Grape Varietal – Tasting – Grenache

Grape Varietal – Tasting – Grenache

            The wine that I chose to taste for this grape was the Bitch Grenache. The region that this grape comes from is the Barossa Valley in Austrailia. It was a bottle I received from my mother as a gift in a gift basket during the holidays. The vintage of this grape was 2007.  The bottle was approximately $11.99, 100% Grenache, and the bottle was purchased from a Wine and Spirits store in Pennsylvania. I would suggest that this wine be paired with a heavy pasta in heavy cream sauce or a flavorful dish that has heavy cheeses or cream.

            This wine was very dark and bold in color. It is a very dark red. It is a very dark blood red. Sitting in the glass it looks to be purple but as I swirled it it showed its true red color. The aroma of the wine is very strong and stung my nose whenever I took a wiff. It was so pungent that I could almost taste the wine whenever I took sniffs of it. The smell of the wine became slightly less intense after a couple times of swirling the wine and allowing it to open up and lose some of its concentrated factors. However, it was still incredibly powerful regardless of that fact that it got slightly better (it was still stinging my nose).

            From what I could gather from the aroma was a lot of dark fruits. It was very strong of dark cherries and raspberries, some peach, a lot of spices, hint of tobacco, and every once in a while I would get a little hint of chocolate. It has a very high alcohol content so I’m not sure I need to say that I couldn’t smell much around the powerful smell of alcohol.

            The first sip was incredibly overpowering. It was as if every influence of alcohol went straight to my jaw and it hurt. It made my jaw clench, my face squinched up, my lips puckered and my tongue stung. I did not like the taste of this wine and I did not want to continue drinking this wine after the first sip. My palate is too immature for this sort of wine and I didn’t want to keep trying to improve it, because I really didn’t see that happening.

            The astringency of the wine was rough and I did not really appreciate anything that was going on with this wine, other than the fact that it had a high alcohol percentage (15.5%) and the description on the bottle was just the word ‘Bitch’ forty-two times. I could detect some sweet aspects to this wine, but not very much. The taste was entirely too overwhelming and was really strong on the sides of my tongue. I couldn’t detect any fruits through the taste, but I could taste the spices and tobacco aspects. There was also a strong pepper sense. There seemed to be no real balance in the acidity level, so that was one more thing on the list for me to be overwhelmed by.

            I found the wine to be overall just completely unpleasant and tart. It really stung my tongue and jaw in a way I’ve never experienced before and I did not enjoy that part at all.

            This wine is a particularly difficult to grow grape that are yielded from a 25-year-old vine that is grown in sand over clay. It is un-oaked and can also sometimes be made in Aragon or Navarra, Spain. The climate for the production of this wine is very cold winters and hot, dry summers. It is important to be very gentle with handling during the primary fermentation and pay close attention to the to the soft pressing of the fermented grape skins. The best fruit flavor and acid balance at harvest comes from the cleanest and slower ripened grapes during winemaking. 

Wine Region - Alsace

Wine Region – Alsace

Alsace is one of the most fertile wine producing regions of the world, but is also one of the most underappreciated wine regions of the world. This region is tucked between the forested villages of the Vosges Mountains on the west and the Rhine River to the east. The high altitude contributed from the Vosges Mountains provides shelter to this wine producing region and also provides a balanced temperature, drainage, and stabilized sun exposure. The forested area also helps to provide the winemaking region with shade and blockage to the wind and also a dry and sunny climate, which allows for Alsace to produce some of the world’s most dry Riesling wines. Alsace is known for its useful, often overlooked and underrated, soft and smoky whites.

Alsace is a great region for wine production because of the fractures of rock that allow for a variety of soils for the vineyard on the fault, causing the production on a wide array of wine types. The Alsace region is home to three sub regions Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, and the Territory of Belfort. The nationality of Alsace is ever changing between German and French influences. Wine production in this region began around the year 1900 when the area became a center for transportation with the use of the Rhine River to shuttle German wines. In the beginning Alsace wines were created dry to be paired with food, as the German wines began to diverge and French began to have an influence, the wines began to delve into a sweeter and sugary side. Nowadays the Alsace region is focusing on the quality of their wine, whether it be dry or sweet.

Regardless of their German influence, the wines from Alsace tend to have a higher alcohol content and lower in sugar during the late harvest seasons. The level of ripeness is controlled by the AOC, which is calculated by the grams per liter or potential alcohol for the measurement to reach ripeness. Due to the regulations of the AOC, Alsace is the only region in France that holds a traditional practice of varietal labeling. The AOC only allows one varietal label and a blend cannon hold more than one varietal name on the label.

