the winery— from grapes to bottle © 2007 thomson delmar learning. all rights reserved. chapter 3

The Winery—From Grapes to Bottle

© 2007 Thomson Delmar Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 3


Objectives

• After reading this chapter, you should be able to– display an understanding of how both

red and white table wines are produced.– describe how sparkling wine is

produced.– explain how dessert wines are produced.


Introduction

• Great wines begin in the vineyard, but they are finished at the winery.

• Like a chef, the winemaker works with flavors and aromas to create a wine that consumers will enjoy.

• The decisions the winemaker makes may appear random in nature, but in reality they are based on a scientific understanding of the techniques used to produce wine.


Introduction (continued)

• Complicating the winemaker’s quest to create great wine is the fact that people have different tastes and preferences, and there is no one “ideal” style wine.

• During the 6,000-year history of wine-making, its production has evolved into a number of complex procedures that produce a variety of wines.



• Table wine is a wine designed to accompany food. It is produced in numerous forms, both red and white.– It is the most common type of wine consumed in

the United States, making up over 90 percent of the market.

– A table wine is a still wine (a wine without effervescence).

– A table wine is also relatively dry (without sweetness).

– It has a moderate alcohol content of about 11 to 15 percent.



• In the United States, a wine must be less than 14 percent alcohol to be labeled a “table wine.”– This number was chosen for reasons of tax

collection, not the true definition of being a wine made to complement food.

• Grapes are usually picked at 22 to 25 degrees Brix (°B) to obtain this alcohol level.– Brix is equal to the percentage of sugar by

weight.


The Process of Fermentation

• Fermentation is the process of yeast, unicellular (one-celled) fungi, converting the sugar in grape juice to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

• Other microorganisms can do this, but yeast ferment with the most efficiency and can survive in the higher alcohol at the end of fermentation.



• The species of yeast that is best suited for winemaking is called Saccharomyces cerevisiae.– The name Saccharomyces is derived

from the Latin sugar-fungus; cerevisiae refers to grain.

– Saccharomyces cerevisiae’s most common use is in bread making.



• The rate of fermentation is affected by a number of factors, including– temperature—the warmer the juice is,

the faster it will ferment.• However, above 100°F, yeast will die off.

– acidity—the higher the concentration of acid (the lower the pH), the slower the rate of fermentation.


The Process of Fermentation (continued)

– nutrients—if the juice is low in nutrients, the yeast may not be able to ferment to dryness.

– alcohol—at higher concentrations, 13 percent to 16 percent depending on strain, yeast begin to die.

– sugar—although sugar is required for yeast growth, if the sugar concentration is greater than 30 percent, it inhibits yeast growth.


Natural Fermentation

• Wine was made for thousands of years before there was knowledge of such things as microscopic organisms called yeast.

• Although early winemakers did not understand the mechanism, they knew how to use it to produce wine.

• Some wineries use natural or “wild” yeast that live on the grape skins to make wine.


Natural Fermentation (continued)

• “Wild” yeast can give the wine more complexity, but there also is a higher risk of off-flavors or incomplete fermentation.

• Today most winemakers use commercially available strains of yeast.– These yeasts are similar appearance to

baker’s yeast, and they give the winemaker a clean, efficient fermentation.


Harvest

• Grapes must be harvested and processed as soon as they reach their peak of flavor.

• The weather conditions set the pace of harvest.

• Once the grower and the winemaker have determined that the grapes have reached their optimum ripeness and flavor, they are picked and brought to the winery.

• At the winery the crop is weighed, inspected, and analyzed before being processed.


Red Wine Crush and Fermentation

• After the grapes are weighed and inspected, they are brought to the receiving hopper and unloaded.

• At the bottom of the hopper, there is either a screw or a belt conveyor that is used to transport the fruit to the stemmer-crusher.


Red Wine Crush and Fermentation (continued)

• The stemmer-crusher has two functions: first it takes the berries off the stems, and second it breaks the berries open to release the juice. – The stemmer portion separates the

berries from the stems.– The crusher breaks open the berries and

releases the juice.


• The mixture of approximately 80 percent juice, 16 percent skins, and 4 percent seeds produced by the crusher is called must.

• At this point, the must is liquid enough to be pumped to a tank for fermentation.– In modern wineries, fermentation tanks are

usually made of stainless steel, although vats made of wood or concrete are also still in use.



