Beverage Knowledge Book Two

BALI HOSPITALITY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

BEVERAGES KNOWLEDGE
Do not sell this Book, this Book is complimentary
from Hotel Team Managers

Drs. Agustinus Agus Purwanto, MM
Chief Executive Officer
April ‐ 2009
Book Two

Wine
• Alsace Wines
• Burgundy wine
• Champagne
• Loire Valley Wines
• Sparkling Wine
• Storage of Wine
• Wine
• VINE YARD MANAGEMENT
www.balihospitalityservices.webs.com or www.hotelteammanager.webs.com Page 1

Introduction
The vine grows most successfully between the latitude 30-50° north and 30-50° south
of the equator. Some of the greatest wine, like champagne come from the extremities
of these wine belts where because of the extreme cold or extreme heat, the wine has a
permanent struggle to service. The vine usually produces good quality grapes when it
is five year old and will continue to yield healthy grapes up to the age of 35 years.
History
Wine is probably the earlier of the alcoholic beverages, simple because it could be
made without the maker has to understand the chemical change that turned the sugar in
grapes, other fruits and other product into alcohol. Some of these earlier, wines were
made from Honey and were known as mead. Indeed wine may have been brewed in
Mesopotamia. It has been made as long as ten thousand years ago.
Wine is mentioned in documents three thousand year old as well as in the Bible and in
the literature of the Greeks and Roman Bees has been Kurun as long as wine. Wine
making goes as for back into history as the act of cooking food goes. Ever since the
time man started enjoying his food, he has known the art of making wine to go with it.
The metamorphosis wine underwent from the stages where the juice of fruit simply left
for a long time and allowed to ferment to the refined wine as we know it, today it took
a very long time. The efforts put in by the various vineyard and the wine makers in
perfecting the act of making good wine and in keeping the formula and the process a
secret have contributed to giving as the wine as we know it today. In countries like
France, the formula and the process, individually to every grower is a very jealously
guarded secret that is passed down the generation only through members of the family.
The top ten wine producing countries are:

1. Italy
2. France
3. Spain
4. U.S.A.
5. C.I.S.
6. Argentina
7. Germany
8. Portugal
9. South Africa
10. Romania

The top ten wine consuming countries are :
France 67.5 lit per capital
Portugal 66.5 lit per capital
Italy 62.0 lit per capital
Luxemburg 60.3 lit per capital
Argentina 45.8 lit per capital
Spain 45.8 lit per capital
Switzerland 45.5 lit per capital
Chile 41.0 lit per capital
Austria 39.2 lit per capital
Greece 31.8 lit per capital
As a contrast, the United Kingdom consumes 12.5 lit per capital. Although Britain is
traditionally regarded as a nation of beer drinks the consumption of wine has now
dramatically increased. One of the effects of the secret recessions is that more and
more people are having their diner at home rather than going out for a meal. For massy
that means having a couple of glasses of wine when they eat. It is now estimated that
home consumption of wine makes up 75% of the market. A greater interest in
television and the obvious deterrent of the drink driving laws have also influenced this
trend. You can now get the quality wine at a reasonable price in super market and other
outlet. Wine has become socially acceptable and is perceived to be more clearly
healthy than other alcohol drinks
Principle Grape varieties used in wine :

White grapes
Aligole
Bacchus
WHITE RED
Chardonnay Cabernet
Chenin Blasic Gamy
Gewurtztraminer Merlot
Muller-Thurgace Plebbiolo
Muscat Pinot-Noir
Rinot Blanc Syrah
Riesling Zinfaudel
Saicnignon Blassic
Trebbiasco

Making of Wine
The various processes involved in the process of making wine –
1. Harvesting
2. Grading
3. Weighing
4. Removal of stalks
5. Crushing
6. Sulphuring
7. Fermentation
8. Cellaring & second processing
9. Racking
10. Fining & Filtering
11. Refrigeration
12. Blending
13. Maturing of wine
14. Bottling of wines
15. Pasteurization
16. Ageing of wine
Factors Affecting wine quality
A number of factors effect wine quality, the most important being the type of grape
used. The best grapevine is the vitis vinifera, which has many different varieties. The
grape yield per acre is also a factor. The higher the yield is the lower the wine quality
will generally be conversely, the lower the yield is the more concentrated the grape
flavours and the better the wine quality will be normally, a ton of gushed grapes yield
an average of 170 gallon of Table wine.
Soil is also a factor the best being one that offers good drainage, which is why gravel
and sand are better than clay. Good drainage forces the wines root to seek deep
moisture which cause their root to become longer. These longer roots are able to reach
deep mineral deposits and these mineral, in turn, add flavour to gapes and this to wine.
Another factor is climate Grape vines like Cool nights and Sunny, warm days, as these
help them maintain the right balance between acid and sugar in the grapes. However,
too hot weather when the grapes are maturing, near harvest times, will decrease the
acid and increase the sugar and will produce a wine that may not age well. On the other
hand too little sunshine will reduces the amount of grape sugar and produce a wine low
in alcohol and as a result, sugar may have to be added before fermentation to raise that
alcohol level. Also rain at harvest time can diluted the grapes sugar and encourages
rolling thereby lowering the quality of the wine. Mechanical grapes-picking equipment
can give grapes growers more control over the grapes quality than hand picking can as
all the grape can be picked quickly when they all at their peak of ripeness. But if rain

has spoiled some of the grape bunches, hand picking will allow those to be by passed.
Finally, the skills of the winemaker are extremely important as it can affect the
personality and quality of the wine produced. The vintner’s skill can also very, because
of local tradition and will dictate the type of wine made. The market for whom the
wine is to be manufactured also calls upon different wine making skills. For example,
if the wine to be made in a smaller quantity with a high quality or in a larger quantity
with a lesser quality for a broader market.
Vitis Vinifera
The best wines are made from a type of vine as known Vitis Vinifera. Some of which
are known to be three hundred years only. This wine grows best in his broad belts one
north and the other south of the equator. Grapes can be grown outside these belts and
be turned into wine, but its quality is not considered as high as that from vines grown
within these belts. The northern belt includes as knowledge wine making countries
such as France, Italy, Germany and the United States. The Southern belt embraces
Chile, Argentina, Australia and South Africa vines will yield more grapes when
planted in fertile soil on flat land but the wine made from such grapes will seldom be
comparable in quality to wine made from grapes grown on sunny slopes in soil that
may not be fertile but is rich in the mineral that create a special, characteristic, known
as bouquet, that is present in all quality wines.
As the grapes mature, their sugar content increases and their acid content decreased.
Grape growers thus must know when the balance between sugar and acid is just right
to produce the best wine.
Types of wine
There are three basic types of wine: still, sparkling and fortified. All three will be given
below in detail –
Still wine or table wine
Most wine is still wine which is known as dinner or table wine. It can be provided in
various shades of red, rose and white and has an alcohol content generally ranging
from 9 to 14 percent by volume.
1. Red wine is often more full than rose or white and is often heartier, taster and
dries. Red wine is best served at room temperature and some red wine can be
served chilled which are young red wine.
2. Rose wine may be slightly sweet & often has a fruity flavour. Rose wines are
best served chilled. Rose wine colour is mainly from pals pink to red.

3. White wine vary from a pale strain colour to a deep gold. Whites are lighter
bodied and more delicate than red wine and has less pronounced flavour. White
wines are served chilled.
Much still wine is referred to by the French Le Vin ordinoire which means as
inexpensive wine of agreeable quality produced in great quality for every any
consumption by the inhabitants of France and other. European countries very little of
this wine is exported to North America.
Sparkling Wine
Sparkling wine contains carbon dioxide bubbles which provide their effervescence.
The carbon dioxide is produced either through a natural process of fermentation that
does not allow the carbondioxide to escape during the conversion of the grape sugar
into alcohol and carbon dioxide or it is added to still wine after the fermentation is
complete.
Red rose and white wines all can be made into sparkling wines. Whatever the colour
sparkling wine is best served chilled like still wines, spackling wines range from 9 to
14 percent alcohol by volume.
The best known naturally produced sparkling wine is champagne. Although only the
sparkling wine produced in the champagne region of France is true champagne (with a
capital C) the champagne method can be applied to any wine to make it sparkling. In
Germany, sparkling wine is given the name “Schaumwein” and in Italy it is
‘Spumante’.
Fortified wines
Fortified wines are still wines to which has been added a distilled grape spent such as
brandy. This fortification considerably increases the wines alcohol content which
ranges from 15% to as high as 24 percent by volume. Fortified wines vary from very
dry to very sweet and are usually served before or at the conclusion of a meal. The best
known fortified wines are poet, sherry, vermouth, Madeira and Macola.
Sweetness in sparkling wine
Extra trut : Very dry (upto 6 g)

Brut : Very dry (less than 15 g)
Extra Sec : Dry (12 to 20 g)
Sec : Slightly sweet (17 to 35 g)
Demi Sec : Sweetish (35 to 50 g)

Factor affecting quality of wine
1. Soil of the area
2. Weather condition present in the region during the year
3. The types of grapes used and if different variety are used, the proportion on
which they are mixed
4. Artificial or natural ingredient added if any.
5. Period of maturity
6. The number of growths during the year
Storage of wines
Temperature: A steady moderate temperature is essential for maintaining the quality

of a wine. It can vary from 0°C to 24°C. However these changes in the temperature
must be gradual. This is the reason why cellar are preferred for storage of wine. White
wines are more sensitive to temperature variation than red wines.
Light: Exposure to light encourages oxidation and hence accelerates aging. Therefore
wine must never be exposed to sunlight.
Stability: Violent and frequent motion also accelerates the process of aging in a wine.
Hence wine must be stored such that it is not subjected to movement Bed wine in the
process of manufacture must not be distributed as the sediment to blend in the wine
and thus get a perfectly good wine.
Position: A wine must always be stored in a lifted or lying down position. The entry
affair through a day cock increase oxidation and hence a cock must be maintained
moist. A dry cock crumbs when being opened thus spoiling the taste and appearance of
the wine. This is the reason why wines are always stored lying down.
Glass required for wine service
1. White wine or hock capacity : 5½ oz

2. A.P. wine or red wine : 7 oz
3. Champagne saucer : 6 oz
4. Champagne tulip : 9 oz
5. Sherry : 3 oz

Equipment required jar service of wine
1. Wine basket or wine stand with ice

2. Wine opener
3. Waiters cloth
4. Quarter plate
5. Proper glassware
Service of Wine
1. Presentation of Bottle –
Draw the wine from the cellar and take it to the table properly wrapped in a waiter
cloth. Present the wine bottle to the host from the right with the bottle resting on the
forearm while announcing the name of wine and clearly stating the year of
manufacture this is to make clear and sure that the host being given the bottle has
ordered for this is also the good chance for him to check that the wine is being served
at the right temperature.
2. Opening the bottle –
Cut the foil well below the tip of the bottle and tear it off wipe the mouth to remove
any mould that may have formed near the cock. Insert the corkscrew into the cork not
more than 3/4th of the way into the cock to avoid contact with the wine. Draw the cock
out gently & present it to the host for approval on a plate the inspection of the cock
gives the host as ideal of the aroma to expect from the wine. It also tells the host that
the bottle has been stored in the proper manner and that the cock has not crumbled on
being drawn.
3. Pouring –
Pour wine into the host's glass and wait for him or her to taste it and approve. Once the
host approves the wine pour it to the guest, starting from the host left hand and pureed
in a clockwise direction. Make sure you serve the ladies first. The host must or served
last.
4. Placed the rest of Wines –
Put the bottle back in the basket or wine basket with an appropriate wrapped napkin. If

the bottle is empty it must be placed neck back down in the wine stand after showing
to the host.
5. A few general rules to note while pouring wine –