Alsace white wines are characterized by their aromatic, floral, and spicy tastes that are brought on by the grape itself, rather than the use of oak barrels. Alsace is known for producing some of the driest wines in the world, but recently the winemakers have gone for a higher residual sugar level that causes the wines to have a more intense and fruity taste. Many wine drinkers are confused when it comes the wines of this region because of the labels, which do not give a clear identification of whether it is dry, off-dry, or sweet.

Alsace has increased majorly in the area of acres that it calls home. In 1967 it held 23,000 acres, 29,000 acres in 1982, and 38,000 acres in 2007. There are over one hundred wine producing villages in this region and there are typically more than one wine producer per village.

The main grapes of this region are Riesling, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Sylvaner, and muscat. It produces a wide range of labeled wines and the whites are far more successful. The traditional belief of winemaking in Alsace was to ferment all of the grape sugar into alcohol, causing the wines to be dry, full-bodied wines. Nowadays it is common to find the wines from this region to be sweeter. The noble grape varieties of Alsace are Riesling, Gewurztaminer, Pinot Gris,  and Muscat. Riesling is the most respected grape variety in Alsace. Gewurztraminer is the easiest wine for beginners to enjoy, this is because it is full-bodied and pleasantly light at the same time. Pinot Gris is well-known because it is sweet and phenomenally full-bodied by also dry. Muscat is distinct in its ability to be delicate and dry but smell overpoweringly jammy and sweet.

Sources:

http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/a200808191.html

Drink Now!

Zraly 

http://www.french-at-a-touch.com/French_Regions/Alsace/alsace_1.htm

Grape Varietal - Grenache

Grape Varietal – Grenache

            The Grenache grape is the second most widely planted varietal in the world and covers approximately 100,000 hectacres worldwide. This varietal has been said to have originated from the region of Aragon in Spain and has branched out far and wide since then due to the disperse along the vineyards of spain and throughout the Mediterranean. Grenache is grown in California, Austrailia, Israel, North Africa, and many other areas. It has become one of the most famous red wine producing grapes in the world.

The Grenache varietal is typically planted towards the end of September and are considered to be in full completion by the middle of October, which is considered to be a late ripening. The late ripening season helps for it to be grown only in relatively warmer regions. It thrives in hot, windy areas but can be at a disadvantage because it is smaller. One of the most common features, if not the most distinguishing characteristic, of the Grenache grape is that it reaches an extraordinary sweet, ripeness level and holds an equally interesting tannin level. Grenache is grown upright with a strong and sturdy trunk and known to be a water seeking grape.

This varietal is described as having shoots that are either ‘gobelet’ or ‘head pruned’. Many of the vineyards that are home to the Grenache grape fruit-prune the varietal during growing seasons in order to allowed about ten to twelve clusters per vine. At harvest it is easy to identify that this varietal has high acidity and high sugar levels. The varietal itself is low in flavor, which explains why it is commonly used as the backbone for other notorious wines. It has a high alcohol content and develop relatively fast compared to other grapes.

            One of the problems that Grenache faces is that it is so widely planted and has become underappreciated. It became widely planted in the 19^th century due to the phylloxera epidemic. When the phylloxera epidemic came through and sweeped out a majority of the vineyards grapes of the regions, they began to plant Grenache because it is capable of withstanding the rough conditions compared to the other grape species that had been planted prior and proven unsuccessful. Grenache has also proven successful in the cases in California during series of droughts.

Recently what has helped to revive some of Grenache’s reputation in Spain has been the compatibility with natural minerals in the soil when the grape is grown. This compatibility provides a unique feature for the grape itself and then in turn provides a special and unique feature for the wine that it produces, which in terms of the Grenache grape is usually the backbone of many of the greatest wines. The Grenache grapes skin color is normally a blue-black tint. It is common to see three different colors of the Grenache vine which deciphers which type of Grenache you are handling; for example the purple-skinned Grenache Noir, pale crimson-skinned Grenache Gris, and green-skinned Grenache Blanc.

            Grenache typically produces darker wines. The common flavors of this grape varietal are black pepper, menthol, licorice, current, cherry, and raisins. In Calirfornia, the production of this grape varietal causes for a lighter, paler colored wine with simple fruit flavor. In Europe, particularly in France, this varietal produces a beautiful ruby red wine that holds and alcohol percentage of around 15% and has strong, full fruit and spice flavors.