• After the tank is loaded, the must is analyzed and adjusted if necessary.

• The compounds that are added to adjust the must are natural and already present in the must to some degree, such as sugar, acid, nutrients, and yeast. – The exception to this is the preservative

sulfur dioxide.



• Additives to wine are regulated and vary from region to region. – For example, it is legal to add sugar

to must in France but not acid, whereas in California the opposite is true.



• Once the fermentation begins, the carbon dioxide that is evolved causes the skins to float to the top of the tank and form a cap. – The juice from most red wine varieties is

clear, so it is necessary to extract the red color out of the skins to make red wine.

– If the skins are in a cap that is floating above the juice, very little extraction will take place.



Methods of Cap Management

• To combat extraction problems, the cap is mixed into the juice several times a day. – The manner in which it is mixed, and the

frequency, have a major effect on the overall style of the wine being made.

• Punching down is the oldest, simplest method of mixing the cap of skins and the juice. A punch-down device is used to press down the cap into the juice.


Methods of Cap Management (continued)

• Pumping over is where juice is irrigated over the top of the cap. – As the juice percolates through the skins, it

extracts the color and flavor.

• Rotary fermentors are the most modern and least labor-intensive method. – They are large horizontal tanks that are

rotated and so the cap is rolled over into the juice.



• Carbonic maceration is where a portion or all of the grapes are not crushed but loaded into the tank as whole clusters.

• As the fermentation in the juice progresses, it also begins to take place within the cells of the intact grape berries. – This produces soft tannins and a unique

strawberry or bubble gum aroma.



• Extended maceration is more suited to big-bodied red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon.

• In this technique, at the end of fermentation the must is not pressed, and the skins are left in contact with the young wine from 1 to 8 weeks. – This method is used to give big-bodied

wines less tannins.


Red Fermentation

• Red wines ferment at 75° to 90°F; at this temperature, there is optimal extraction of color without harming the yeast.– Fermentation usually takes from 1 to

3 weeks at this temperature.


Pressing the Skins

• In red wines, when fermentation is complete and the winemaker is satisfied with the flavor extraction, it is time to separate the wine from the skins.

• The majority of the wine is simply drained out of the tank by gravity; however, 10 to 20 percent is held within the skins still inside the tank.


Pressing the Skins (continued)

• The skins are then removed from the tank and loaded into a press, which squeezes out their remaining liquid.

• There are a number of types of presses, but they all work in the same manner.– Force is applied to a layer of skins against

a screened or slatted surface that allows the juice through but holds the skins and seeds back.


Types of Presses

• The basket press is the oldest and most simple design.– It is a vertical cylinder made of slats

of wood arranged with small gaps in between them.

– Traditional basket presses are gentle but require the cake to be broken up by hand in between press cycles.


Types of Presses (continued)

• Tank presses are cylindrical steel tanks that are 3 to 8 feet in diameter and are mounted horizontally. – On one side of the interior, there is an

inflatable bag or membrane, and on the other side is a series of perforated screens or channels.

– The bag inflates squeezing the skins against the screens to remove the juice.


Press Fractions

• Free run is the first wine to come off during pressing and it is the highest-quality juice.

• Press fraction—As the cycles of pressing go on, the quality of the juice diminishes becoming more astringent and bitter. – The young wine is then collected in a sump at the

base of the press before being pumped into a receiving tank.

• After the skins dry, they are called pomace.


Settling and Racking

• Yield after fermentation is typically about 170 gallons of wine per ton of grapes.

• After pressing, the wine is pumped to a tank in the winery cellar for storage.– At this point the new wine is very turbid

and full of suspended solids such as yeast cells, particles of grape skins, and pulp.


Settling and Racking (continued)

• After several days, the suspended solids begin to settle out to the bottom of the tank forming a layer of thick mud-like material called lees.

• After a week or two the clean wine is decanted off the layer of lees in a process called racking.


White Wine Crush and Fermentation

• White wines are made from white (green skinned) grape varieties. – Because the juice of most red grapes is

colorless, it is also possible to make a white wine from red grapes as is done with White Zinfandel and Blanc de Noir sparkling wine.

• Red wines receive most of their flavor from the skins, and whites get theirs from the juice.


White Wine Crush and Fermentation (continued)

• The most important difference in processing is that red wines are pressed after fermentation and white wines are pressed before. – White are usually picked early in the

morning and brought to the winery while they are still cool to preserve the fresh fruit flavors.


