More and more travelers are going on vacation just to try new food or taste new wines. The new “buzz words” for these types of travelers are “culinary travelers” The “culinary traveler” is usually young, affluent and well educated. They dine out in restaurants that feature local cuisine made from local products. They enjoy taking cooking classes, visit farmers markets, shop gourmet, attend food or wine festivals or take winery tours. The top wine-related travel destinations by these "culinary travelers" are California, New York and Missouri.
Most people are surprised to learn that the third most planted grape in terms of hectares (2.471 acres) is the vinifera, Rkatsiteli. The grape originated in the Caucasus Mountains at the foot of Mt. Ararat near the borders of Armenia and Turkey. It is very popular in Georgia, Azberbaijan, Moldavia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Rumania. The grape is slowly making inroads in the United States. It has been planted for years at Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars in Hammondsport, NY. The winery’s founder, Dr. Konstantin Frank, earned a PhD degree in viticulture at the University of Odessa in the Ukraine. After immigrating to the United States and settling in New York's Finger Lakes region, Dr. Frank's fundamental goal was to introduce the world's best Vitis Vinifera varieties to this region. Rkatsiteli was at the top of this list, based on his experience with the varietal in his native Ukraine.
Today, McGregor Vineyards on Keuka Lake is also making wine from Rkatsiteli and it has been sighted in New Jersey and Virginia.
Rkatsiteli is high in acidity with pleasant floral and spicy characteristics, similar to a Gewurztraminer or Johannisberg Riesling. It can be vinified into several different types of wines: from dry to very sweet, to sparkling wines, and even to Sherry-like wines. Rkatsiteli, at its best, tastes like a cross between a dry riesling and a spicy gewurztraminer.
Pruning: By definition, pruning is the trimming of a tree, shrub, bush or vine by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems to promote growth and fruitfulness. Traditionally, pruning would start near the end of January, but nowadays it starts in December. January also finds barrels of new wines kept full to the top and their bungs (stoppers that fill the holes on the top of wine barrels) are cleaned every other day with a solution of sulphur dioxide. When the weather is dry, the bottling of older wines begins. Then they are then labeled and packed in boxes and ready for shipping.
In February, pruning continues and cuttings are taken for grafting onto rootstocks and then put in sand indoors. The vineyard manager or winemaker prepares machines for the outdoor work of the new season. One of them will also order copper sulfate for spraying. Racking (the drawing off the wine from the sediment in the barrel) begins when the weather is good and there is high atmospheric pressure. The winemaker then transfers the wine into a vat to equalize the casks.
In the middle of March plowing begins, first working the soil deeply to aerate the vines and uncover their bases. At this time, the vines begin to emerge from dormancy, sap begins to rise and the brown sheaths on the buds begin to fall off. The first racking should be finished by the end of March. The winemaker keeps the casks topped off and finishes bottling.
In April, the vineyard manager will finish the plowing. The vineyard is cleared by burning any remaining prunings and replacing any bad stakes. April is also the time for planting one-year-old cuttings from the nursery. The winemaker will continue to top off the casks.
In May, frost danger is at its height, stoves are put among the vines. The second working of the soil is done to kill weeds and spraying against oidium and mildew begins. Towards the end of May, just before the vines flower, begins the second racking off the lees into clean barrels.
The vines flower at the beginning of June when the temperature reaches 65-68º. The weather is critical: the warmer and calmer the better. After flowering, the shoots are thinned and the best ones are tied to the wires. The vines are sprayed for odium with powdered sulphur. New wines have their second racking (process of siphoning the wine off the lees into a new, clean barrel) completed and the old wines in the cellar are also racked. Evaporation is accelerated by the warmer weather and all casks need to be checked for weeping (exuding liquid) between the staves.
In July, the vines are sprayed with special formulated mixtures. The third cultivating of the soil to protect against weeds is also done at this time. The long shoots are trimmed so that the vines spend their energy on making fruit. In the hot weather, the cellar has to be kept cool and if it is necessary to shut the doors at night, sometimes a sulphur candle is burned.
In August the vines are trimmed and the vineyards are weeded. Black grapes turn color. Vats and casks are cleaned to be used for the vintage. Vine growth and fermentation start again mid-month. Low alcohol wines can turn in warm weather so they must be carefully watched.
