Posts Tagged ‘burgundy’

A Product of Your Environment

{ November 4, 2009 @ 8:29 pm } · { Grapes and Styles, soils }
{ Tags: , , , } · { Comments (1) }

Hi Francesco,
I have a project that I have to submit for my class, and I’d like your opinion on one of the questions: Why is a Pinot Noir from Australia so different in style from a Burgundy Pinot Noir? I know the basic reasons for this (mostly due to the difficult/delicate nature of growing the grape itself), but would like to know what you think.

Thanks,
Joe

Thank you Joe for the question, Its been a while since Ive did one of these.  Pinot is a difficult grape to grow perfectly.  It is prone to extreme weathers, has thin skin which makes the berries vulnerable to all sorts of diseases, and it also has problems in the cellar during fermentation and these are just a few.

But these types of situations exist no matter where  Pinot is grown, be it Burgundy or Australia.  The main difference here is the terroir.  Grapes are products of their environment, just like you and I.  The soil, sun, rain, air circulation,  and exposure all help to determine their character, including the wine maker.  When one or more of these factors are changed the product is different, hence you have differences between Burgundian Pinot Noir,Australian, New Zealand, and American etc.

Lets talk a little specifically about the terroirs of Burgundy and Australia.

The risk of growing Pinot in Burgundy is very high compared to other places, but the reward is worth it.   The climate is continental and usually experiences cold winters which can damage or even kill young vines.  Burgundy  is northerly enough that the grapes just make it to full ripeness and there is constantly a threat of hail and under ripe fruit.  The long and cool growing season allows the berries to produce all of those complexities and nuances that we all love;  patience is a virtue.  In some years, there is too much rain and too much cold which can hurt production and quality.  Pinot does not live and easy life, but this why some say the best wines in world come from Burgundy.  Check this post out about Bad Soil, Good Grapes to get a better idea.

Pinot_noir_-_Bourgogne_(Santenay)

Burgundian Pinot Noir

The soil is extremely varied in Burgundy.  There is limestone, marl, sand and gravel that exist through out the region and within single vineyards.  Pinot tends to be planted on soils richer and marl and Chardonnay planted on limestone.  These soils provide drainage and warmth which help the grapes to ripen.  The bottom line is that these conditions allow the Pinot Noir grape to flourish and produce their best wines.  The wines are aromatically complex and elegant.  The color is light ruby and the flavors are more earth driven than fruit forward.  The wine delicately caresses your mouth with a good intensity backed by a symphony of nuances.

Pinor_Noir_vines,_Clos_de_Bèze,_Burgundy

Here's a look at another vineyard in Burgundy. The trees in the background are important in blocking strong and cold winds that can damge teh vines. you can also get a good look at the soil in this one.

Now let’s take a look at Australia.  The problem with Australia is that the climate is way too hot in most places. Yarra Valley and Geelong have particularly cooler climates and this is where the better Pinots are being produced.  Most Pinots from Australia are over extracted and fruit bomby due to the heat.  The grapes are picked in an over ripe state resulting in jammy fruitiness with a high alcohol content that takes away from the elegant nature of the grape.  The use of oak is sometimes overdone as well.

There are poor examples of each in both regions.  Some Australian Pinot is better than some Burgundian Pinot.  The producer and vintage are vitally important, especially for Pinot.  Where conditions prevail for the grape, the better the resulting wine. When buying, look for regions that have a known reputation for producing quality grapes.

Some Different Grapes and Styles of Wine

{ July 31, 2009 @ 2:14 pm } · { Grapes and Styles }
{ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , } · { Comments (4) }

Tom N. has asked me to describe different grapes and different styles of wine in this question, “But what is the difference between a Pinot Noir, a Merlot, a Cabernet, a Shiraz, a Barbera, a Chianti , a Super Tuscan, a Barolo, etc? I honestly don’t know what is what or anything, so any insight would be appreciated. Also – what would you generally pair with a Chicken dish, a pasta dish, and a fish dish?”

The list that he cited encompasses a wide variety of styles, grapes and regions of production. I will only discuss a couple of examples in this piece

Pinot Noir- This is grape that is grown throughout the world.  It is made in both a New World style and an Old World style. It is lighter in color than most most red wines and also has a lower tannin content.  Tannins are the chemical compounds in wine that give you that dry feeling in you mouth when you drink red wine. New World styles tend to be fuller bodied and more  fruit driven.  Flavors include juicy fruits like ripe cherries and strawberries along with some smokey meat and earth aromas. If you want to get into Pinot you are going to have to shell out some bucks because good Pinot is hard to find for less than $20 now-a-days because of the movie Sideways.

Old Worlds styles are bit more restrained.  Usually light bodied and very complex, these wines are not for everyone.  Their aroma and flavor profile can include tart fruits like cranberries and sour cherries but also some smells that most new wine drinkers will not be attracted to at first such as barn yard, mushrooms, compost, spice, flowers, wet rocks and sweaty socks.  This profile is typical of Pinot from the Burgundy  region in  France.  These scents may sound a little crazy but I assure you that it is the truth, it is very distinct variety that has a a seductive quality to it. Some people describe Burgundian Pinot Noir as “sex in a  bottle.”  They are also some of the finest and most expensive wines in the world.