• In white winemaking, the grapes are picked, weighed, inspected, and unloaded into the receiving hopper much in the same way they are for red wine production.

• After they are picked, red and white winemaking techniques diverge and the juice must be separated from the grapes.



• The fruit can be– crushed and pressed.

• This is similar to the way red grapes are handled except the pressing takes place prior to fermentation.

– crushed, dejuiced, and pressed.• Here the juice is drained out by gravity

between crushing and pressing.

– whole cluster pressed.• Uncrushed clusters are pressed directly—the

most gentle method.



White Wine Fermentation

• After pressing, the juice is pumped to a settling tank.

• The juice is kept cool, at around 50°F, and held in the settling tank for 12 to 72 hours to allow the lees to form.

• The juice is racked off the grape solids, or primary lees, to avoid the production of undesirable flavors during fermentation. – In the fermentation tank, yeast and fermentation

additives are added.


White Wine Fermentation (continued)

• White wine fermentations take place at a cool temperature, 45° to 60°F, to help retain its fruity aromas.– White fermentations take two to three

times as long as red fermentations, about 3 to 6 weeks.

– After fermentation, the new wine is racked off the yeast lees.


Barrel Fermentation

• Barrel fermentation of white wine gives it a distinctly toasty aroma and is very popular with Chardonnay.

• After the fermentation is finished, the barrels are topped off and the wine is left in contact with the yeast lees at the bottom of the barrel. – This technique of aging is called sur lie

(French for “on the lees”).


Barrel Fermentation (continued)

• Sur lie aging: – This gives the wine more of a yeasty-

bready aroma and more viscosity. – The young wine can be left sur lies

for many months; sometimes the yeast is periodically stirred to intensify the character.


Malolactic Fermentation

• The most prevalent acids in wine are tartaric acid and malic acid.

• Malolactic bacteria convert malic acid in wine into lactic acid.

• Malolactic fermentation has several effects on the wine, – De-acidification, malic acid is a stronger acid than

lactic– Microbial stability, if malo-lactic finishes during

aging it will not spoil the wine by taking place in the bottle.

– Malolactic fermentation produces a compound called diacetyl that has a distinct buttery character.


Malolactic Fermentation (continued)

• Malolactic fermentation usually takes place after the primary, or alcoholic, fermentation and occurs at a much slower pace.

• Malolactic fermentation is usually encouraged in red wines for reasons of stability.

• With white wines, it is a stylistic concern.– In a light-bodied fruity wine like Riesling, it is

usually avoided, while in a rich oak-aged Chardonnay it would be more appropriate.


Barrels and Aging

• The first to store wine in barrels were the Romans.– Winemakers soon discovered that storing wine in

barrels had positive effects on the wine’s flavor. – Barrel makers are called coopers.

• There are two types of reactions that are taking place during aging:– The wine undergoes a slow oxidation.– Flavor components are absorbed from the wood.


Barrels and Aging (continued)

• Oak is the chosen wood for wine barrel production. – It is strong and durable; it is also

nonporous, so the barrels will not leak.

– It also has excellent flavor and aroma compounds that are extracted into the wine.



• The two major categories of oak are European and American.

• There are two species of European oak that are used for making wine barrels, Ouercus sessilis and Quercus robar; they are grown throughout France and central Europe. – European oak is known for giving wine a

rich, toasty vanilla aroma.



• In America Quercus alba, or white oak, is used for barrel making and has stronger, more woody flavors than European oak.

• Beyond the type of oak used, a barrel’s flavor varies depending on the forest the wood is from and the various methods of production that different coopers use.



• Much of the flavor obtained from aging wine in barrels comes from what is extracted out of the oak; however, the softening of the wine’s texture that comes with aging is due to the process of slow oxidation.– Oak has the quality of being semipermeable to

oxygen allowing a small amount of oxygen to be incorporated in an aging wine.

– This helps tannin molecules to polymerize and settle out, softening a wine's body and making it less bitter.



• During aging, a small amount of alcohol and water in the wine can evaporate through the oak of the barrel. – This evaporation causes the remaining wine

in the barrel to become more concentrated with acid and flavor.

– From time to time, the ullage (headspace in the barrel) that is produced by this evaporation must be displaced by topping the barrel up with wine from the same lot.


Finishing a Wine

• After aging is complete, the wine is pumped out of the barrel and sent to the tank cellar for preparation for bottling.

