What makes wines taste different?
Understanding terroir and what is a vin d'effort
- Terroir: reflects nature of soil and climate of the region
- Vin d'effort reflects skills and abilities of wine maker
The Grape
- Vines in the genus vitis
- Many different species within vitis
Rotundafolia
Vinifera
- Within a species are varieties
Climate
- The world's wine growing regions fall in the temperate zone
These latitudes provide the right temperatures and amount of sunlight for grapes to grow
- Climate can also be described by category
Maritime, Continental, Mediterranean
Topographical Influence
- Elevation can make a warm climate appear cooler
- Aspect, or the direction the vineyard faces, can maximize amount of sunlight on the grapes.
- Slope influences whether cool air drains away from the vineyard or settles into it.
Soil
- Not really topsoil, but rather the makeup of the subsoil is what matters
- Grapes prefer mineral rich and organically poor soils that drain well. grapes can have less flavor and become watered down when soil has a lot of water.
- Heat retention is important in some growing regions
Harvest
- When to harvest determined by several factors:
- Brix is scale used to measure sugar levels
- Rain right before harvesting might destroy crop
- Machine or hand picked.
- Freezing temperatures can expand liquids in grapes which causes the skin to crack and fruit to dry out. This will dramatically change the qualities of wine.
- Botrytis is a rot which occurs on grapes, it makes the grapes become super intense and sweet, this is similar to
Hand Harvesting
- More delicate method of harvesting grapes
- Clip whole bunches from the vines
- Allows for picking only the grapes at perfect ripeness
- Often requires several passes through the vineyard to harvest all the grapes
- Requires an army of pickers to harvest in a timely fashion
Machine Harvesting
- Allows for rapid harvesting of grapes by one man driving a tractor
- Can harvest a field in one night, when grapes are coolest
- Not delicate-grapes are shaken off the vines
- No selection-ripe and unripe grapes harvested along with leaves, bugs etc.
See notes on Fermented Beverages, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon