Why Wine is the Best

A little break down about why I like wine

Can’t cheat

➢ Can’t engineer it

➢ Wine is typically around 13% alcohol, 1% acids, 2% minerals, flavonoids, and phenols, and 84% water. We can measure the exact breakdown of each component on the molecular level in a Barolo and can put them in a bottle, and even age it. But we can’t create Barolo. It doesn’t taste anything like it. The only way to make Barolo is to grow the grapes, ferment the juice, and age it for many years. Soon we will be able to grow our own organs in a lab but will likely never be able to recreate a seemingly simple bottle of wine. 

❖ Wine makes food taste better

➢ All wine makes all food better

▪ Very few exceptions: High alcohol wine with spicy food, or high tannin wines with fish

❖ Wine not only pairs with food but also your body

➢ Red wines can cut through the fat on your palate

➢ “A glass of wine a day will keep the doctor away”

▪ It is widely known that Europeans are able to maintain a fattier diet without the health consequences because they drink a glass of red wine a day

▪ The science is still up for debate as to how exactly. 1-2 drinks of alcohol per day is considered healthy. The flavonoids in red wines, such as Anthocyanins, and Resveratrol are proving to have a plethora of health benefits. Prevents against cancer, heart disease, etc.

To Decant or Not to Decant

This is a little something I came up with as sort of a guide for why and what is the best way to decant red wine. Very few white wines benefit from decanting, however very few red wines don't benefit from decanting.

v  Decanting any red wine will make it taste better

Ø  2 main reasons for decanting wine:

§  To remove sediment

§  Let the wine aerate

·             Volatile components evaporate

·             Right amount of oxidation

Ø  Wine’s will taste smoother, more “round,” more complex, better integrated, less “tight,” less alcoholic, less bitter, and will last longer on the palate

Ø  The more expensive the wine the more important decanting is

Ø  Ideal range for decanting is 1½ to 3 hours. Most people in restaurants don’t have that kind of time, but the closer it is to that range the better

Ø  People prefer oxygen levels between 4-6ppm (parts per million). Most bottles start around 2ppm where they will taste “tight” and after it hits 8.6 will taste oxidized

Intro Guide to Pairing Wine

Wine pairing is an art. There are some rules, but mostly loose guides left open for individual tastes and goals. In general you want to match weight, acid, and sugar. Then it's up to you how you want to mirror and contrast fruits, herbs, spices, vegetables, spices, nuts, etc. Sort of like a relationship, there are certain core areas you probably need to match on, but you don't want to date exactly the same person as yourself.

An easy method is to just match color and weight with a wine that is probably also high in acid. The higher the acid the more pairing options you have. Most wines are dry and high in acid, some wines are very high in acid. If you're doing a heavy rich tomato sauce pasta you want a deep rich red wine such as Super Tuscan. If its a light tomato cream sauce maybe a rose.

Other general rules: Salty foods are good with sweet and/or fruity wines. Consider oak and smokiness. Keep away tannins and fish. Acid and tannin can balance. Acid is good with salt. Consider both main component, minor components, and sauce. Keep alcohol from spiciness.

Famous wine pairings:
Cab and a slab - tannin balances out the fat
Sauternes and foie gras - matching weight and richness
Champagne and oysters - matching minerality, Champagnes high acid works well
Goat cheese and Sauvignon Blanc - both strong flavor and high in acid

Where it gets tricky is when there are multiple contrasting things happening in a dish. For example, sauteed mussels in a white wine sauce with spicy chorizo. You almost don't want to do a white wine because of the chorizo, but you also need something low in alcohol and has some sweetness because of the spice. There is no exact answer, it's what flavors and components you want to complement.

A Few Interesting Important Events in the History of Wine

The biggest event is of course the discovery of wine sometime before 8000 BCE. I use the term discover because It was not the original intention to make wine. Iit was hunter and gatherers in modern day Georgia trying to keep grapes in ceramic jars to be able to eat them following year. What they found the following spring was no longer grapes but wine. It was safe to consume because the type of pathogens that affect humans cannot survive in wine. The wine was created by the natural yeast that was on the grapes. Still today many wineries use the natural native yeasts that cling to grape skins to make the wine. Most however use commercially produced yeast strains. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing by any means.

Another big event is the phylloxera epidemic in 1870. Imagine the Black Plaque but worse except that it is regarding grapes. Phylloxera is a type of pest that attacks the roots. One day they just went crazy and spread like wildfire. No one could stop it or fight against no matter how meticulous a farmer was. Nearly all vineyards in all of Europe were completely wiped out. There was no more wine for anybody and most wineries had to close. This went on for about a decade. The good thing that happened was that it very highly incentivized many other countries to start producing there own wines and even export wines to France! The problem was eventually resolved thanks to the invention of grafting. They would take the specific winemaking varietals of the grape but graft them on to rootstocks from other varieties that had thicker rootstocks that were much more resistance to the phylloxera pest. Now nearly all wines are grafted onto other rootstocks except a some areas in Chile and on the Island of Sardinia, Italy.