• Wines can be bottled from a single fermentation lot, but more often different lots are blended together.


Finishing a Wine (continued)

• After the blend is selected, two more steps must be completed before wine is ready to be bottled: – Clarification produces a wine that is

brilliant and free of suspended solids.– Stability operations are performed to

ensure that a brilliant wine stays so.


Clarification and Fining

• The simplest and most gentle form of clarification is settling and racking.

• Fining is the process of adding a compound called a fining agent to the wine that will react with compounds in the wine causing them settle out. – After the wine settles, the fining agent and

the wine component that it removed are left behind in the lees when the wine is racked.


Clarification and Fining (continued)

• There are many fining agents that affect stability, clarity, and taste.– Bentonite is used to stabilize a wine

by removing excess protein.– Egg whites and gelatin can be used

to soften tannins.– Carbon can be used to remove off

aromas or excess color.


Cold Stability

• Potassium bitartrate, or cream of tartar, is a salt of two natural constituents of wine, potassium and tartaric acid. – Potassium bitartrate is semisoluble and forms

crystals over time, especially under cold conditions.

– These crystals will form in bottles or in tanks.

• To avoid an excess of tartrates crystallizing in the bottle, wines are chilled in the cellar to just above the freezing point.


Filtering

• Filtering is another way to obtain clarity in a wine prior to bottling. – Filters work by using pressure to

force the wine through a porous substance that allows the liquid to go through but holds solid particles back.


Filtering (continued)

• Filtration is very important when making a wine that has the presence of residual sugar or malic acid. – In these cases, if not all the microbes

are removed before bottling, they can begin to ferment in the bottle and spoil the wine.


Filtering (continued)

• Most wineries use some form of fining or filtration to ensure the quality of their wine.– Some vintners prefer a wine that is

unfined and unfiltered. – If a wine is not fined or filtered, it may

be less brilliant and less stable, but it may also retain more of its natural flavor.


Bottling

• Bottling, the final step in winemaking, must be done with great care because it is not easy to rectify mistakes after the wine is in the bottle. – Before bottling the wine is analyzed and

checked for stability one final time, and any necessary adjustments are made.


Bottling (continued)

• The wine is then sent to the bottling room where a filler machine distributes it to the bottles. – Immediately after being filled, the bottles are

corked or capped to protect the wine from contamination.

– The bottles are then sent to a capsule machine to have a capsule applied to cover the neck and the cork.

– The final steps are applying the label and packing the bottles into cases.


Bottling (continued)

• Bottling is some of the roughest treatment a wine will receive and can leave a wine with less aroma and body. – This condition is called “bottle shock” and

will go away with bottle age. – Although this is a real condition, bottle

shock is often used as a scapegoat for anything a winemaker does not like about a new wine.


Sparkling Wine

• Sparkling wine is defined as wine with bubbles or effervescence.

• It was developed in the Champagne region of France in the 1700s, and was the result of two seventeenth-century winemaking inventions: the cork and the wine bottle.


Sparkling Wine (continued)

• Corks and bottles provided for the first time an airtight package for wine. – Young wines were bottled before they

had finished primary fermentation. – Because of the tight seal, when the wines

finished their fermentation in the bottle, the carbon dioxide was trapped inside giving them effervescence.


Sparkling Wine (continued)

• Over the next one hundred years an elaborate procedure to make sparkling wine called méthode champenoise was developed.

• The term “Champagne” refers to sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France. – In the United States “champagne” is often used as

a generic term, and it is legal to use the term on the label as long as the region of origin is listed, as in “California champagne.”


Grapes for Sparkling Wine

• Since the Champagne region is very cool, the grapes that used for making their sparkling wines ripen early. – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot

Meunier, and in California, Pinot Blanc are the most popular grapes for sparkling wines.


Grapes for Sparkling Wine (continued)

• The base wine used for sparkling wine should be low in alcohol and not have a lot of varietal character. – The secondary fermentation will increase

the alcohol content, and the finished wine should exhibit the flavors produced from the méthode champenoise process.

– The grapes are handled very gently during picking and pressing to avoid extracting too much flavor or color from the skins.


Méthode Champenoise

• After fermentation, the wine is racked and stored until blending.

• In the winter following harvest, the winemaker tastes the various lots of wine produced and puts together the base blend called the cuvée.

• Cuvée is a French word that translates literally to “tub-full” or “vat-full.”