Cabernet Sauvigon- This is also a grape that is grown through out the world and represents the complete opposite from Pinot Noir in terms of style.  It’s home town is in the region of Bordeaux, but here it is blended with other red varieties to produce what most believe is a more balanced wine.  Cabernet wines are medium to full bodied wines with a very dark  color, almost ink-like texture and high tannin content.  Cabernet is also grown in New and Old World Styles.  A generic flavor profile includes dark  ripe dark fruits from black currant,blackberry, blueberry and black cherry with notes of tobacco, bell pepper, graphite and cedar.

For the food pairing part this is also a difficult question because it depends on how each is cooked and what type of flavoring and sauces predominate the dish.  Whites generally make a better pairing with white meats, such as chicken, fish, pork and veal.  Any red meat deserves a red wine.  Sauvignon blanc is great with a grilled chicken caesar salad and shellfish.  Muscadet is also perfect with delicately prepared fish and shellfish, a perfect summer dish.  Try Rieslings with Asian foods and a Gerwurtstraminer with spicy foods.  Chardonnay is great with cream sauces on chicken, veal and pork.  Depending on the pasta sauce a red or white can be a good compliment.  Any pasta sauce with meat in it is good pairing with a Chianti.(The term Chianti refers to the region in Tuscany where the wine is produced.  The grape that makes the wine is Sangiovese.  This grape is good at making food friendly wines because it has a medium body, restrained fruit flavors, mild tannins and good acidity.)  Try it with  aged cheeses and salamis as well.  Pinot Noir goes excellently with a nice rare tuna steak,  if you would like to try red wine and fish. Oh yeah, Cabernet Franc is a great food wine that I mentioned in the wine and pizza post.  This grape goes really well with an herbed grilled chicken loaded with parsely, garlic, rosemary, tyme and squeeze of lemon.  This is really great and easy to prepare summer dish with a great wine that most have never never tried before.

I hope I explained enough to give a little primer on this subject.  The best words of advice I can say are to try different styles of wines and find which one you like best.  Then after that, find another style then another.  The wine world is huge so don’t limit yourself to the same wines over and over again.

What’s in that Bottle?

{ July 27, 2009 @ 5:32 pm } · { Rants and Raves, Wine Facts }
{ Tags: , , , , , , , , , } · { Comments (2) }

Gerry S. was wondering, “the purpose of different bottle shapes for different wines!? like the deeply concave base for red wine?”

Wine bottles come in all sorts of sizes and shapes.  The shape of the bottle usually communicates which region the wine is from and the grape varieties used.  This holds mostly true with wines from France, where each region by tradition uses a different style of bottle.  There are roughly 6-7  examples of wine bottle shapes, but I will only discuss the most popular and most used.  There are three parts of the bottle one must also be familiar with: the neck, shoulder and punt.  The neck, I hope doesn’t need an explanation, the shoulders are litterally the part below the neck and the punt is the bottom underside of the bottle.

We’ll start with one of the most common bottle shapes, the “bordeaux” style.wine-bottle-bordeaux In Bordeaux,France, these bottles denote the use of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec.  White wines which use this shape are made from Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle.  Bordeaux wines are usually long lived  which is why the shape came into being. After long periods of cellaring, these wines will produce a lot of sediment.  The steepness and height of the shoulders are able to catch the sediment when the wine is being poured.  The flat sides also allow the wines to stack and cellar comfortably.  This bottle shape is also used a lot in America and in Italy as well.

chablisThis shape, with a slightly wider base, sturdier frame  and gently sloping shoulders hails from Burgundy.  Bottles like this are filled with Pinot Noir (red) and Chardonnay(white).   These bottles shapes seems very elegant to me.   They don’t have sharp edges,  they look gracefull and seem to have a more feminine quality about them.  Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines  are very elegant and round yet, can still deliver through a full body and an intense depth of  flavor.

Ok Gerry,  this is where the punt of the bottle comes into play.  The punt is the concave base at the bottom of the bottle.  Champagne bottles use the thickest glass and have the largest punts.  veuve-bottles-squareThe pressure in Champagne bottles is between 70 and 90 pounds per square inch.  That is about 2-3 times the pressure in your cars tires and about equal to the pressure in the tires of a double decker bus! The glass for this wine must be thicker, the base wider and the punt deeper.  The punt adds much needed stregnth to the bottle, this is the reason  why some bottles have bigger punts than others.  Here’s a good way to make money off of your friends.  Bet you friend that you can drink from a wine bottle with out opening it.  Now all you have to do is find a bottle with a large punt, pour water into it, drink and collect your money. Thanks Stephanie for teaching me this joke.  This picture also shows the range of sizes fr Champagne and other wine bottles.  The second one from the left is the standard .750mL.

Here is the last classic example of a wine bottle shape.  This shape comes from Alsace, France and parts of Germany and Austria.alsace-200x300 There is wide variety of wines that use this bottle and all of them are white and can range from totally dry to totally sweet. Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gerwurtraminer(GWT), Muscat, and Pinot Blanc are some of the common varieties.  This shape is longer, almost flat shoulders, sexier, and usually has a smaller punt.  This shape reminds me of a tall sexy girl with gentle curves and an essence of classiness, reminiscent of the wines in these bottles.

Sometimes the quality of a particular bottle of wine can be denoted from the the quality of glass used, but this is not true 100% percent of the time.  If you have no idea what you are looking for in a wine store do three things: first contact me, then ask your wine dude at the store, and lastly pick up and feel the bottle.  If the bottle feels heavy, has thick glass and a big punt you may have found a good bottle of wine.  Of course this is just superficial and a bottle like that could be pretty bad.  So there ya go, a nice little primer on wine bottle shapes.  Thanks Gerry!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.