Never from wine from a height
Never touch the rim of the glass
Pour it quality gently avoiding bubbling
Pour only 2/3rd of the glass or up to the logo
While pouring champagne always remembers that champagne is always
"poured twice" which means you pour a little. Wait for the froth to dry down
and then pour again to fill the glass.
After pouring twist the bottle slightly to avoid the last drops dripping down the
side.
When pouring the wine pour steadily on the slope of the glass on the opposite
side ensure the flow is smooth.
When changing the wine or when serving a fresh bottle always serve in fresh
glasses.
Before discarding an empty bottle show it to the host to avoid confusion later
on.
Opening a Champagne Bottle
Remove the foil and the wine holding the cork in its place. Hold the bottle resting in
the forearm or place it in the wine bucket (but never on the table). Holding the bottle
with one hand, the cork in the other. Gently but firmly twist the cork and allow the
pressure of the carbon dioxide inside to push out the cork. A properly opened
champagne cork should not let out much of a sound only a slightly pop or a hiss. Do
not let cork fly out of your hand as this may damage properly or hurt somebody.
Wine Facts
A proper wine glass should be large enough to contain a full serving without
approaching being halfway filled. A glass of from ten to fourteen ounce capacity works
well. This provides adequate space for both swirling without spilling and to gain the
"chimney effect" that concentrates and directs the vapors that carry the wine's smells.
A glass of this size is also not so large as to be awkward or unwieldy.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recognized a particular
shape that is the accepted benchmark at all wine judging and competitions. It is also
suitable for the average wine drinker as an all around, every day glass. It should be
made of transparent, colorless glass with a lead content of up to 9%. Its dimensions are

just under 6 inches (155 mm) tall, with a two inch (5 cm) tall stem and a four-inch (100
mm) tall bowl, about two and a half inches (65 mm) at its widest diameter and two
inches (46 mm) across the rim.
One Acre of Land Averages: One Barrel of Wine Contains:

Five tons of grapes 740 pounds of grapes
13.51 barrels of wine 59 gallons of wine
797 gallons of wine 24.6 cases of wine
3,958 bottles of wine 295 bottles of wine
15,940 glasses of wine 1,180 glasses of wine
ine 7 gallons of
One Case of Wine Contains: One Bottle of Wine Contains:

30 pounds of grapes 2.4 pounds of grapes
307.2 ounces of wine 25.6ozs of wine
12 bottles of wine 4 glasses of wine
48 glasses of wine

One Glass of Wine Contains:
9.7ozs of grapes
6.4ozs of wine
International Toasts
Czech: Na Zdravi (Na zdrah vi) To Your Health

French: A Votre Sante! (Ah Vot-ruh
To Your Health!
Sahn-tay)
German: Prosit! (Proh-sit) ! Cheers
Greek: Stin Eyiassou! (Stin Eye-ee-
To Your Health!
yass-ooh)
Hebrew: L'Chaim! (Le Hy-em) To Life!
Hungarian: Le! Le! Le! Egeszsegere Down! Down! Down! To your
(Lay Lay Lay Egg-eshAy-ged-reh) health!
Italian: Cin! Cin! (Chin Chin) Cheers!
Japanese: Kampai! (Kam-pie) To an empty glass!
Mandarin: Gan bei! (Gan Bay) To an empty glass!
Polish: Na zdrowie! (Naz-droh-vee-
To your health!
ay)
Portuguese: Saude (Sow-ooh-jee) Cheers!
Russian: Zdorovie (Zdo-ro-vee) To your health!
Serbo-Croat: Ziveli! (Zhi-vol-ee) To Life!
Spanish: Salud! (Sah-lud) To your health!
Swedish: Skal! (Skoll) Cheers!
Yiddish: Zei Gazunt! (Zye Gah-zoont) To your health

Q: What is an ice wine?
Ice wine is a specialty wine made from grapes, which have remained on the vines
until after the first frost. These grapes have a more intense flavor and sweetness.
Because of its intensity, ice wine is drunk as a dessert or after dinner wine in a much
smaller quantity. It normally is sold in smaller bottles and tends to have a higher cost -
-- as the harvest is generally smaller as well.
Q: What does “late harvest” mean?
Late harvest refers to when the grapes are removed from the vines. Late harvest
grapes have had more time on the vine and have therefore grown sweeter with time,
due to a higher concentration of sugar. A wine made from late harvest grapes, such as
late harvest Riesling will be sweeter.
Q: What are French Hybrid grapes?
Pennsylvania has great terrain for French Hybrid grapes, such as Chambourcin,
Seyval Blanc, Baco Noir, Vignoles, and Marechal Foch. Vinifera (vin-if-fur-ah)
grapes come from the old world, primarily Europe, and produce the drier wines many
connoisseurs appreciate, such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Pinot
Noir. All of these different types of grapes grow throughout the state.
Q: How long can I store wine?
Wine ages in the bottle. Whether it should age for a month or years is dependant on
the type of wine. Light, crisp, white or sweet wines generally should be consumed
while young – within a year or so. Big, bold reds and some Chardonnays benefit from
age. You may want to allow them to age for years.
Q: How long will wine retain its flavor after opening?
Once a bottle of wine is opened, the air immediately starts to affect the taste and
smell. If you do not drink an entire bottle, try using a “vacu-pump” device to pull out
all the air. Then tightly re-cork the bottle. White wine will usually keep for two to
three days after the initial opening; red will keep about three to five days. Remember,
you also can use your remaining wine in many recipes! White wine is great over
chicken or to stir fry vegetables, etc. Red wine adds great flavor to red sauces, chili
and beef fondue.

Q: How should I store my wine?
Wine with a cork closure should be stored on its side to prevent the cork from drying
out. Wine with a synthetic closure does not have to be stored on its side, but wine
racks are just so handy. Wine likes dark, consistently cool storage areas. Exposure to
intense light and heat can ruin a wine.
As a rule of thumb most red wines will benefit from breathing. White wines that have
had 12 or more months aging may also benefit from decanting. If you don't have a
proper decanter, use any large mouth glass container. The idea is to expose the
maximum surface to the air, to help open up the fruit flavors and develop the wine's
true character.
If a wine has spent up to 12 months in oak barrels allow 1 hour;

24 months allow 2 hours; 36 months, allow 3 hours.
If there is sediment use a filter to decant (a coffee filter works just fine).
Did you know?
• 20 million acres are planted for grapes worldwide.
• Among the world's fruit crops, wine grapes rank#1 in number of acres planted?
• 164 countries import California wines.
• 30 million gallons of wine were lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
• Phylloxera was first discovered in California on 14 august 1873
• It takes 5 years to harvest a commercial crop from newly replanted grape vines.
• 10,000 varieties of wine grapes exist worldwide.
• It cost 80 cents per bottle to age wine in a French oak barrel.
• It cost 2.25$ per bottle to age wine in only new French oak barrels.
• The first known reference to a specific wine vintage is mentioned in roman
history rated 121 B.C. as a vintage “of the highest excellence.
• A bottle of opened wine stored in the refrigerator lasts 6-16 times longer than it
would if stored at room temp?
• There are 400 oak species available
• Only 20 are used in making oak barrels.
• 5% of an oak tree is suitable for making high grade wine barrels.
• 54.6% of restaurant wine sales, red wines represent
• 2.64$ is the average cost of the grapes used to produce a $20 bottle of wine.
• To prevent a sparkling wine from foaming out of the glass, pour an ounce,
which will settle quickly. Pouring the remainder of the serving into this starter
will not foam as much.
• Old wine almost never turns to vinegar. It spoils by oxidation.
• In 1999 Merlot was the "hot" varietal, but 50 years earlier in 1949, the "darling
of the California wine industry" was Muscatel.

• A 1889 newspaper that described the Napa Valley crop as the finest of its kind
grown in the U.S., was referring to hops.
• Wine has so many organic chemical compounds it is considered more complex
than blood serum.
• 170 years - the average age of a French oak tree harvested for use in wine
barrels.
• Portugal has 1/3 of the world's cork forests and supplies about 90% of the cork
used in the U.S.
• Beaujolais Nouveau cannot be legally released until the third Thursday of every
November. In 2003 the date is Nov. 20th.
• 20 million acres are planted to grapes worldwide?
• Worldwide wine grapes as a crop rank #1 in number of acres planted.
• 30 million gallons of wine were lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
• There are 10,000 varieties of wine grapes worldwide.
• The 19th century American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, mentions
wine more than 300 times in his works.
• The soil of the Clos de Vougeot (A vineyard in the Burgundy) is considered so
precious that workers are required to scrape it from their shoes before they
leave each night.
• The largest cork tree in the world is known as ‘The Whistler Tree’. This tree is
located in the Alentejo region of Portugal and averages over 1 ton of raw cork
per harvest. Enough to cork 100,000 bottles.
• The dye used to stamp the grade on meat is edible. It's made from grape skins
During prohibition, a product called the 'Grape Brick' was sold across
America. Attached to the 'brick' of dried and pressed winegrape concentrate
was a packet of yeast, and the warning, "Do not add yeast or fermentation will
result."
• McDonald's restaurants in some European countries serve alcohol, so parents
would be more willing to take their children to them.
• The Puritans loaded more beer than water onto the Mayflower.
• The word "toast," meaning a wish of good health, started in ancient Rome,
where a piece of toasted bread was dropped into wine.
• Before thermometers were invented, brewers would dip a thumb or finger into
the liquid to determine the ideal temperature for adding yeast, giving us the
phrase "rule of thumb."
• In old England, a whistle was baked into the handle of ceramic mugs. When
they wanted a refill, patrons used the whistle to get service. So when people
went drinking, they would "wet their whistle."
• The pressure in a bottle of champagne is about 90 pounds per square inch,
about three times the pressure in automobile tires.

• Junipero Serra is considered to be the "Father" of the California Wine industry,
and was responsible for planting grapevines at every one of the 9 missions he
established throughout the state.
• The first fine wine grapes in California were planted in Downtown Los Angeles
at the current site of the Union Train Station. Jean-Louis Vignes, a native of
Bordeaux planted the vines in 1833
• The oldest known grapevine in the world is more than 400 years old and
located in Yarra, Slovenia. It is carefully pruned every year and shoots are
presented as gifts to communities around the world.
Other Facts
• Jefferson and wine: From Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas
Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, by Stephen E Ambrose,
comes the following historical note. Jefferson took up residence in the
President’s House in 1801, after his inauguration as the 3rd President of the
United States.
• “Jefferson ran the place with only eleven servants (Abigail Adams had needed
30!), brought up from Monticello. There were no more powdered wigs, much
less ceremony. Washington and Adams, according to Republican critics, had
kept up almost a royal court. Jefferson substituted Republican simplicity - to a
point. He had a French chef, and French wines he personally selected. His
salary was $25,000 per year - a princely sum, but the expenses were also great.
In 1801 Jefferson spent $6500 for provisions and groceries, $2700 for servants
(some of whom were liveried), $500 for Lewis’s salary, and $3,000 for wine.”
• Dom Perignon (1638-1715), the Benedictine Abbey (at Hautvillers) cellar
master who is generally credited with “inventing” the Champagne making
process, was blind.
• Thomas Jefferson helped stock the wine cellars of the first five U.S. presidents
and was very partial to fine Bordeaux and Madeira.
• To prevent a sparkling wine from foaming out of the glass, pour an ounce,
which will settle quickly. Pouring the remainder of the serving into this starter
will not foam as much.
• Old wine almost never turns to vinegar. It spoils by oxidation.
• U.S. 1998 sales of white and blush wines were 67% of total table wine sales.
Red wines were 33% of sales. At Beekman’s, the best we can calculate (since
we don’t track the color of wine sales from Chile, Australia or Spain or of jug
wines) is that our sales of white and blush comprised only 45% of total wine
sales. Reds accounted for 55%. That’s in dollars, not unit sales. American
wines accounted for 47% of our wine sales vs. 53% for imported wines.
• In King Tut’s Egypt (around 1300 BC), the commoners drank beer and the
upper class drank wine.
• According to local legend, the great French white Burgundy, Corton-