Méthode Champenoise (continued)

• After the blend is made, it is bottled with a small amount of sugar and actively fermenting yeast added and sealed with a crown cap.

• The wine is then stored in a cool dark place for the fermentation in the bottle.



• As the yeast ferment, they produce about 1½ percent more alcohol and about 90 pounds per square inch of carbon dioxide.

• After the fermentation, the bottles undergo tirage where they are aged on the yeast cells for several months to many years depending on the style of sparkling wine being made.



• During tirage, the yeast cells begin to break down in a process called autolysis, which is what gives méthode champenoise its unique flavor.

• After tirage is necessary to remove the yeast from the bottle.



• Riddling is a process used to accumulate the yeast at the end of the neck of the bottle.

• It is done by hand or machine. – The bottle is placed horizontally in a rack

and every day it is twisted and put back into the rack at a steeper angle.

– After several weeks, the yeast has settled at the end of the neck of the bottle and the bottle is upside down, or sur pointe.



• Disgorging. The bottles are placed upside down in a chilled brine bath to freeze the wine in the neck of the bottle.– This traps the yeast, and when the

crown cap is removed, the pressure of the wine expels the plug of frozen wine, taking the yeast with it.



• The bottle is then topped of with a small amount of base wine called dosage. – Since sparkling wine is quite sour, the dosage often

has a small amount of sugar to balance out the acid.

• The bottle is then finished with agglomerate cork inserted halfway to give it its mushroom shape. – Sparkling wine produced by méthode champenoise

is labeled as such or as “fermented in this bottle.”


Charmat or “Bulk” Process

• Although the finest sparkling wines are made by méthode champenoise, it only accounts for a small portion of production.

• The majority of sparkling wine is made by the Charmat or “bulk” process. – In the Charmat process the secondary

fermentation takes place in large steel tanks.– After fermentation, the wine is racked off and

the yeast are filtered out under pressure.


Charmat or “Bulk” Process (continued)

• Filtering out the yeast saves the effort of riddling and disgorging, making bulk process sparkling wine less expensive. – Without the extended time on the

yeast during tirage, however, it does not have the same character as méthode champenoise.


Dessert and Fortified Wines

• There are multitudes of unique dessert and fortified wines that are produced throughout the world.

• Dessert wines are made with appreciable sugar and often have higher alcohol to stabilize the wine and prevent it from fermenting in the bottle.


Dessert and Fortified Wines (continued)

• Dessert wines are an excellent dessert in themselves as a digestive after a meal, or they can be a complement to a sweet dessert course.

• We examine the production methods used in some of the most common types of dessert wines: late-harvest, Port, and Sherry.


Late-Harvest Wines

• Late-harvest wines are made from grapes picked at a much higher sugar level than those for table wines. – They achieve this higher level of sugar concentration

due to the fruit partially dehydrating on the vine. – This high sugar means that the yeast will have a

difficult time fermenting due to the combined inhibitory effects of alcohol and sugar concentration.

– When the fermentation eventually stops without finishing, a microbial stable, sweet wine is produced.


Late-Harvest Wines (continued)

• This dehydration is increased by an infection of a mold that is usually considered a vineyard pest, Botrytis cinerea or “noble rot.” – This mold is a common problem in

vineyards and is normally discouraged by applying sulfur dust.

– Under the right conditions, it has the ability to make some of the world’s best wines.



• The Botrytis begins its infection when ripe grapes are exposed to high humidity.

• When wet weather is followed by dry warm weather, the berries dehydrate to reach the high sugar levels needed. – Two excellent examples of this are the

Trockenbeerenauslese, or TBA, of Germany and the Sauternes wines of France.



• Late-harvest grapes, because of the high solids and sugar, are notoriously difficult to press and ferment.

• The unique weather conditions that are required, combined with the difficulty of their production, make late-harvest wines both rare and expensive.– Late harvest wines can also be made

without the growth of Botrytis cinerea.



• Wines that are made from frozen grapes are called Eiswein or ice wine. – As the water in the berries freezes, the

remaining juice is concentrated. – The pressing is done slowly, and as the juice is

removed from the grapes, some of the water in the berries remains behind as ice.

• Thin-skinned varieties like Zinfandel will shrivel up in hot weather and concentrate without the presence of mold.


Port-Style Wines

• Port wines are full-bodied red wines with about 10 percent sugar and 20 percent alcohol

• They are native to the gorge of the Douro River in northern Portugal. – Historically in this region brandy was

added to red wine to stabilize it for export.


