Become a Wine Connoisseur

When pouring wine into the glass, it should be poured against the side of the glass if it is a sparkling wine, otherwise it should be poured into the center. Since you dont want unsightly drips to spoil your cloth, twist the bottle slightly as you lift it up. You can practice this beforehand with a bottle of tomato sauce. It works really well to keep sauce out of the cap. Never fill the glass right up; there needs to be enough room for the wine to be swirled around the glass. About two thirds is right you can always add to it later on.

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Are earthquakes responsible for great wine? This theory has been seriously considered with the best wine-growing areas in the US being directly along the San Andreas Fault. In Northern California, Temecula Cucamonga, Cienaga Valley, the Santa Cruz Mountains and Sonoma Coast all host areas of prime viticulture and all are very close to the San Andreas Fault. The theory is that earthquakes break up the soil at an extremely deep level, allowing dry-farmed wine grapevines to send their roots down forty or more feet. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly true that grapevine roots will go down to such a depth if the soil allows it and whatever nutrients the roots suck up will certainly affect the final product the grape and thus the wine made from it.

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Home winemakers who cannot ferment their wine in an oaken barrel often use oak chips to try and emulate the flavor of oak barrels. This is considered a viable alternative, yet somehow it is not quite the same. Oak barrels used in the traditional way have something unique and special to add to wine flavor that is impossible to reproduce perfectly any other way.

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Since there are many factors involved in making wine, there are also many factors to take into consideration when deciding what makes one wine better than another. Some would assert that the age of the wine is the biggest factor and that the older the wine the better it is, but this is not always true. Some wines do not age well.

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In the old days, harvested grapes were crushed by means of people treading on them with their bare feet. These days they are crushed by machine a rather more hygienic way - and the fermenting process is carried out in stainless steel vats. Although yeast occurs naturally on the skins of the grapes, the wine-maker will add more yeast of a special culture for winemaking. During fermentation, the yeast that is present in the mixture will begin to digest the sugars that are present. When all the sugar has been digested, the yeast then gradually drops to the bottom of the liquid. This is then poured off into barrels to complete the aging process. These barrels are traditionally made of oak and play an important part in the process of wine making. During the aging process, the wine is moved from full to empty barrels several times, with the solids in the bottom of the barrel removed, and the barrel used again. This process is called racking.

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The debate rages in many circles; which is the best, old world or new world wines? Firstly what actually constitutes an old world or a new world wine? Traditionally, old world wine is that which comes from France, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Spain and Italy, while new world wine comes from those countries that were discovered much later, like the US, Australia and New Zealand, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Canada and South America.
But what can be the difference in the wines? Dont most grape vines have the same rootstock? For the most part, yes, but the terrain and climate differ greatly. Also, there are many subtle differences in the ways in which wines are made. Master winemakers and drinkers, consider these to be supremely important. Many experienced wine buffs consider the old world wines to be incomparable. New world wines, they say, are too fruity and full of sugar and with much less of one key element, acidity. New world wines must have extra grape acid added - a big no-no to traditionalists - and so are referred to as manufactured wines.

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Earthquakes aside, location and soil type certainly do affect the flavor and quality of wine. There is more to the terrain in which the grapes grow than just the soil you can see. The sub-soil plays an important part, since grapevine roots grow so deeply. Is the subsoil rocky, chalky, sandy, dry or wet? All will have a bearing on the type of grape produced. Vines grown in limestone areas like Burgundy, France impart the subtle tang of limestone to the Chardonnays made from their grapes. But soil and sub-soil are not the only factors. We must also look at what flora grows nearby. For instance, the eucalypt trees flanking vineyards in California impart a faint aroma of eucalyptus to the wine made from that area.

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