Charlemagne, owes its existence, not to the emperor Charlemagne, but to his
wife. The red wines of Corton stained his white beard so messily that she
persuaded him to plant vines that would produce white wines. Charlemagne
ordered white grapes to be planted. Thus: Corton-Charlemagne!
• When Leif Ericsson landed in North America in A.D. 1001, he was so
impressed by the proliferation of grapevines that he named it Vinland.
Cork was developed as a bottle closure in the late 17th century. It was only
after this that bottles were lain down for aging, and the bottle shapes slowly
changed from short and bulbous to tall and slender.
• The Napa Valley crop described in 1889 newspapers as the finest of its kind
grown in the U.S. was hops.
• When Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii in volcanic lava in A.D. 79, it also
buried more than 200 wine bars.
• The “top five” chateau of Bordeaux, according to the 1855 Classification, were
actually only four: Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux and Haut-Brion. In the
only change to that historic classification, Mouton-Rothschild was added in
1973.
• Grapevines cannot reproduce reliably from seed. To cultivate a particular grape
variety, grafting (a plant version of cloning) is used.
• Wine has so many organic chemical compounds it is considered more complex
than blood serum.
• Wine grapes are subject to mold when there’s too much moisture. Tight
clustered Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir are most susceptible to
mold. The looser clusters of Cabernet Sauvignon allow for faster drying of
moist grapes and thus make it less susceptible.
• In 1945, Chateau Mouton-Rothschild began a series of artists’ labels, hiring a
different artist each year to design a unique label for that vintage. The artists
have included such notables as Chagall, Picasso, Miro and Warhol. The 1993
label was sufficiently controversial in this country (the stylized juvenile nude
on the label offended the Political Correctness Police) that the Chateau
withdrew the label and substituted a blank label instead.
• It is the VERY slow interaction of oxygen and wine that produces the changes
noticed in aging wine. It is believed that wine ages more slowly in larger
bottles, since there is less oxygen per volume of wine in larger bottles. Rapid
oxidation, as with a leaky cork, spoils wine.
• Before harvest, the canopy of leaves at the top of the vine is often cut away to
increase exposure to the sun and speed ripening.
• The average age of a French oak tree harvested for use in wine barrels is 170
years!
The lip of a red wine glass is sloped inward to capture the aromas of the wine
and deliver them to your nose.
• “Cold maceration” means putting the grapes in a refrigerated environment for

several days before starting fermentation to encourage color extraction. This is
being done more and more frequently with Pinot Noir since the skins of this
varietal don’t have as much pigmentation as other red varietals.
• Frenchman Georges de Latour came to America in the late 1800’s to prospect
for gold. He didn’t find much gold, but he founded a truly golden winery:
Beaulieu Vineyard.
• Mycoderma bacteria convert ethyl alcohol into acetic acid, thus turning wine
into vinegar. However, most incidents of spoiled wine are due to air induced
oxidation of the fruit, not bacterial conversion of alcohol to vinegar.
• The world’s most planted grape varietal is Airén. It occupies over 1 million
acres in central Spain where it is made into mediocre white wine, but some
quite good brandy.
• Bettino Ricasoli, founder of Brolio, is credited with having created the original
recipe for Chianti, combining two red grapes (Sangiovese and Canaiolo) with
two white grapes (Malvasia and Trebbiano). Today the better Chiantis have
little or no white grapes in them and may contain some Cabernet. They are
thus deeper in color and flavor and more age worthy.
• From 1970 until the late 1980s, sales and consumption of wine in the United
States held a ratio of about 75% white to 25% red. At the turn of the
Millennium, the ratio is closer to 50-50.
• In the year 2000, Americans spent $20 billion on wine. 72% of that was spent
on California wines.
• In ancient Rome bits of toast were floated in goblets of wine. There is a story
that a wealthy man threw a lavish party in which the public bath was filled
with wine. Beautiful young women were invited to swim in it. When asked his
opinion of the wine, one guest responded: “I like it very much, but I prefer the
toast.” (referring, presumably, to the women) “Cuvée” means “vat” or “tank.”
It is used to refer to a particular batch or blend.
• Beaujolais Nouveau cannot be legally released until the third Thursday of every
November. The due date this year (2001) is November 15th.
We’re seeing more and more synthetic corks these days, but the latest
technology to prevent contaminated corks is the use of microwaves.
• Labels were first put on wine bottles in the early 1700s, but it wasn’t until the
1860s that suitable glues were developed to hold them on the bottles.
Top Napa Valley vineyard land sells for over $100,000/acre!
In the year 2000, there were 847 wineries in California.
• Wine is often called the nectar of the gods, but Sangiovese is the only grape
named after a god. Sangiovese means “blood of Jove.”
• Ninety-two percent of California wineries produce fewer than 100,000 cases
per year. Sixty percent produce fewer than 25,000 cases.
• Egg whites, bull’s blood, and gelatin have all been used as fining agents to
remove suspended particles from wine before bottling. Egg whites are still

commonly used.
• “Brix” is the term used to designate the percentage of sugar in the grapes before
fermentation. For example, 23° brix will be converted by yeast to 12.5%
alcohol, more or less, depending on the conversion efficiency of the strain of
yeast used. In describing wine, the term “hot” refers to a high level of alcohol,
leaving an hot, sometimes burning sensation.
• In the production of port, the crushed grapes are fermented for about two days.
Then the fermentation is halted by the addition of a neutral distilled spirit or
brandy. This raises the alcohol level and retains some of the grapes’ natural
sugar.
• American wine drinkers consume more wine on Thanksgiving than any other
day of the year. As of 2000, 554,000 acres in California were planted to
grapevines.
“Still wine” does not come from a still. The phrase refers to wine without
bubbles, which includes what is also referred to as table wine.
• Fiasco [fee-YAHS-koh]; pl. fiaschi [fee-YAHS-kee] - Italian for “flask.” The
word is most often connected with the squat, round-bottomed, straw-covered
bottle containing cheaper wine from the Chianti region. The straw covering
not only helps the bottle sit upright, but protects the thin, fragile glass. Fiaschi
are seldom seen today as the cost of hand-wrapping each flask for cheaper
wines has become prohibitive, and the more expensive wines with aging
potential need bottles that can be lain on their sides. As early as 4000 BC, the
Egyptians were the first people to use corks as stoppers. The wine industry
generates 145,000 jobs in California. California has 847 wineries. Napa
County is the home of 232 of them.
• Market research shows that most people buy a particular wine either because
they recognize the brand name or they are attracted by the packaging. Not
Beekman’s customers! Portugal has 1/3 of the world's cork forests and
supplies 85-90% of the cork used in the U.S.
• There are only three legal categories of wine in the U.S.: table, dessert, and
sparkling. In the early 1950s, 82% of the wine Americans drank was classified
as dessert wines. These included Sherry, Port, and Madeira. I don’t have
current national figures, but Beekman’s sales of wine today are 90% table
wine, 7% sparkling wine, and only 3% dessert wine!
• Until 1970, Bordeaux produced more white wine than red. Today red wine
represents about 84% of the total crop. California produces approximately
77% of the U.S. wine grape crop.
• There is at least one commercial winery in every state of the United States,
including Hawaii and Alaska! Putting ice and kosher salt in a bucket will chill
white wine or Champagne faster.
• The most popular corkscrew, the wing-type, is cheap and easy to use, but it
frequently mangles corks and leaves small pieces of cork in your wine. It also
tends to pull out just the middle of an old, dry cork. Far superior are the

Screwpull, which is also easy to use, and the waiter’s corkscrew, which
requires just a little know-how to use effectively. No matter what type you use,
you should also have a two-pronged (Ah-So) device to remove problem corks.
• Zinfandel first appeared in the United States in the 1820s when Long Island
nursery owner George Gibbs imported several grape vines from the Imperial
collection in Vienna. One of the vines was Zinfandel. (The current thinking is
that Zinfandel originated in Croatia where it is called Plavac Mali.) In the
1850s, Zinfandel made its way to California.
• An Italian white wine called Est! Est! Est! got its name from a medieval story.
A bishop was planning to travel the Italian countryside and asked his scout to
find inns that had good wines, marking the door “Est” (“It is” or “This is it”)
when he found one. The scout was so excited about the local wine found in the
area that he marked one inn’s door “Est! Est! Est!” Another version of this
story is that a priest was on his way to minister to a congregation in the
boondocks. Upon discovering the wonderful local wine, he sent the message
“Est! Est! Est!” back to Rome, renounced the priesthood, and spent the rest of
his life enjoying the wine.
• The auger or curly metal part of a corkscrew is sometimes called a worm.
Graves is thought to be the oldest wine region in Bordeaux.
• The Puritans loaded more beer than water onto the Mayflower.
• In terms of acreage, wine grapes rank #1 among all crops planted worldwide.
Although “château” means castle, it may also be a mansion or a little house
next to a vineyard that meets the requirements for winemaking with storage
facilities on its property.
• Château Petrus is the most expensive of the Bordeaux wines. Its price is as
much due to its tiny production as to its quality. Petrus is made from at least
95% Merlot grapes. The Egyptians were the first to make glass containers
around 1500 B.C.
ALSACE WINES
Contrary to other French wine regions, the wines of Alsace are not named after the
villages or vineyards from which they come, but after the grape variety. Alsace wines
are made from seven varieties : Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Muscat d'Alsace,
Tokay Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Noir.
All must by law be bottled in the region of production, in the traditional slender Alsace
bottle.
Muscat d'Alsace is dry and very different from the sweet Muscats of the South of
France. It is very aromatic and reveals the true flavour of the fresh grape.
Sylvaner is a remarkably fresh and light wine with a delicate flavour, Refreshing and

easy to enjoy, it is lively and sometimes vivacious.
Pinot Blanc, well-rounded yet delicate, combines freshness and softness, representing
the happy medium in the range of Alsace wines.
Tokay Pinot Gris develops a characteristic roundness and opulence. Rich, full-bodied
and with a long finish, its complex aroma is reminiscent of woodland and is sometimes
slightly smoky.
Pinot Noir is the only Alsace variety to produce red or rosé wines, characteristically
fruity with hints of cherry. Vinified as a red wine. it can be aged in oak casks, which
adds greater structure and complexity to its aromas.
Riesling is dry, refined and delicately fruity, with an elegant bouquet of mineral or
floral notes. Acknowledged as one of the finest white varietals in the world, it is a
gastronomic wine par excellence.
Gewurztraminer, full-bodied and well-structured, is probably the best-known Alsace

wine. Its intense bouquet displays rich aromas of fruit, flowers and spices (gewurz =
spicy). Powerful and seductive, sometimes slightly sweet, it can often age well.
Klevener de Heiligenstein is a less aromatic variety derived from the old Traminer or
Savagnin rose, also greatly appreciated with food. It is produced exclusively in and
around Heiligenstein.
Alsace Wine Information

Alsace produces excellent dry and sweet white wines. They are so typical that the
grape varieties used only grow in Alsace and nowhere else.
The most basic information on the wine in Alsace are:

Location: North East of France, between the Vosges and the Rhine
river
Alsace region information
Size: 190km long and 50km wide (120 x 30 miles)
smallest region in France
Size of the vineyards: 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres)

Grapes in Alsace: Riesling (23% of Alsace wines)
Pinot Blanc (20%)
Gewurztraminer (18%)
Tokay Pinot Gris (13%)
Sylvaner (12%)
Production: 165 million bottles
+90% of Alsace wines are white
Alsace wine making
Type of Wine: Refreshing dry and sweet white wine
Alsace Wine and Food: Sauerkraut

Alsace wine and food

Wines from Alsace
More than 90% of the wines in Alsace are white. Riesling and Gewurzt are among the
best white wines in France. Wine makers raise them in a style you can't find no where
else but in a wine from Alsace.
The most important wines in Alsace are:
Riesling (23% of Alsace wines)
Gewurztraminer (18%)
Pinot Blanc (20%)
Tokay Pinot Gris (13%)
Sylvaner (12%)
Crémant d'Alsace (a sparkling wine)
Other wines from Alsace are: Vendanges Tardives (late harvest), Edelzwicker, Muscat,
Pinot Noir, etc.
Alsace wine and food:
White wines from Alsace such as Riesling, Sylvaner and Pinot Blanc go very well with
fish and seafood meals.
Gewurztraminer is better with foie gras, spiced dishes, strong cheeses or as a dessert
wine.
Food in Alsace:
People in Alsace loves good food. Here are just a few examples of what Alsace is
famous for when it comes to food:
- The classic choucroute (means sauerkraut in French): various parts of pork and
cabbage
- Tarte flambée (or Flammekueche): pastry with cream, bacon, and onions
- Coq-au-Riesling: cooked with Riesling wine
Alsace food and wine:
The table below help you match a typical food from Alsace with a wine of the same
region:
Food from Alsace best match with Alsace's wine:
Choucroute: Riesling, Sylvaner
Flammekueche: Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Riesling

