13 posts
The grape growing cycle is currently at the point where berries (the actual term for individual grapes) begin to turn color. This marks the point at which the grape vines move from berry growth to berry ripening. The term for this stage is called Ve...
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I recently had a friend return from doing some wine tasting in Napa. While he said he enjoyed the wine, he did complain that it was windy and cold. And, he said he was told that the wind helped the wine. So, he asked me “How does wind affect a wine?”...
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A friend of mine recently recommended a wine that he really liked. When he showed me the wine’s label I saw that it was an Italian Appassimento. That’s a wine that I was not previously familiar with, so I took a look on-line and found a brief descrip...
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We’ve now worked our way through how a wine gets its flavor - from the grape, the skins, seeds and stems, fermentation, barrel aging and last time we touched on bottle aging. There we learned that most wines are not meant for long-term bottle aging. ...
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As we continue exploring wine flavors and where they come from, let’s take a step back to last time. As was noted, barrel aging can impart many wonderful flavors to wine. Additionally, barrel aging imparts tannin. And, tannin is very important to a ...
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Last time we learned that aging wine in barrels can impart flavors ranging from none, in older ‘neutral’ barrels, to subtle hints of vanilla, or bolder flavors of chocolate and smokiness, depending on the barrels age and the degree to which its insid...
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