggest difference is that white wine grapes are immediately pressed and the juice is separated from the grape skins and seeds.  But with red wines, the whole grapes or clusters are kept intact. The contact of the juice with the dark skins is what gives a red wine its color. Otherwise red wines would come out nearly clear. And when producing rosé, the dark grape skins are only left in contact with the juice for a brief period of time (hours) in order to just give it a pink hue.

Then it's on to fermentation. Large tanks are used in this process and here is where yeast is added.  It's the natural sugar in the juice of the grape that gets consumed by the live yeast. The bi-product of the yeast's consumption of sugar is alcohol and carbon dioxide (CO2).  Remember that red wines have the juice and skins together in the fermentation tank and the production of CO2 causes all the skins to float to the top of the tank.  So winemaker's have to periodically 'punch down' the skins to intermix them with the juice or 'pump over' the juice as another means of keeping the skins mixed in with the juice. But regardless of the grape type, the fermentation process is relative quick, lasting typically from ten days to two weeks.

Once fermentation is complete, white wines will be moved to stainless steel tanks or oak barrels for aging.  It's at this point that the red wine juice is now separated from the skins and moved to vessels for aging. Typically, red wines are aged in oak barrels, but steel tanks and concrete tanks may also be used.  White wines may be aged for months where reds may be aged for years. The aging times will vary considerably, again depending on the winemaker's preference.

Many oaked white wines and red wines will then undergo another process called malolactic conversion.  This converts the sharp and tart tasting malic acid to softer, smoother lactic acid.

At this point the wines may go through a process called 'racking' where the wine is periodically siphoned or gravity-feed to another vessel to separate the wine from any remaining sediment that has settled in the vessel.  The reds may also undergo a 'fining' process to remove sediment and particles using a binding medium such as egg whites.  Once these processes are complete, the wine is bottled, getting a cork (or twist-off cap), a foil capsule and a label, and then the bottles are boxed into cases and are ready to ship.

And it's just that easy!  But as has been said many times, making wine is easy -- making good wine is hard.  And so, while this process sound relatively simple, it's the great winemaker's, and their attention to details, that makes great wines.

Next time well talk about how the winemaker gets all those amazing flavors into wine. Cheers!