Coq-au-Riesling: Riesling
Onion tart : Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc
Munster: Gewurztraminer
Cheeses from Alsace:

The following cheese is made in Alsace:
- Munster
Serving of Wines
Alsace wines should be served chilled, but not too cold (6 to 10°C) in
longstemmed glasses. Crémant d'Alsace is served between 5 and 7°C
in flute or tulipe glasses.
Alsace wines are normally enjoyed when they are youngs, that mean
from 1 to 5 years after their harvest. However, "Grands Crus",
"Vendanges tardives" and "Sélections de grains nobles" will benefit
from longer bottle-ageing.
Making of Alsace Wines
Wine making in France
It is difficult to speak of winemaking. The saying goes in France there
are as many wines as vineyards.
Every winemaker brings his one touch before, during, and after the
wine making process.
Each choice in the successive steps of the elaboration of wine has

repercussions on the taste and the quality of the wine :
• The choice of the terroir
• The climate (and the date of harvest)
• The choice of the grape-variety, it is determinant
• The type of container in which the fermentation will take
place

• The temperature at which the juice of grape is maintained
during the fermentation
• The fermentation period
• The type of container in which the maturation will take
place
Nobody can pretend there is only one unique method of making wine.
That is the beauty of wine as winemakers are also responsible for the
incredible diversity of wines we can choose from.
Needless to say that winemaking requires "savoir-faire" and
experience. A winemaker is not only an artisan but also an artist.
Red wine making
The steps in the red wine making process are:
Crushing and de-stemming the grapes
The grapes just arriving in the cellar are crushed and de-stemmed to
release their juice and pulp.
The must obtained that way is put in a tank to go trough the process of
fermentation.
Alcoholic fermentation
Fermentation is a natural process. Yeasts living in the grapes - the
addition of selected yeasts is generalizing - change the sugar contained
in the must in alcohol and carbonic gas (see also the composition of
wine).
The winemaker assists the action of the yeasts by maintaining the

temperature around 25 to 30°C and by ventilating the must regularly.
Under 25°C the wine will not have enough body, above 30°C, the wine
will be to tannic.
The fermentation process goes on for 4 to 10 days until the maceration

and then the malolactic fermentation.
Maceration
It is the period when the tannic elements and the color of the skin
diffuse in the fermented juice. The contact between the liquid (must)

and the solids elements (skin, pips and sometimes stem) will give body
and color to the wine.
At this stage, complex operation will prove the talent of the

winemaker: dissolution, extraction, excretion, diffusion, decoction,
infusion.
For "Vins primeurs" or "Vins nouveaux" (new wines) the maceration is

very short. The vines are supple and contain little tannin. Wines
destined to be kept long need a lot of tannin, so the maceration needs
to be long. The wine will macerate for several days, maybe several
weeks.
Raking
The wine is separated from the solids, the pomace. The wine obtained by raking is
called "free run wine" (vin de goutte).
Sometimes, the pomace is pressed in order to extract the juice it still contains. This
wine is called "press wine" (vin de presse). It is richer in tannin.
Depending on the winemaker taste or the local habit, free run wine and press wine are
blended or treated separately.
Malolactic fermentation
It is the process during which the malic acid of wine changes into lactic acid and
carbonic gas under the action of bacteria living in the wine. Malic acid is harsh, it is
changed into lactic acid supple and stable.
This fermentation is obtained in a tank during a few weeks at a temperature between

18° and 20°C.
Stabilization
The wine making process is finished but the wine is not. To be able to age and to
improve the wine must be clarified again. After that the beverage will be put in oak
casks where it will stabilize.
The diversity of red wine is such that it can match any type of food. But you must

absolutely not conclude from this that all red wines taste the same.
White wine making

White wine is not really white but, in fact yellow. But the expression being universal
one says of a yellow wine that it is white.
Vinification of white wine is more delicate than vinification of red wine.
Two methods coexist to make white wine:
1. The first one is to use white grape ( which is in fact green, greenish yellow, golden
yellow or pinkish yellow!). That way the white wine is the result of the fermentation of
the juice of white grapes juice only.
2. The second method is more complex. One uses the juice of red grape-variety cleared
of it skin and pips, with which it must absolutely not get in contact as they contain the
coloring substances. It is possible to get white wine that way but it is seldom done (see
also 11 steps to make wine).
Time is counted:
Immediately after their arrival in the cellar, the grapes are crushed but not de-stemmed.
The juice (free run must) is sent to settle in containers. The rest of the grapes is pressed
as quickly as possible. Air is the enemy of white wine. At its contact the wine oxidizes
or becomes colored. The must from pressing is added to the free run must.
Preparation of the must:

After six to twelve hours the particles and impurity of the grape separate from the must
and float on the surface. They are removed by the raking of must. The must is ready to
be clarified. The clarified juice is poured in a tank, ready to ferment.
Alcoholic fermentation:
White wine results of the fermentation of must only.

No solid (stem, skin, pips...) intervenes.
The control of the temperature is essential. It has to be maintained around 18° C. The
winemaker regularly cools the must to allow the yeast to work correctly.

The fermentation goes on for two to three weeks. The winemaker daily checks the
evolution of the process.
When fermentation is over, the wine is put in cask and raked, just like a red wine then
it is bottled.
Winemakers often choose oak casks which gives the wine the tannin it needs. But it
will not be sufficient, tannin is the essential element for aging. It is why white wine
does not keep as long as red wine.
On the other hand white wines present a larger variety of tastes: very dry, dry, semi-
dry, mellow, syrupy, petillant, sparkling, madeirized...
White wine can be drunk on any occasion: before, with or after a meal, and even
between meals.
White wines are often considered as aperitif wines, sometimes as desert wines. Many
people like to drink white wine in hot weather. Its refreshing qualities are very well
known. White wine is served fresh but not chilled.
Rosé wine making
First of all Rosé wine is not a blending of red and white wines (abstraction made of the
exceptional case of the Rosé de Champagne).
Rosé wine is made from red grape-varieties. And, nowadays, many winemakers mix a
certain amount of white grapes with the red.
The elaboration of rosé wine is delicate. It is probably why the amateur is sometimes
disappointed by the quality of a rosé. Particularity, European rosé is "dry". On the
contrary, American rosé is sweet and similar to white wine.
There are at least three methods of making rosé wine:
Gray or pale rosé wine

The grapes are pressed as soon as they arrive in the cellar. It allows a quicker diffusion
of the color in the must.
The juice is left a very short time in contact with the skin. No more than a few hours!
That way the must is delicately colored.

Rosé wine is then made in the same way as a white wine, fermentation of the must
cleared of solid elements with out any more maceration. The winemaker obtains a gray
or pale rosé wine (for Gris de Bourgogne or Rosé de Loire).
Colored pink wine

To obtain a colored pink wine the grapes are put in the fermentation tank after having
been crushed. The juice quickly enriches itself in alcohol with the temperature going
up (in the tank).
At the contact of the solid element the color quickly diffuses. The winemaker chooses
the intensity of the color by controlling a sample every hour. When he is satisfied he
devattes.
The wine is evacuated in another tank to finish fermenting. The must left in the
original tank is evacuated and not used for rosé any more.
The bleeding
To obtain an even more intense color, once an hour, during the initial fermentation the
winemaker takes out of the tank a certain amount of juice.
When the color is satisfying, the wine making process goes on as for a white wine.
Rosé de Provence are obtain by that method.
Why wine does not turn into vinegar ?

Sulphur dioxide, in spite of its barbaric name, is an element indispensable for the
quality of the wine (see composition of wine).
It is composed of sulphur and oxygen. Fermentation naturally produces small amount

of it.
Winemakers add more to the wine. Sulphur dioxide is to wine what aspirin is to human
beings: the miraculous remedy which cures all sort of diseases and avoids others.
Sulphur dioxide is a bactericide which prevents wine from changing into vinegar. It
inhibates the action of yeasts; it is why sweet wines do not go on fermenting after
bottling.
On top of that it is an antioxidizer. It allows wine to keep all its freshness and avoids
its alteration by its enemy: the oxygen.

Vineyards
Sylvaner, light, fresh and fruity.

Pinot Blanc, well-balanced, supple and racy.

Riesling, triumph of the Alsace vineyars, delicate fruitiness and fine

bouquet.

Muscat d'Alsace, dry, an inimitable fresh grape taste.

Tokay Pinot Gris, opulent and robust, at its best with the finest
cuisine.

Gewurztraminer, robust, full-bodied, marvalous flavour and bouquet.

Pinot Noir, dry red or rosé wine, its typical fruitiness calls to mind
cherry.
The 3 Appellations d'Origine Contrôlées

AOC Alsace : Alsace wines usually bear the name of the grape variety from which
they are made (Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, aso.)
AOC Alsace Grand Cru : they are obliged to show the name of the grape variety, and
also the name of the vineyard where they were grown.
AOC Crémant d'Alsace : a sparkling wine produced by the Champagne method,
using mainly the Pinot varieties.
Alsace wines should be served chilled, but not too cold (6 to 10°C) in longstemmed
glasses. Crémant d'Alsace is served between 5 and 7°C in flute or tulipe glasses.
Alsace wines are normally enjoyed when they are youngs, that mean from 1 to 5 years
after their harvest. However, "Grands Crus", "Vendanges tardives" and "Sélections de
grains nobles" will benefit from longer bottle-ageing.

Winegrowing villages along the Route du Vin

At first sight, the Route du Vin seems just like a

postcard : the serried ranks of an army of vines
advancing up towards the forests of the Vosges;
the ruins of proud castles of the Middle Ages;
villages surrounded by venerable ramparts which
today serve only to preserve the joyful harmony
inside : flower-deced streets, hospitable inns,
joyful wine cellars, baroque wrought-iron signs, as
well as historic houses, Roman churches and
fountains generously bequeathed by the
Renaissance.
For all such unforgettable reasons, the Route du
Vin merits your visit. However, only a really
inquisitive visitor venturing off the beaten tracks
unearth all its secrets.
Between one gateway at Thann and the other at

Marlenheim, take the time to discover the Route
du Vin's true nature : meet the winegrowers, taste
their wines, lose yourself in Medieval cities then,
far from the crowds, walk the vineyard trails to
high up in the vines to admire a panoramic view
which, the time for a pause, belongs only to you.
Finally, allow yourself to be astonished, wherever
you stop, by the culinary genius which, with the
collusion of its wines, has made Alsace one of the
most gastronomic regions of France.
Each kilometre of the 170 which make up the
Route du Vin invites you to cross an imaginary
frontier into a wonderful land where life is
considered to be a form of art.