The other would be the Judgement of Paris in 1976. I wine store owner in France refused to sell American wines and really very few of anything not French no matter how many times his customers would ask. He would just tell them it's all crap and French wines are the best. I might be paraphrasing. But they kept askin, so to shut them up he staged a grand wine-off between American wines and French wines. He got together some of the most famous wine journalists and sommeliers and had them to a series of blind tastings between the finest wines from France and California. They tasted California Canernet against right bank Bordeaux (which are dominated by Cabernet) and white Burgundy (Chardonnay) against California Chardonnay. California one first place in both the Reds and whites. They even did a follow up study 30 years later because of the following claims that French wines age better. They were also wrong again and we won both. The results from this small event of maybe around 50 people changed the entire wine landscape. France was kind of up on this podium that no one could get there. All other wines were basically considered a joke until this day. Because of this event there was an explosion of wineries all over the world and instead of it being automatically considered second class wines, they could compete against France on equal ground.

A Story about Herman Story Wines

From my wine tasting trip, my favorite winery was Herman Story. Russell P. From, the winemaker, named it after his grandfather, and many aspects of the winery contain homages to him.

What is so cool about these wines are the uniqueness of wines and the uniqueness of the winemaker, evidenced here:

http://hermanstorywines.com

Just look at literally any other website from any winemaker and you will see how unique he and his wines sound. 

The wines themselves are also incredible and incredibly powerful. To give a comparison, most red wines from Europe are around 13% alcohol. Californian wines are usually around 14%. Alcohol can make a wine taste "hot" but if it is a quality wine you will not notice any extra alcohol only notice the fuller body and increased complexity of the wine. This is how his wines are. The alcohol usually kills off the yeast as it reaches around 13 or 14% alcohol, or a winemaker can cool off the must (the mixture of grape juice and yeast before it becomes wine) to stop the yeast. Herman Story uses special types of yeast that are able to thrive even in higher levels of alcohol. And because they use excellent grapes from the best surrounding wine regions and are fantastic winemakers the increased alcohol is unnoticeable. What is noticeable is how powerful the wines taste. They are more "punch you in the face" type of wines, punching you in the face with flavor. They are so strong that another winery close by asked us to make sure to taste their wines before Herman Story's because otherwise we'd barely be able to taste them. I usually don't like to pay to ship in wines or be a wine club member anywhere because I like variety. But for here there is no way I wasn't going to be a wine club member which is the only way to attain their wines without visiting.

Going up, not Sideways

This week coming up I will be going in person to Santa Ynez Valley (now you get the Sideways movie reference) and also Paso Robles. Hopefully my trip will go better then theirs.

Santa Ynez is famous for its Pinot Noir. It sounds unusual for wineries to even be making Pinot Noir in such a southern latitude because the grape requires the coldest of all Vitis Vinifera (all types of grape that are good for making wine) varietals. It sounds even weirder that that it be one of the best regions in the world for it. The reason they are is the area is kept cool by ocean breezes because it's so close to the ocean. It does get warm also which exposing the the grapes to a perfect range of temperatures resulting in fully ripe grapes with excellent complexity.

We will then be headed north to Paso Robles. It's also odd to be traveling north to try Cabernet Sauvignon which enjoys the opposite warmer end of the spectrum from Pinot Noir. This area is guarded by the mountains insulating it from coastal winds. It's also still much farther south then Napa Valley who's famous for their Cabernet but the wineries we will be going to will definitely equal and even surpass many famous Napa Valley producers. Currently the area is most famous for its
Rhone varietals which mainly consist of Grenache, Syrah, and Mouvedre. What sets this area apart is its minerally soil which helps impart mineral/stone characteristics. I'll let yet y'all know how they a related this week!

Why Super Tuscans are so super

Super Tuscans are the most recent type of wine developed. They also happen to be my favorite type of wine. If you look at France and Burgundy, they have been consistent wines for over a thousand years. Most areas in Italy such as Chianti and Barolo have been around for about an equal amount of time. Super Tuscans were "invented" in 1971. Sassicaia is usually referred to as the first Super Tuscan. Some say it was Tignanello which is owned by the largest family of wine producers in Italy. Personally most of the evidence points to Sassicaia with Tignanello being an extremely close second and they are the parents of this wine genre. 

How did it happen? Most wine producing countries in Europe have developed strict rules and regulations to ensure high wine quality and make it easy for consumers to identify and become familiar with types of wine. This has been greatly beneficial for these countries and for many wine producers and the system works. Champagne is recognized world wide as well as Barolo and so on. The reason is because a consumer can look at a bottle and have an idea of what it will taste like. This confidence the consumer has for this purchase makes the wines much more marketable. Currently in Italy it goes Vino di Tavola (table wine), IGT(a recent addition because of the issues related to Super Tuscans), DOC, DOCG (going from lowest to highest). The problem with this system is; say you love the terroir in Chianti but you think that Cabernet would be better suited for it. In Chianti, in order to be a classified wine (wine of labeled high quality by the government) it must be at least 80% Sangiovese along with many other rules. So if you want to make Cabernet Sauvignon in Chianti, of course they can't stop you, but the government has no choice but to label it as table wine (the lowest quality) even though it could be the best wine ever. 

So that's actually basically what happened. Sassicaia did grow Cabernet Sauvignon in the Tuscany region near Chianti and it was the best wine ever. It was so noticeably exceptional that it quickly became the most expensive wine in all of Italy. Italy was of course pretty embarrassed that the most expensive wine the country is considered table wine so they had to make a new classification specifically for this and new emerging wines riding in Sassicaia and Tinganello's coat tails. These two powerhouses have remained at the top of the game since Super Tuscans conception and for good reason.