About the third week of September the grapes are ripe and the vintage begins. In the first three weeks the vines are kept trimmed, birds are kept out of the vineyards and everyone prays for sunshine. The Cuvier where the wine will be made is scoured out, anti-rust varnish is put on all metal parts of the presses. Fermenting vats are filled with water to swell the wood and make them perfectly tight.
The new name in Wine Town is Grüner Veltliner. Grüner Veltliner is the name of the premier winemaker of Austria. Born in 1693 he has become.....Actually, Grüner Veltliner is the name of the newest wine (made from the grape of the same name) to hit the New Wines Hot List. Cultivated since Roman times in Austria, it is the indigenous variety of that country. Originally it was a high production grape that was a simple, easy drinking wine that you would find in all the Austrian wine pubs. Recently, Austria’s winemakers have discovered that, with lower yields and higher ripeness, Grüner Veltliner can produce stunningly intense and concentrated wines with aromas and flavors of grapefruit, summer fruits and white pepper. Because of our search for white wine other than Chardonnay and the new interest in Riesling especially in this area, Grüner Veltliner is beginning to find a home in America. Check them out. Ask your local wine "Guru" for a recommendation.
More wine for my friends! A great idea but not always a smart one especially for people watching their weight. In moderation or in abundance, the calories of wine can make a difference in weight. Drinking a few servings a day gives you a few hundred more calories, giving you a few more pounds over time. For this reason, it’s important to account for the calories consumed whenever you raise your glass.
As a general rule, a 4 ounce glass of wine contains about 80 calories. Fortified wine is typically higher in calories and wines with higher alcohol content - because alcohol is where the majority of the calories are generated will also pack on more pounds. To put this in perspective, the US Department of Agriculture states that 100 grams of wine with a 12.2 alcohol content have roughly 85 calories; 100 grams of wine with a 18.8 alcohol content have 135 calories. The sugar in wine also plays as dramatic a role as the alcohol; the higher the sugar content, the more calories it will have. For this reason, some dieters prefer to consume dry wines with lower alcohol content. The following chart will give you a basic calorie breakdown.
I rejoice as a moralist at the prospect of a reduction on the duties on wine by our national legislature. It is an error to view a tax on that liquor as merely a tax on the rich. It is a prohibition of its use to the middling class of our citizens, and a condemnation of them to the poison of whiskey, which is desolating their houses. No nation is drunken where wine is cheap; and none sober, where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is, in truth, the only anecdote to the bane of whiskey. Fix but the duty at the rate of other merchandise, and we can drink wine here as cheap as we do grog; and who will not prefer it? Its extended use will carry health and comfort to a much enlarged circle. Every one in easy circumstances (as the bulk of our citizens are) will prefer it to the poison to which they are now driven by their government. And the treasury itself will find that a penny apiece from a dozen, is more than a groat from a single one. This reformation, however, will require time.
Thomas Jefferson
Though in every country there are many people who spend upon such liquors more than they can afford, there are always many more who spend less. It deserves to be remarked too, that, if we consult experience, the cheapness of wine seems to be the cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. The inhabitants of the wine countries are in general the soberest people in Europe; witness the Spaniards, the Italians and the inhabitants of the southern provinces of France. People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare. Nobody affects the character of liberality and good fellowship, by being profuse of a liquor which is as cheap as small beer. On the contrary, in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice.
Adam Smith
The Wealth of Nations
March 9, 1776
Champagne 90
Chardonnay 90
Ice Wine or Late Harvest 150+
Madeira 160
Marsala 85
Merlot 95
Port 185
Dry Riesling 90
Sauvignon Blanc 80
Shiraz 95
Zinfandel 90
One of the virtues of wine is that unlike any other alcohol beverage, everyone who drinks wine feels free to discuss its quality. “I like it...I don’t like it” is never enough. We have many descriptor words and phrases in the oenophile (wine connoisseurs) dictionary. The oenophile dictionary was first started around the time the first wines were drunk. It has been used in many written works by many famous people.
In S. Weir Mitchell’s, “A Madeira Party,” 1895, one gentleman commented: “ Observe, Chestnut, the perceptible smoke flavor…a fine, clean-tasting, middle-aged wine… a gentleman, sir, a gentleman! Will never remind you tomorrow of the favor he did you last night.” Michelangelo talking about the wine of San Gimignano stated “It licks, bites, thrusts and stings.” Jonathan Swift wrote in his “Journal to Stella”, “I love white Portugal wine better than claret, champagne or burgundy; I have a sad vulgar appetite.”