• ALSACE WINES and CREMANT
• GEWURZTRAMINER " Vendanges Tardives" Late harvest
• SYLVANER
• PINOT BLANC
• RIESLING
• RIESLING "Cuvée Passion" Passion Vintage
• MUSCAT
• TOKAY PINOT GRIS
• TOKAY PINOT GRIS "Cuvée Passion" Passion Vintage
• GEWURZTRAMINER
• GEWURZTRAMINER "Cuvée Passion" Passion Vintage
• PINOT NOIR
• ROUGE D'ALSACE Alsace Red Wine
• CREMANT D'ALSACE
• TOKAY PINOT GRIS Grand Cru " Sonnenglanz "

History
The Burgundians were one of the Germanic peoples who filled the power vacuum left
by the collapse of the western half of the Roman empire. In 411, they crossed the Rhine
and established a kingdom at Worms. Amidst repeated clashes between the Romans and
Huns, the Burgundian kingdom eventually occupied what is today the borderlands
between Switzerland, France, and Italy. In 534, the Franks defeated Godomar, the last
Burgundian king, and absorbed the territory into their growing empire.
Its modern existence is rooted in the dissolution of the Frankish empire. When the
dynastic dust had settled in 880s, there were three Burgundies: the kingdom of Upper
Burgundy around Lake Geneva, the kingdom of Lower Burgundy in Provence, and the
duchy of Burgundy in France. The two kingdoms of Burgundy were reunited in 937 and
absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire under Conrad II in 1032, while the duchy of
Burgundy was annexed by the French throne in 1004.
During the Middle Ages, Burgundy was the seat of some of the most important Western
churches and monasteries, among them Cluny, Citeaux, and Vézelay.
During the Hundred Years' War, King Jean II of France gave the duchy to his younger
son, rather than leaving it to his successor on the throne. The duchy soon became a
major rival to the French throne, because the Dukes of Burgundy succeeded in
assembling an empire stretching from Switzerland to the North Sea, mostly by

marriage. The Burgundian Empire consisted of a number of fiefdoms on both sides of
the (then largely symbolical) border between the French kingdom and the German
Empire. Its economic heartland was in the Low Countries, particularly Flanders and
Brabant. The court in Dijon outshone the French court by far both economically and
culturally.
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Burgundy provided a power base for the rise of
the Habsburgs, after Maximilian of Austria had married into the ducal family. In 1477
the last duke Charles the Bold was killed in battle and Burgundy itself taken back by
France. His daughter Mary and her husband Maximillian moved the court to Brussels
and ruled the remnants of the empire (the Low Countries and Franche-Comté, then still
a German fief) from there.
Wine
Burgundy produces famous wines of the same name. The best-known wines come from
the Côte d'Or, although also viticulturally part of Burgundy are Beaujolais, Chablis, and
Mâcon.
Geography
Highest point: Haut-Folin (901m) in the Morvan.
The Canal of Burgundy joins the Rivers Yonne and Saône, allowing barges to navigate
from the north to south of France. Construction began in 1765 and was completed in
1832. At the summit there is a tunnel 3.333 kilometers long in a straight line. The canal
is 242 kilometers long, with a total 209 locks and crosses two counties of Burgundy, the
Yonne and Cote d'Or. The canal is now mostly used for riverboat tourism; Dijon, the
most important city along the canal, has a harbor for leisure boats.
Culture
Famous Burgundian dishes include coq au vin and beef bourguignon.
Burgundy wine
Chardonnay vineyards in the south of the Côte de Beaune surrounding the town of
Meursault.
Burgundy (Bourgogne in French) is the name given to certain wines made in the
Burgundy region of France.
Red Burgundy wines are usually made with the Pinot Noir grape, and white Burgundy
wines are usually made with Chardonnay grapes, as dictated by the AOC.
Geographically, the wine region starts just south of Dijon and runs southward to just
short of the city of Lyon. The area of Chablis stands on its own to the west of Dijon,

about as close to Paris as it is to the heart of Burgundy. The main wine regions in
Burgundy proper (those that are entitled to the AOC Bourgogne designation) are the
Côte de Nuits, Côte de Beaune - which collectively are known as the Côte d'Or - and
further south the Côte Chalonnaise. Also viticulturally part of Burgundy are Beaujolais,
Chablis, and Mâcon, and they show some similarity. However, a wine from one of these
regions would rarely be referred to as a "Burgundy."
Burgundy is home to some of the most sought-after wines in the world, and the most
expensive, including those of Domaine de la Romanée Conti. Burgundy is in some
ways the most terroir-oriented region on the planet; immense attention is paid to the
area of origin, and in which of the region's 400 types of soil a wine's grapes are grown.
It has a carefully demarcated quality hierarchy: the grand crus are at the top, followed
by premier crus, then village, and finally generic Bourgogne. Bourgogne is where
grapes other than Chardonnay and Pinot Noir begin to be introduced, allowing pinot
blanc and Pinot Gris, two Pinot Noir mutations that were traditionally grown and now
are in decline in the area. Other Burgundy AOCs that are not as often seen are
Bourgogne Passetoutgrains (which can contain up to two thirds Gamay (the grape of
Beaujolais) in addition to Pinot Noir), Bourgogne Aligoté (which is primarily made
with the Aligoté grape), and Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire. The latter is the lowest AOC,
and Grand definitely refers to the size of the area eligible to produce it, not its quality.
There are certain regions that are allowed to put other grapes in miscellaneous AOCs,
but for the most part these rules hold.
From about the year 900 up to the French Revolution, the vineyards of Burgundy were
owned by the Church. After the revolution, the vineyards were broken up and sold to
the workers who had tended them. The Napoleonic inheritance laws resulted in the
continued subdivision of the most precious vineyard holdings, so that some growers
hold only a row or two of vines. This led to the emergence of négociants who aggregate
the produce of many growers to produce a single wine. It has also led to a profusion of
increasingly small family-owned wineries, exemplified by the dozen plus "Gros" family
domaines.
Côte-d'Or
Information
Number 21 Region Bourgogne Prefecture Dijon Subprefectures Beaune Montbard
Population -1999 –Density Ranked 49th 506,755 58/km² Area 8763 km²
Arrondissements 3 Cantons 43 Communes 707 President of the General Council Louis
de Broissia
Location
Côte-d'Or is a département in the eastern part of France.
*

History
the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was formed from part of Côte-d'Or was one
of the original 83 départements created during the former province of Burgundy.
Geography
The département is part of the current région of Bourgogne. It is surrounded by the
départements of Yonne, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire, Jura, Aube, and Haute-Marne.
A chain of hills called the Plateau de Langres runs from north-east to south-west
through the département to the north of Dijon and continues south-westwards as the
Côte d'Or escarpment, after which the département is named. It is the south-east facing
slope of the escarpment which is the site of the celebrated Burgundy vineyards. To the
west of the Plateau de Langres, towards Champagne, lies the densely wooded district of
Châtillonais. To the south-east of the plateau and escarpment, the département lies in
the broad, flat-bottomed valley of the middle course of the Saône.
Rivers include:
* The Saône
* The Seine rises in he southern end of the Plateau de Langres.
* The Ouche rises on the dip slope of the escarpment and flows to the Saône via Dijon.
* The Armançon rises on the dip slope of the escarpment and flows north-westward.
* The Arroux rises on the dip slope of the escarpment at the southern end of the
département.
Climate
The climate of the département is temperate, with abundant rain on the west side of the
central range.
Beaujolais
Beaujolais is a historical province and a wine-producing region in France. It is now part
of the Burgundy région for administrative purposes. The region is known
internationally for its long tradition of winemaking, and more recently for the
enormously popular Beaujolais nouveau.
Beaujolais wines
The Beaujolais is a French AOC wine, almost all Beaujolais wines are reds of the
Gamay grape but like most AOC wines are not labelled varietally. Whites from the
region, which make up only 1% of its production, are made with Chardonnay grapes.
Beaujolais tends to be a very light bodied red wine, with relatively high amounts of
acidity which makes it less a casual sipping wine and one more suited to food.

Most Beaujolais should be drunk within the first three years of its life. Only the best
examples of the ten "crus" listed below - and produced by the best vintners - improve
with age for up to ten years.
Wines labeled simply "Beaujolais" account for 50% of the production. Beaujolais
Villages makes up 25% of the region's production, and comes from better vineyard sites
in and around the ten "crus" in the north part of Beaujolais. Wine from these individual
crus, which make up the balance, can be more full-bodied, darker in color, and
significantly longer lived. Unfortunately for the unknowing wine drinker, these wines
do not usually use the word "Beaujolais" on the label, leaving one with little recourse
but to memorize the list. The ten crus are: Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Brouilly, Côte de
Brouilly, Saint-Amour, Chiroubles, Chénas, Fleurie, Juliénas, and most recently,
Régnié.
By far, the largest production comes from the négoçiant Georges Duboeuf, who makes
the well-known "flower labels".
Economy
This is a premier wine-growing region of France. Other crops include cereal grains and
potatoes. Sheep and cattle are also raised in the département. The region is famous for
its Dijon mustard.
There are coal mines and heavy industry, including steel, machinery, and earthenware.
The industries most developed in Côte-d'Or are
* agriculture and food (14% of employees)
* metallurgy and metal manufacture (12% of employees)
* chemicals, rubber and plastics (12% of employees)
* pharmacy
* electrical and electronic components and equipment
* wood and paper industries.
The big works are generally in the conurbation of Dijon although biggest (CEA Valduc)
is at Salives in the Plateau de Langres. There is also the SEB metal works at Selongey
below the plateau on the margin of the Saône plain and the Valourec metalworking
group at Montbard in the west of the départment on the River Brenne near its junction
with the Armançon. The Pharmaceutical industry has shown the greatest growth in
recent years. However, since the Dijon employment statistics zone includes the urban
and administrative centre of the Burgundy region, the service sector is proportionately
bigger there in relation to the industrial, than in the other three zones of Côte-d'Or.

Demographics
The inhabitants of the département are called Côte-d'Oriens.
Tourism
Some of the major tourist attractions are the Gothic abbey church of Saint-Seine-
l'Abbaye and the Romanesque abbey church at Saulieu, as well the Château de Bussy
Rabutin at Bussy-le-Grand. The Abbey of Cîteaux, headquarters of the Cistercian
Order, lies to the east of Nuits-Saint-Georges in the south of the département.
Mâcon
Country
Région
Bourgogne
Département
Saône-et-Loire (préfecture)
Arrondissement
Mâcon
Canton
Chief town of 3 cantons
Intercommunality
Communauté
d'Agglomération du
Mâconnais Val de Saône
(CAMVAL)
Mayor
Term of office
Jean-Patrick Courtois
2001-2007
Land area¹
27.04 km²
Population²
(1999)
34,469
Population density
()
1,275 pers./km²

Longitude
04° 49' 57" E
Latitude
46° 18' 26" N
Altitude
average: 175 m
minimum: 167 m
maximum: 347 m
INSEE Code 71270
Postal code 71000
1 French Land Register data, which exclude lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km²
(0.386 sq. mi. or 247 acres) as well as the estuaries of rivers.
2 Population sans doubles comptes, i.e. not counting those people already counted in
another commune (such as students and military personnel).
Mâcon is a commune of France, préfecture (capital) of the Saône-et-Loire département,

in the Bourgogne région. Population: 36,068.
History
Mâcon was acquired by the French Crown in 1238, passed to Burgundy by the Treaty
of Arras in 1435 and was recovered by France in 1477. Mâcon was a Huguenot
stronghold in the 16th century.
Geography
Mâcon is located on the Saône river, north of Lyon. It has an area of 27.04 km².
Altitude: 175 m.
Economy
This place is famous for its quality wines, including but not limited to Pouilly-Fuissé.
The town also has foundries and plants that manufacture motorcycles, electrical
equipment and clothing.
Miscellaneous
Mâcon was the birthplace of Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), writer, poet and
politician.
The Baby of Mâcon is a 1993 film directed by Peter Greenaway.