            Grenache makes very small quantities of serious wine, but it attributes to an abundance of the backbones of many of the big time, well-known wines. This wine is best paired with roasted meats, stew, and macaroni and cheese. There is a wide variety of cheeses that are also highly suggested to be paired with this wine due to it’s velvety character, such as cheddar, fontina, gouda, jarlsberg, and swiss. 

Sources:

http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/jrs03408.html

Drink Now!

http://www.frenchwinesfood.com/AolAuRaisin/Cepages.aspx

http://wine-tasting-reviews.com/wine-types-varieties-grapes/red-wine-types/52-grenache-wine-flavor-aroma-characteristics.html

Film Review - Blood Into Wine

The movie I chose for this wine film review was Blood Into Wine. Blood Into Wine is a documentary that follows Maynard James Keenan and his side-kick Eric Glomski as they attempt to master the art of wine making. Keenan is best known as the front man for the rock band Tool and A Perfect Circle; which has gained many awards and recognition for their music. Glomski and Keenan have been successful as far as it goes in terms of the planting and growing of the grapes, the production of wine, but what makes their adventure so interesting this time around is the fact that they are going to Arizona for their location to test out their winemaking luck there. Whenever people think of Arizona, their mind normally imagines the climate and terrain to be dry and arid with never-ending deserts filled with cactus and tumbleweeds. However, Keenan and Glomski believe this is going to be the perfect area for them to try their luck with their wine. They described it as the ‘ripe’ area for their winemaking and go in with high hopes for Merkin Vineyards. The elements and the wildlife of their chosen area in Arizona raise threats to the success of crop growth, they face a bigger obstacle with the critics who are diehard fans of Napa Valley and believe that only good wines come from that region. This documentary is a realistic view of what it takes to make it in the wine industry regardless of the all the setbacks and obstacles. It provides a great overview of the more difficult aspects of growing grapes and wine production in general.

            The setting of Blood Into Wine brings the viewers to a place known as Jerome, Arizona. The film takes place predominantly in Jerome, which helps the audience to get a good grasp of what exactly Glomski and Keenan were dealing with in terms of climate and wildlife. It gives an accurate portrayal of the region because it is filmed on point and allows the audience to see everything in detail first hand. Although one would still not want to test their luck particularly with this part of land, it is not what comes to mind whenever one thinks of the terrain of Arizona because it differs greatly from the stereotypical characteristics of many southern states. Instead of the dry and arid terrain that was discussed prior, Jerome is characterized by mountains and has a greater seasonal variation. During the movie Keenan discusses that he and Glomski are more afraid of snow ruining their crop than the dry, arid climate.

Jerome is home to a climate that hosts many different conditions which helps to produce the Caduceus wine better than most others. The terrior of this region is one of the most fascinating features and is helpful for the winemaking process. For example, during the film Glomski shows the viewers a hillside where Cabernet grapes are grown. He discusses that this area used to be a lakebed and the remaining sediments gives the grapes a unique feature that in turn gives the wine a unique feature. The land also has natural existence of limestone and volcanic ash. James Suckling, a writer for Wine Spectator, makes an appearance in the documentary and discusses that the terrior and overall landscape of the Merkin Vineyards has very similar characteristics to other well-known wine regions. Suckling even says that by ‘pioneering this new wine region, Maynard and Eric have created an intriguing new product that demonstrates both depth and complexity.” That stamp of approval is already showing a promising future for the land.

            One of the more interesting points of the movie was its discussion of sustainability. Merkin Vineyards and Caduceus combine in order to conserve the environment by using the lands natural features for grape production. The southwest United States are constantly worried for water and it is an increasingly serious issue on having enough water and making sure there is water in the future. The grapes planted in the land are capable of using the water that is naturally in the ground rather than needing to be watered, which could be considered wasteful by environmentalists. Therefore, this movie is an intriguing cinematic adventure for wineos and for environmentalists the same.

            I would definitely suggest this movie to a wine audience and even a non-wine audience. I think it is really interesting for many reasons and it holds so many interesting points about the land, environmental aspects, conservation, and wine production. It is also every entertaining and very funny. I also would recommend this movie because it suggests that wine drinkers should not give in to what critics think. Especially new wineos, critics status should not influence or persuade you one way or another but rather follow your own personal idea of the wine. Lastly, Blood Into Wine was a phenomenal movie and it has an array of people that are extremely passionate about wine and every aspect of wine, which makes it really easy for the audience to enjoy as well.