Wine can be compared to a bunch of flowers (fragrant, heavily perfumed); a packet of razor blades (steely); a grindstone (flinty); a steelworker (robust, powerful); circus acrobats (elegant and well-balanced); a successful businessman (distinguished and rich); a Florida beach (clean and pebbly); the earth (minerals and forest floor) and a Christmas pudding (plump, sweet and round). Wine is also compared to many fruits except grapes. If it taste too much of grapes, it is considered juice.
Thomas Jefferson (1801-09) spent a breathtaking $10,855.90 on wine during his two terms in office. That’s somewhere between $190,000 and $380,000 in today’s dollars. In 1989, New York wine merchant William Sokolin was showing off Jefferson’s bottle of Chateau Margaux 1787 at the Four Seasons when he hit a tray and felt liquid run down his leg. “I thought someone had spilled coffee,” he said. No such luck. An insurance company paid out $225,000 for the broken bottle, ranking it as the most expensive spilled wine in history.
I have already made mention of the happiness I have derived throughout my life from literature, and I should here, perhaps, acknowledge the consolation I have never failed to find in the fermented juice of the grape. Writing in my sixty-fourth year, I can truthfully say that since I reached the age of discretion I have consistently drunk more than most people would say was good for me. Nor do I regret it. Wine has been to me a firm friend and a wise counsellor. Often, as on the occasion just related, wine has shown me matters in their true perspective, and has, as though by the touch of a magic wand, reduced great disasters to small inconveniences. Wine has lit up for me the pages of literature, and revealed in life romance lurking in the commonplace. Wine has made me bold but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things but not to do them. Under its influence words have often come to easily which had better not have been spoken, and letters have been written which had better not have been sent. But if such small indiscretions standing in the debit column of wine’s account were added up, they would amount to nothing in comparison with the vast accumulation on the credit side. An excerpt from the autobiography of
Duff Cooper
Old Men Forget
My revenues by the miserable oppressions of this kingdom are sunk three hundred pounds a year, for tithes are become a drug, and I have but little rents from the deanery lands, which are my only sure payments. I have here a large convenient house; I live at two-thirds cheaper here than I could there; I drink a bottle of French wine myself every day, though I love it not, but it is the only thing that keeps me out of pain; I ride every fair day a dozen miles, on a large strand or turnpike roads. You in London have no such advantages. I can buy a chicken for a groat, and entertain three or four friends, with as many dishes, and two or three bottles of French wine, for ten shillings. When I dine alone, my pint and chicken with the appendixes cost me about fifteen pence. I am thrifty in everything but wine, of which though I be not a constant housekeeper. I spend between five and six hogshead a year. When I ride to a friend a few miles off, if he be not richer than I, I carry my bottle, my bread and chicken, that he may be no loser. Jonathan Swift
Letter to John Arbuthnot 1734. Swift lived in Ireland at the time and Arbuthnot lived in London.
Seyval Blanc is a French-American hybrid that ripens usually mid to late September and makes crisp white wines with no foxy (grapey) flavors. The off-dry versions balance the natural tartness of the grape with residual sugar. Seyval is the second most planted vine in England behind Müller-Thurgau. Sadly, Seyval Blanc (like all other hybrid varieties) was outlawed for “quality wine” designation by vinifera-obsessed European Union authorities, ostensibly, for quality reasons.
This dark colored grape is known by many names: Limberger in Germany, Blaufränkisch in Austria, Franconia in Friuli, Italy and Kekfrankos in Hungary and Lemberger in the United States (wouldn’t want you to confuse the wine with the cheese). It is compared by many to Gamay and Merlot. The wine can range from light and fruity to being rich in fruit extract and tannin.
The wines can be reminiscent of blackberries, sweet or sour cherries, plums, currants, gooseberries, elderberries, bananas and chocolate, as well as vegetal aromas, such as green beans or green bell peppers. The style and taste is based upon the growing season (ripeness) and the techniques of the winemakers. Because of their acid, extract and tannins, the dryer versions of Lemberger have good aging potential.
In the late nineteenth century, J. F. Ravat, a French Hybridizer, created numerous successful hybrids. The best known of these is Ravat 51 (or Vignoles), a white-wine grape. ßBotrytis Cinerea (the Noble Rot) sometimes forms on the highly acidic Vignoles grapes, which subsequently produce a rich, honeyed wine. Vignoles grapes are also made into dry and semisweet wines.