Twinned towns
* Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Germany - since June 26, 1956
* Crewe and Nantwich, United Kingdom - since 1957
* Overijse, Belgium - since August 28, 1960
* Macon, Georgia, United States - since 1972
* Lecco, Italy - since May 12, 1973
* Alcazar de San Juan, Spain - since March 15, 1980
* Eger, Hungary - since May 11, 1985
* Pori, Finland - since May 11, 1990
* Santo Tirso, Portugal - since June 20, 1992
Coq au vin
The coq au vin ("cock with wine") is a French stew of chicken (theoretically, rooster)
cooked with wine.
Many French regions claim coq au vin as their own, but legend has it that the recipe
originated with Caesar's chef. Different variants exist throughout the country.
Nearly all recipes other than those altered for low-fat diets start with lardons, or their
more available substitutes, unsmoked bacon or pancetta. The lardons are cooked, and
the rendered fat used for browning the other ingredients, and (with the addition of the
flour) to form the roux which thickens the sauce. Generally, a full bottle of red wine is
used, and brandy may be added.
More traditional versions of coq au vin have the sauce thickened with rooster blood at
the end of cooking.
Beef Bourguignon
Beef Bourguignon (Bœuf Bourguignon in French) is very well-known, traditional
French recipe. It is essentially a type of beef stew prepared with cubed pieces of beef
stewed in red wine and generally flavoured with garlic, onions, salt pork, and a bouquet
garni, and garnished with pearl onions and mushrooms.
Côte de Nuits
The Côte d'Or is divided into two main viticultural regions, the Côte de Nuits being the
more northerly of the two. The northernmost tip lies just south of Dijon, and the region
extends down to the Côte de Beaune, onto which it abuts. Named after the town of
Nuits-St-Georges, it is most widely reknowned for it's red wines, although there are a

few worthy white wines made here also. Geologically, the region sits on a combination
of Bajocian, Bathonian, Callovian and Argovian limestones, with some Liassic
marlstone. The climate is continental, with a wide annual temperature difference.
Spring rains and frost can be a problem, as can Autumn rain, which may interfere with
the harvest. This is true for the whole Côte d'Or. The vineyards lie on the slope between
the plain to the east, and the hills to the west. Soils on the plain, to the east of the N74
(not illustrated), are too fertile for quality wine, and on the hills it is too sparse. The
easterly aspect also aids exposure to the sun.
The most northerly village of note is Marsannay, an up and coming wine region for the
production of value Burgundy. Next is Fixin, a village which can produce some good
value wines, although they never achieve greatness.
Further south come the villages of the Côte de Nuits that produce some of the great
wines of Burgundy. Firstly, Gevrey-Chambertin, which impresses with the combination
of its muscular, weighty attitude and paradoxical perfumed edge. Morey-St-Denis is a
meaty, intense wine which can be superb, but like many of these famous names
overcropping and poor vinification techniques can result in some very weak wines.
Chambolle-Musigny may be marked by a wonderful, floral, fragrant bouquet, whereas
at Vougeot we have an unusual situation. Much of the wine is classified as Grand Cru
as it lies within the walled vineyard of the Clos de Vougeot, but only a small part of this
wine is truly of Grand Cru quality. At best it can be a tasty, full-bodied, richly fruited
wine, although it is not one of the great Grands Crus.
Flagey-Echézeaux is unusual as it lies to the east of all the other vineyards. The wines
can be quite fine. Next is Vosne-Romaneé, a fine set of vineyards which can produce
some superb wines. Vosne-Romaneé can have a rich, creamy, sensuous texture, even in
the village wines from a good producer. Other than Nuits-St-Georges, there are no other
villages of huge significance.
The appellations of the Côte de Nuits are as follows:

Grands Crus: Such wines are not required to bear the village name. Thus wines
produced, for example, from the Grand Cru Chambertin Clos de Bèze would not
include the village name of Gevrey-Chambertin, where it is situated. These are as
follows:
Gevrey-Chambertin: Chambertin, Chambertin Clos de Bèze, Charmes-Chambertin,

Chapelle-Chambertin, Griotte- Chambertin, Latricières-Chambertin, Mazis-Chambertin,
Ruchottes-Chambertin.

Morey-St-Denis: Bonnes Mares, Clos Saint-Denis, Clos de Tart, Clos de la Roche, Clos
des Lambrays.
Chambolle-Musigny: Musigny, Bonnes Mares.

Vougeot: Clos de Vougeot.
Vosne-Romanée: La Romanée, La Tâche, Richebourg, Romanée-Conti, Romanée-St-
Vivant, La Grande Rue.
Flagey-Echézeaux: Grands-Echézeaux, Echézeaux.
The Grand Cru Bonnes Mares straddles the villages of Morey-St-Denis and Chambole-
Musigny. Nuits-St-Georges has no Grands Crus.
Premiers Crus: These are too numerous to name here. As with Chablis, a wine blended
from several such sites will be labelled as Premier Cru, whereas a wine from an
individual vineyard will bear the vineyard name, eg. Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru
Clos Saint-Jacques.
Village Wines: The villages of the Côte de Nuits are Marsannay (La-Côte), Fixin,
Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-St-Denis, Chambolle Musigny, Vougeot (although
anything other than Grand Cru Clos de Vougeot is rare), Vosne-Romanée and Nuits-St-
Georges. Village wines from Flagey-Echézeaux are sold under the Vosne-Romanée
appellation.
Sub-Village Appellations: These include Côte de Nuits Villages (may be applied to

wine from Corgoloin, Comblanchien, Prémeaux, Brochon, and declassified wine from
Fixin), Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits (applies to a large number of communes to
the west of the Côte d'Or), and basic Bourgogne.
Côte de Beaune
The Côte de Beaune is the more southerly part of the Côte d'Or. The northernmost tip
abuts onto the Côte de Nuits, and the region extends south to the Côte Chalonnaise. The
geology is more variable than that of the Côte de Nuits. The region sits on a
combination of Callovian, Argovian and Rauracian limestones, with much intervening
marlstone. Obviously, the climate is the same as for the Côte de Nuits - continental,
with a wide annual temperature difference. Spring rains and frost, and Autumn rains,
which may interfere with the harvest, can also be a problem here. The vineyards face
south-east on the slope between the plain to the south-east, and the hills to the north-
west, the easterly aspect aiding exposure to the sun.
Pernand-Vergelesses can be a source of some good value Burgundy, but no great wines.
Nearby, however, we start to see some of the more serious wines of the Côte de Beaune

at Aloxe-Corton. The wines of this village, as well as a number of other villages nearby,
are red as well as white. Red Corton should be a muscular, savoury wine, whereas the
white is a rich, intense, buttery drink. Beaune, Savigny-les-Beaune and Chorey-les-
Beaune are all best known for their red wines. The wines produced here are well fruited,
tasty, sometimes quite elegant affairs, although they are somewhat lighter (and less
expensive) when from the latter two villages.
Pommard can make wonderful red Burgundy, well structured and meaty, whereas
Volnay is better known for it's heady, perfumed and delicately textured wines.
Towards the southern end of the Côte de Beaune, however, are the Côte d'Or's most
famous white wine villages. Meursault produces rich, complex, intense yet elegant
wines, but it is Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet that lead the pack. The
former bears a wonderful combination of richness with mineral complexities, the latter
are sometimes broader and more open, although both are lovely, and words cannot
really do them justice. Nearby are the villages of St-Romain, St-Aubin, Santenay and
Auxey-Duresses. All are responsible for some value Burgundy.
The appellations of the Côte de Beaune are as follows:

Grands Crus: As with the Côte de Nuits, such wines are not required to bear the village
name. The Grands Crus are as follows:
Aloxe-Corton: Corton (the largest Grand Cru in Burgundy, with a number of

subdivisions, eg Corton-Bressandes), Corton-Charlemagne.
Puligny-Montrachet: Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet,

Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet.
Chassagne-Montrachet: Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet.
As with the Côtes de Nuits, some vineyards lie in more than one village. Here, the
Grands Crus Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet lie in both Puligny and Chassagne-
Montrachet. Most villages of the Côte de Beaune have no Grands Crus.
Premiers Crus: As with the Côtes de Nuits, these are too numerous to name. As with
Chablis and the Côtes de Nuits, a wine blended from several such sites will be labelled
as Premier Cru, whereas a wine from an individual vineyard will bear the vineyard
name, eg Pommard Premier Cru Les Petits Epenots.

Village Wines: The villages of the Côte de Beaune are Ladoix, Pernand-Vergelesses,
Aloxe-Corton, Savigny-lès-Beaune, Chorey-lès-Beaune, Beaune, Pommard, Volnay,
Monthelie, St-Romain, Auxey-Duresses, Meursault, Blagny, Puligny-Montrachet,
Chassagne-Montrachet, St-Aubin and Santenay. Blagny is a small hamlet close to the
Premier Cru vineyards of Meursault.
Sub-Village Appellations: These include Côte de Beaune Villages (may be applied to

declassified wine from fourteen villages of the Côte de Beaune not including Aloxe-
Corton, Beaune, Volnay or Pommard), Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits (applies to a
large number of communes to the west of the Côte d'Or), and basic Bourgogne. There is
also the confusing appellation Côte de Beaune, which refers to wines from the
commune of Beaune not deemed worthy of the appellation Beaune.
The Côte d'Or - My top wines. As many producers have vineyards in so many different
sites, I have grouped together the good names in Burgundy here. This is a personal list
(in alphabetical order), so it doesn't include great but hardly affordable domaines such
as Romanée-Conti. My list of top estates and producers includes Domaine d'Arlot,
Simon Bize, Robert Chevillon, Bruno Clair, Michel Colin-Deléger, Drouhin, René
Engel, Faiveley, Jacques Gagnard-Delagrange, Jean-Marc Blain-Gagnard, Richard
Fontaine-Gagnard, Jean Grivot, Hudelot-Noëllat, Jadot, Jaffelin, Henri Jayer, Leroy,
Méo-Camuzet, Albert Morot, Daniel Rion, Domaine des Perdrix, and Etienne Sauzet.
There are, obviously, many, many more producers of interest, but there are simply too
many to include here.
Wine: Beaujolais
Agnès et Marcel Durand Red Wine

strong rubyred color, fruity, light menthol smell, fine tannins, full body
Agnès et Marcel Durand Beaujolais-Villages
Aimée-Claude Bonnetain Red Wine

blue red color, scent of red fruit and spices, well structured, balanced, fruity, long,
typical, ...
Aimée-Claude Bonnetain Côte de Brouilly
Alain Chatoux Vieilles vignes Red Wine

clar, dark orange red color, notable scent of red fruit with alcoholic notes, aromas of
currant j...
Alain Chatoux

Alain Michaud Red Wine
delicious, deep orange-red color with bright red reflexes, smells of faded roases, spices,
coffee...
Alain Michaud Brouilly
André Depardon La Madone Red Wine

dark red color, intense raspberry scent, full, fine, balanced, long flavor, rounded
André Depardon Fleurie
André Méziat Red Wine

clear, intense red color, strong scent of vineyard peaches and cherries, full-bodied, rich,
soft,...
André et Monique Méziat Chiroubles
Belvedere des pierres dorées White Wine

shining yellow color, complex scent of rhubarb, and strawberries, lively, open, good
composition
Cave coop. Beaujolaise
Bernard Broyer Red Wine

deep ruby red color with purple reflexes, expressive scent with citrusfruit, red fruit, and
spice...
Bernard Broyer Juliénas
Bernard Jomain Red Wine

intense red color, almost blue, elegant nuances of black currants, strong, rustic
Bernard Jomain Brouilly
Bernard Lavis Red Wine

intense ruby-red color, smells of fresh red fruit, plants, clear, rounded, soft flavor, full
Bernard Lavis Beaujolais-Villages
Bernard Pichet Red Wine

orange-red color, hints of blossoms and raspberries, youthful, plant aromas, balanced
Bernard Pichet Chiroubles

Bernard Santé Red Wine
delicious orange-red color, strong, concentrated scent of licorice and flowers, very soft,
sweet,...
Bernard Santé Chénas
Cave Beaujolaise de Quincié Red Wine

shining, clear, pepper-flowery scent, hints of very ripe grapes, open personality,
rounded, long ...
Cave Beaujolaise de Quincié Régnié
Cave de Ponchon Red Wine

clear, lively, fruity flavor, well structured, harmonious, pretty
Florent Dufour Régnié
Cave de Saint-Vérand Cuvée réservée Vieilles vignes Red Wine

blue-red color, intense scent of red frui and spring roses, noble, clear, spicy notes,
pleasant, ...
Cave Beaujolaise de Saint-Vérand
Cave des Vignerons de Bel-Air Red Wine

strong red color, pretty scent of black currants and tobacco, soft flavor with aromas of
very rip...
Cave des Vignerons de Bel-Air Morgon
Cave des Vignerons de Liergues Rosé Wine

pretty, clear color with hints of autmn, pleasant scent of red currants and quinces, lively,
soft...
Cave des Vignerons de Liergues
Cave du Beau Vallon Au pays des pierres dorées Red Wine

blue-red color, alcoholic-fruity scent of black currants and spices, full, rounded, aromas
of sto...
Cave du Beau Vallon
Cave du Bois de La Salle Red Wine

clear, sparkling, smells of red currants and raspberries, well balanced, fresh, long, lively
tann...