Port-Style Wines (continued)

• After a time the practice of adding the brandy in the middle of fermentation was developed. – This had the effect of killing the yeast

while the must was still quite sweet. – Because a deeply red wine with lots of

tannins is desired for Port, and the time of the fermentation is limited, winemaking practices are designed to maximize extraction from the skins.


Sherry-Style Wines

• Sherry originated in Spain, and like Port, it is produced in a variety of styles.

– The Spanish have a saying that “there is a Sherry for every occasion.”• This reflects the wide range of sherries

from light and dry table wines to the more common rich and sweet dessert wines.


Sherry-Style Wines (continued)

• The defining characteristic of Sherry is that it is purposely oxidized, making it high in acetaldehyde.– This gives Sherry wines their

distinctive roasted nut aroma. – Sherry was once the most popular wine

in America; however, in recent years its consumption has declined significantly.



• The flavor of sherry is produced during the aging process, so a fairly neutral wine is desired as a base for Sherry.

• Sherry production starts by fermenting the base wine to dryness and an alcohol content of about 15½ percent.

• After vinification, the wines are graded by color, taste, and body to determine which type of Sherry they will be used to make.



• The lighter wines are inoculated with flor yeast and called fino or manzanilla.

• The more full-bodied wines are fortified with brandy to 20 percent alcohol and called oloroso.

• The wines are then placed in partially full barrels to expose the wine to oxygen.



• The traditional method of aging Sherry is done in a fractional barrel system called a solera. – Soleras are set up in 5 to 12 tiers of barrels.– Once a year, one-quarter of the wine on the

bottom level is removed for bottling. – It replaced by one-quarter of the wine in the

next highest tier. – This process goes on until one-quarter of the

wine in the top tiers is moved to the next level to make room for the wine from the new vintage.



• In California, methods of production differ significantly from those in Spain.– Air is bubbled through the tank to

encourage the growth of flor yeast. – California Sherry is often finished by

aging in barrels at an elevated temperature, more similar to the production of Madeira than Spanish Sherry.


The Attributes of Wine

• Wine is a complex mixture of nearly 1,000 different naturally occurring chemical compounds.

• These constituents come from three sources: – the compounds that are present in grape juice– the compounds that are produced by

microorganisms fermenting the grape juice– the compounds that are added by the processing

and aging of the wine


The Attributes of Wine (continued)

• In addition to the natural chemicals in wine there also can be a small amount of human-made materials that are added to wine.– usually in the form of sulfites used as

a preservative



• Water makes up 80 to 90 percent of wine. – Water content affects the chemical and

sensory qualities of wine, as well as being the base the other wine constituents are dissolved in.

• Alcohol (ethyl-alcohol or ethanol) is the next most prevalent compound. – It has a significant role in the sensory and

stability aspects of wine, as well as many physiological effects.



• Glycerol is another type of alcohol that is produced by yeast. – It is nonintoxicating, but it does have

sensory contributions contributing to the body of the wine.

• Organic acids are present in about the same quantity as glycerol but have a greater sensory effect. – The acids in wine also contribute to the

microbial stability of a wine.



• Some of the most important flavor compounds in wine are present in very small amounts. – Trace constituents such as phenols, esters,

and sugars each represent groups of complex chemical compounds with similar structures.

– Each of these groups has many members; for example, there are ten different alcohols found in wine besides ethanol and glycerol.



• Each individual wine has a unique combination of these chemicals that gives it a distinctive character. – The various amounts of these

compounds that are present are determined by such factors as the grape variety, the vineyards terroir, and the production decisions that the winemaker and the grower make.


Summary

• A wine’s sensory qualities are determined by its chemical makeup, and the chemical makeup of a wine is influenced by a vineyard’s terroir and the actions of the grape grower and the winemaker.

• The grower sets the stage for a wine's flavor by controlling factors such as selection of a clone and how the vineyard is pruned.


Summary (continued)

• Winemaking decisions build upon the flavors that the grape grower established in the vineyard.

• The great complexity of what a wine is made of is ultimately shaped by numerous choices available to the people who produce it.

• The interpretation of what a wine should taste like varies from region to region, winery to winery, and vintage to vintage.

the winery— from grapes to bottle © 2007 thomson delmar learning. all rights reserved. chapter 3

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