Cave du Château du Bois de La Salle Saint-Amour
Cave Jean-Ernest Descombes Red Wine

shining, tempting ruby-red color, intense scent of red fruit and spices, hints of roasted
coffee ...
Cave Jean-Ernest Descombes Morgon
Cédric Martin White Wine

golden color, copper tone, free scent with cloves, gingerbread, and flowers, elegant
apricot nuan...
Martin Cédric
Cellier de la Vieille Eglise Red Wine

deep ruby-red color, shimmers amber, bouquet of underwood and spicy fruit, lively,
somewhat flesh...
Cellier de la Vieille Eglise Juliénas
Château Bonnet Elevé en fût de chêne Vieilles vignes Red Wine

blue-red color, lovely oak hints, vanilla, open
Pierre Perrachon Chénas
Château de Belleverne Red Wine

ruby-red color, smells of flowers and red fruit, sharp tannins, balanced
Sylvie Bataillard Saint-Amour
Château de Belleverne Red Wine

dark orange-red color, purple reflexes, complex, fine smell of raisins, flintstone, and red
fruit...
Bataillard Père et Fils Chénas
Château de Chénas Red Wine

medium orange-red color, nuances of black currants and spring roses, warm, soft, well
balanced, p...
Cave Château de Chénas Chénas

Château de la Prat Red Wine
strong red color, complex, elegant scent of very ripe grapes with mineral, strong, lively,
pretty
Aujoux Juliénas
Château de Leynes White Wine

golden-yellow color, smells like the vine, good character, soft, harmonious
Jean Bernard
Château de Pizay Red Wine

deep orange red color, pretty aromas of red fruit, fine, clear, rich, balanced, delicious,
enchan...
SCEA Domaine Château de Pizay
Château de Raousset Red Wine

intense ruby-red color with purple reflexes, fine, expressive scent of strawberries and
currants,...
SCEA des Héritiers du Compte de Raousset Chiroubles
Château de Raousset Red Wine

intense red color, fruity scent, pleasant personality, strong, lasting Château de Raousset
Morgon
Château de Vaux Cuvée traditionnelle Red Wine

light ruby-red color, crystal clear reflexes, very pretty scent of fresh grapes, elegant,
harmoni...
Jacques et Marie-Ange de Vermont Beaujolais-Villages
Château des Boccards Red Wine

intense orange red color, scent of overripe fruit, hunt-, and pepper hins, long lasting,
soft, ro...
James Pelloux Chénas
Château des Jacques Clos du Grand Carquelin Red Wine

shining orange-red color, strong, wood scent, fruity nuances, hints of roasted coffee,
oak wood, ...
Château des Jacques Moulin-À-Vent

Château des Ravatys Cuvée Mathilde Courbe Red Wine
light red color, smells of cut wood and underwood, lively, fine, harmonious, long
lasting
Institut Pasteur Côte de Brouilly
Château du Bluizard Red Wine

intense red color, smells of sour cherries and raspberries, full, well structured, cherry
aromas
SCE des Domaines Saint-Charles Brouilly
Château du Bourg Cuvée Réserve Red Wine

dark ruby red color, intense, fruity scent, soft, fleshy, aroma of red fruit, pleasant,
balanced,...
GAEC Georges Matray et Fils Fleurie
CHAMPAGNE
Champagne is a sparkling wine produced by inducing the secondary fermentation of
wine. It is named after the Champagne region of France. While the term "champagne" is
often used by makers of sparkling wine in other parts of the world, such as California
and Canada, it should properly be used to refer only to the wines made in the region of
Champagne, France. The community, under the auspices of the Comité
Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne has developed a comprehensive set of rules and
regulations for all wine that comes from the region. These rules are designed to ensure
that the highest quality product is produced and include a codification of the most
suitable places for grapes to grow, the most suitable types of grapes – all Champagne is
produced from one or a blend of up to three varieties of grapes: chardonnay, pinot noir,
and pinot meunier – and has identified a lengthy set of requirements that specify most
aspects of viticulture. This includes vine pruning, the yield of the vineyard, the degree
of pressing applied to the grapes, and the time that bottles must remain on the lees. Only
if a wine meets all these requirements may the name Champagne be placed on the
bottle. The rules that have been agreed upon by the CIVC are then presented to the
INAO for final approval.
In Europe and most other countries, the name "champagne" is legally protected as part
of the Treaty of Madrid (1891) to mean only sparkling wine produced in its namesake
region and adhering to the standards defined for that name as an Appellation d'Origine
Contrôlée. This right was reaffirmed in the Treaty of Versailles following World War I.
Even the term méthode champenoise, or champagne method is, as of 2005, forbidden in

favour of méthode traditionelle. There are sparkling wines made all over the world, and
many use special terms to define their own sparkling wines: Spain uses Cava, Italy calls
it spumante, and South Africa uses Cap Classique. A sparkling wine made from Muscat
grapes in Italy uses the DOCG Asti. In Germany, Sekt is a common sparkling wine.
Even other regions of France are forbidden to use the name Champagne; for example,
wine-makers in Burgundy and Alsace produce Crémant.
Other sparkling wines not from Champagne sometimes use the term "sparkling wine"
prominently on their label. While most countries have labeling laws that protect wine
producing locations such as Champagne, some – including the United States – continue
to allow U.S. wine producers to utilize the name “Champagne” on the label of products
that do not come from Champagne. To allow this practice, the U.S. Congress passed a
law claiming that the term "champagne" is semi-generic. This often leads to consumer
confusion about genuine Champagne and is seen as deceptive by some consumers and
wine experts. While some U.S. companies ironically claim that their long usage of the
term prevents them from dropping the word champagne on the bottle, many quality
U.S. sparkling winemakers have ceased use of the term, instead favoring "sparkling
wine" as their identifier.
Champagne's sugar content varies. The sweetest level is doux (meaning sweet),
proceeding in order of increasing dryness to demi-sec (half-dry), sec (dry), extra sec
(extra dry), brut (almost completely dry), and extra brut / brut nature / brut zero (no
additional sugar, sometimes ferociously dry.).
The Champagne wine-growing region

The plots of land in each wine-growing commune are meticulously classified into
numerous parcels. The vineyard as a whole does not form a single block but is divided
into several zones of equal importance.
The area of wine production is strictly defined in accordance with the law of 22 July
1927 and accounts for approximately three per cent of the total area under vine in
France.
The Montagne de Reims is a large, fairly flat plateau, thickly carpeted with vineyards
that slope gently towards the valleys of the Vesle and the Ardre to the north and the
Marne to the south.

The Marne Valley extends 100kms, from Saâcy-sur-Marne in the département of Seine-
et-Marne to Tours-sur-Marne beyond Epernay. The vineyards line the flanks of the
valley that slope more or less gently towards the banks of the river and nestle into
smaller valleys on either side.
The Côte des Blancs, so-called because it is almost exclusively devoted to white grapes,
is a cliff at right angles with the Montagne de Reims south of Epernay.
South of the département of the Marne, you can catch glimpses of vineyards to the
north and south of Sézanne.
The area under vine in the region of Vitry-le-François, remains confined to a few
communes only.
The Côte des Bar extend the wine-growing area to the south. Those around Villenauxe-
la-Grande are in effect the continuation of the southern section of the Marne vineyard,
but Montgueux in the immediate vicinity of Troyes also cultivates a few dozen hectares
of vines. Mainly, however, they lie clustered around Bar-sur-Seine and Bar-sur-Aube
plus a few dozen hectares of plantings to the east in the département of the Haute-
Marne.
Champagne Regions
This isn't vital information, unless you are a true Champagne expert, so I'll deal with it
quickly. There are just five main regions within Champagne where the grapes are
grown, and where the houses source their grapes will influence the quality and style of
the final product. It's not really of much use to the general consumer, however, as you
won't find these names on the label.
Firstly, the Montagne de Reims is the most northerly area, and is planted mainly with
Pinot Noir, mainly on north facing slopes. Wines produced here are firm and austere.
The Côte des Blancs is a mostly east-facing region south of Epernay. It is almost
entirely planted with Chardonnay, and produces a wine much less hard than the
Montagne de Reims. There is a little Pinot Noir planted in the very south of this region.
The Vallée de la Marne runs west-east, and is planted with all three grape varieties,
although the Pinot Meunier dominates. Furher south is the Côte des Sézanne, primarily
Chardonnay country, and finally the Aube, the southernmost of all five regions, is
planted mainly with Pinot Noir. This latter region is quite a distance further south than

the other four, and is thus warmer, so it is planted with mainly Pinot Noir.
The Wines
What determines how much you pay for a bottle is the style of wine inside it. A non-
vintage (often abbreviated to NV) wine is a blend of wine from several different years.
They are blended so as to maintain a house style, and this is the entry level for
Champagne. Vintage wines are produced from a single year, and most houses will only
release a vintage wine if they deem that the grapes harvested that year are of sufficient
quality. Accordingly, they are more expensive than the NV wines. They are identifiable
simply by the presence of a vintage year on the label. Prestige cuvées are released by
some of the top houses, and here quality can be excellent. Some examples include Dom
Pérignon (Moët et Chandon), Comtes de Champagne (Taittinger), Belle Epoque
(Perrier-Jouët), Dom Ruinart (Ruinart), Bollinger RD and Grande Année (Bollinger),
Cristal (Roederer), La Grande Dame (Veuve Clicquot), Cuvée Winston Churchill (Pol
Roger - named after the Prime Minister, who had a penchant for Pol Roger as well as
cigars), among others. I taste many of these wines in this Prestige Cuvée Champagne
tasting.
To be really helpful, acknowledging the fact that NV wines do taste different from year
to year, regardless of how well the house style is maintained, the now sadly deceased
Daniel Thibault introduced cellaring dates to the NV wines at Charles Heidsieck, and I
wouldn't be surprised if more houses follow suit. The wine in the bottle is still a blend
of wines from several years, the year on the label indicating only the year which the
finished, blended wine was laid down in Heidsieck's cellars to mature. But the date
allows us to differentiate between bottles containing different blends, and with different
amounts of bottle age. I once popped in to one wine merchant and found the 1992,
1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 on the shelves. Without the cellaring dates these would have
looked like five bottles of identical NV wine, which in truth they most certainly were
not.
Other points of interest include the rosé Champagnes, which may be made by either
allowing the wine to stay in contact with the red grape skins for a while (the saignée
method), or by adding in a little red wine to colour the product. The terms Blanc de
Blancs and Blanc de Noirs indicate wines made solely from white grapes (Chardonnay)
and black grapes (Pinot Noir and Meunier) respectively.
As an aside, you may notice as you are inspecting the label, the letters NM (most
commonly) followed by a number. There are four levels of producer in Champagne, and
in all cases the level of producer is indicated on the bottle by the letters NM, RM, CM

or MA, followed by a unique number. The most important producers are the négociant-
manipulants, these being large companies which buy in, blend and produce very large
quantities of wine. The other three levels are récoltant-manipulants (growers who make
and sell their own wine), co-opératives-manipulants (the co-ops) and marque-auxiliaire
(used for own label Champagne).
Vintages
The most recent truly great Champagne vintages were 1996, 1990 and 1985. Other good
vintages include 1995, 1989, 1988, 1983, 1982 and 1979.
How is Champagne made?

Grapes used for Champagne are generally picked earlier, when sugar levels are lower
and acid levels higher. Except for pink or rosé Champagnes, the juice of harvested
grapes is pressed off quickly, to keep the wine white. The traditional method of making
Champagne is known as the Méthode Champenoise.
The first fermentation begins in the same way as any wine, converting the natural sugar
in the grapes into alcohol while the resultant carbon dioxide is allowed to escape. This
produces the "base wine". This wine is not very pleasurable by itself, being too acidic.
At this point the blend is assembled, using wines from various vineyards, and, in the
case of non-vintage Champagne, various years.
The blended wine is put in bottles along with yeast and a small amount of sugar, called
the liqueur de tirage, and stored in a wine cellar horizontally, for a second fermentation.
During the secondary fermentation the carbon dioxide is trapped in the bottle, keeping it
dissolved in the wine. The amount of added sugar will determine the pressure of the
bottle. To reach the standard value of 6 bars inside the bottle is necessary to have 18
grams of sugar, and the amount of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is regulated by the
European Commission (Regulation 1622/2000, 24 July 2000) to be 0.3 grams per bottle.
The "liqueur de tirage" is then a mixture of sugar, yeast and still champagne wine.
Champagne Capsules
After ageing (a mimimum from one and a half to three years), they undergo a process
known as riddling (remuage in French), in which they are rotated a small amount each
day and gradually moved to a neck-down orientation, so that the sediment ('lees')
collects in their necks and can be removed. The removal process is called "disgorging"
(dégorgement in French), and was a skilled manual process, where the cork and the lees

were removed without losing large quantities of the liquid, and a dosage (a varying
amount of additional sugar) is added. Until this process was invented (reputedly by
Madame Clicquot in 1800) Champagne was cloudy, a style still seen occasionally today
under the label méthode ancestrale. Modern disgorgement is automated by freezing a
small amount of the liquid in the neck and removing this plug of ice containing the lees.
A cork is then inserted with a capsule and wire cage securing it in place.
Wines from Champagne cannot legally be sold until it has aged on the lees in the bottle
for at least 18 months. Champagne's AOC regulations require that vintage Champagnes
are aged in cellars for three years or more before disgorgement, but most top producers
exceed this minimum requirement, holding bottles on the lees for 6 to 8 years before
disgorgement.
Even experts disagree about the effects of aging on Champagne after disgorgement.
Some prefer the freshness and vitality of young, recently disgorged Champagne, and
others prefer the baked apple and caramel flavors that develop from a year or more of
aging.
The majority of the Champagne produced is non-vintage (also known as mixed

vintage), a blend of wines from several years. Typically the majority of the wine is from
the current year but a percentage is made of "reserve wine" from previous years. This
serves to smooth out some of the vintage variations caused by the marginal growing
climate in Champagne. Most Champagne houses strive for a consistent "house style"
from year to year, and this is the hardest task of the winemaker.
The grapes to produce vintage Champagne must be 100% from the year indicated (other
sparkling wines in the EU need only be 85% to be called vintage). To maintain the
quality of non-vintage champagne a maximum of half the grapes harvested in one year
can be used in the production of vintage Champagne ensuring at least 50%, though
usually more, is reserved for non-vintage wines. Vintage Champagnes are the product
of a single high-quality year, and bottles from prestigious makers can be rare and
expensive.
Champagne Varieties
Champagne is a single Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée. Grapes must be the white
Chardonnay, or the red Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier (a few very rare other grapes that
were historically important are allowed, but very unusual). Champagnes made
exclusively from Chardonnay are known as blanc de blancs, and those exclusively from

the red grapes as blanc de noirs. Champagne is typically a white wine even if it is
produced with red grapes, because the juice is extracted from the grapes using a gentle
process that minimizes the amount of time the juice spends in contact with the skins,
which is what makes red wine red. Rosé wines are also produced, either by permitting
the juice to spend more time with the skins to impart a pink color to the wine, or by
adding a small amount of red wine during blending. The amount of sugar (dosage)
added after the second fermentation and ageing also varies, from brut zéro or brut
natural, where none is added, through brut, extra-dry, sec, demi-sec and doux. The most
common is brut, although in the early 20th century Champagne was generally much
sweeter.
Most Champagne is non-vintage, produced from a blend of years (the exact blend is
only mentioned on the label by a few growers), while that produced from a single
vintage is labelled with the year and Millésimé.
Many Champagnes are produced from bought-in grapes by well known brands such as
Veuve Clicquot or Mumm.
Origins
Wines from the Champagne region were already known before medieval times.
Churches owned vineyards, and monks produced wine for use in the sacrament of
Eucharist. French kings were traditionally anointed in Reims. Champagne wine flowed
as part of coronation festivities.
Kings appreciated the still, light, and crisp wine, and offered it as an homage to other
monarchs in Europe. In the 17th century, still wines of Champagne were the chosen
wines for celebration in European countries. English people were the biggest consumers
of Champagne wines, and drank a lot of sparkling wines.
The first commercial sparkling wine was produced in the Limoux area of Languedoc
about 1535. They did not invent it; nobody knows who first made it, although the
British make a reasonably good claim. Contrary to legend and popular belief, the
French monk Dom Perignon did not invent champagne, although it is almost certainly
true that he developed many advances in the production of this beverage.
Somewhere in the end of the 17th century, the sparkling method was imported in the
Champagne region, associated with specific procedures for production (smooth

pressing, dosage...), and stronger bottles (invented in England) that could hold the
added pressure. Around 1700, sparkling Champagne was born.
English people loved the new sparkling wine, and spread it all over the world. Brut
Champagne, the modern Champagne, was created for the British in 1876. The Russian
royalty also consumed huge quantities, preferring the sweeter styles.
The Comité Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne
All of the over 15,000 growers, cooperatives and over 300 houses that are central to
producing Champagne are members of the Comité Interprofessional du Vin de
Champagne (CIVC). This organization has a system where both the houses and the
growers are represented at all levels. This includes a co-presidency where a grower
representative and a representative of the houses share the running of the organization.
This system is designed to ensure that the CIVC's primary mission -- to promote and
protect Champagne -- is done in a manner that represents the consensus of the
community. This power structure has played an important role in the success of
Champagne worldwide and the integrity of the appellation itself.
Champagne producers
The type of champagne producer can be identified from the abbreviations followed by
the official number on the bottle:
• NM: Négociant manipulant. These companies (including the majority of the
larger brands) buy grapes and make the wine
• CM: Coopérative de manipulation. Co-operatives that make wines from the
growers who are members, with all the grapes pooled together
• RM: Récoltant manipulant. A grower that also makes wine from their own grapes
• SR: Société de récoltants. An association of growers making a shared
Champagne but who are not a co-operative
• RC: Récoltant coopérateur. A co-operative member selling Champagne produced
by the co-operative under its own name
• MA: Marque auxiliaire or Marque d'acheteur. A brand name unrelated to the
producer or grower; the name is owned by someone else, for example a
supermarket
• ND: Négociant distributeur. A wine merchant selling under his own name
Bubbles

An initial burst of effervescence occurs when the champagne contacts the dry
glass on pouring. These bubbles may form on imperfections in the glass that
facilitate nucleation. However, after the initial rush, these naturally occurring
imperfections are typically too small to consistently act as nucleation points as
the surface tension of the liquid smooths out these minute irregularities.
The nucleation sites that act as a source for the ongoing effervescence are not the
natural imperfections in the glass, but actually occur either:
• where the glass has been etched by the manufacturer or the customer This
etching is typically done with acid, a laser, or a glass etching tool from a craft
shop to provide nucleation sites large enough for continuous bubble formation
(note that not all glasses are etched in this way); or
It is interesting to note that Dom Perignon was originally charged by his wine-
making Abbey of Hautvillers to get rid of the bubbles since the pressure in the
bottles caused many of them to explode in the cellar and was thought to be the
work of the devil.
Champagne bottles
Side-by-side comparison of champagne bottles. (L to R) On ladder: magnum, full,

half, quarter. On floor: Balthazar, Salmanazar, Methuselah, Jeroboam
Champagne is mostly fermented in two sizes bottles, standard bottle (750 mL), and
Magnum (1.5 L). In general, magnums are thought to be higher quality, as there is
less oxygen in the bottle, and the volume to surface area favors the creation of
appropriately-sized bubbles. However, there is no hard evidence for this view. Other
bottle sizes, named for Biblical figures, are generally filled with Champagne that has
been fermented in standard bottles or magnums.
List of bottle sizes:
• quarter bottle (aka. split or piccolo bottle) (187.5 or 200 ml) mainly used by
airlines, hotel mini-bars and nightclubs.
• half-bottle (aka. Demi) (375 ml) used in restaurants
• bottle (aka. Imperial) (750 ml)
• Magnum (1.5 L) (equivalent to 2 bottles)
• Jeroboam (3 L) (4 bottles)
• Rehoboam (4.5 L) (6 bottles)
• Methuselah (6 L) (8 bottles)
• Salmanazar (9 L) (12 bottles)

• Balthazar (12 L) (16 bottles)
• Nebuchadnezzar (15 L) (20 bottles)
• Melchior (18 L) (24 bottles)
• Solomon (25 L)
• Primat (27 L) (36 bottles)
• Melchizedek (30 L) (40 bottles)
Sizes larger than Jeroboam are rare. Primat sized bottles - and as of 2002
Melchizedek sized bottles - are exclusively offered by the House Drappier. The same
names are used for bottles containing wine and port; however Jeroboam, Rehoboam
and Methuselah refer to different bottle volumes. On occasion unique sizes have
been made for special occasions and people. The most notable example perhaps
being the 20 fluid ounce/ 60cl. bottle (Imperial pint) made specially for Sir Winston
Churchill by Pol Roger. This was served to Mr Churchill by his butler at 11am as he
was getting up.
Opening Champagne bottles

The deliberate spraying of Champagne has become an integral part of sports trophy
presentations and locker room celebrations, though Champagne enthusiasts
sometimes cringe at the waste. To reduce the risk of spilling Champagne and/or
turning the cork into a projectile, open a Champagne bottle as follows:
• Remove the foil and pull down the wire loop;
• Drape a towel over the bottle:
• Place your hand over the cork;
• Loosen but don't remove the wire cage;
• Grasp the cork and the cage firmly with your hand, then rotate the bottle (rather
than the cork) by holding it at the base; this should allow the cork to come out on
its own accord.
The desired effect is to ease the cork out with a sigh or a whisper rather than a pop or
to shoot the cork across the room or produce a fountain of foamy wine. Most wine
connoisseurs insist that the ideal way to open a bottle of Champagne is to do it so
carefully and gently that very little sound is emitted at all.

Serving Champagne
Champagne is usually served in a champagne flute, whose characteristics include a
long stem with a tall, narrow bowl and opening. The wider flat glass (cup)
commonly associated with Champagne is no longer preferred by connoisseurs
because it does not preserve the bubbles and aroma of the wine as well.
But Champagne is better for tasting with a big red wine glass (i.e. a glass for
bordeaux), as the aroma spreads better in the large area of the glass, but contrary to
the cup, the aroma stays in the glass.
Don't try to fill the glass: flutes shall be filled only 2/3 of the glass, and big red wine
glasses not more than 1/3 of the glass.
Champagne is always served cold, and is best at the temperature 7C° (43 to 48°F).
Often the bottle is chilled in a bucket of ice and water before and after opening.
Champagne buckets are made specifically for this purpose.
Champagne Types
Non Vintage (N.V.)

Blended from wines of several years to achieve a constant "style de maison" House
style. This blend will depend on the art and history behind the house and its Chef du
Caves. Many NV Champagnes are a blend of thirty or forty different wines.
A non-vintage Champagne cannot be sold until it is 15 months old, although most
reputable houses will age the wine in their cellars for longer periods. An NV wine
will often improve in the bottle after purchase, if it is kept in the right conditions,
ideally a cellar, but failing that, in a cool dark place. As the bottle ages the
Champagne will become softer on the palate, richer in taste. However, it is not
recommended to keep Champagne longer than it was originally cellared by the
maker.
Vintage
Vintage Champagne is a blend of wines from a particular year, when the quality of
the harvest was sufficient to declare a "Vintage". Obviously, not every year is a
vintage year, but the vintage is left to the individual houses themselves to declare.
Therefore, some houses declare a vintage Champagne in a year where others did not
feel the quality justified it.

Vintage Champagne must be 39 months old before it is sold, i.e. 3 years after the 1st
January following the harvest around September. Again, many Marques will age
their wines for longer than this legal minimum.
Rosé
Rosé Champagne can be made in one of two ways: First by maceration of black
grapes during pressing, so that the colour leeches out from the skins (the juice from
black grapes is white) or by adding a small proportion of the red wine form the
Champagne region (often Bouzy Rouge) to give the wine a rose tint. The former
method (de saignée) is more expensive and difficult to control, but many would say
produces the better Champagne. An excellent Rosé is Laurent-Perrier, produced de
saignée.
Prestige Cuvées
Most Champagne houses produce a special bottle in a vintage year and these are
normally deemed to be "Prestige or Deluxe cuvées". Probably the most famous of
these is Moët's Cuvée Dom Pérignon. In fact Moët invented the Cuvée Prestige with
D.P. in 1921.
Prestige cuvées represent the pinnacle of a house's achievement and can be a vintage
or occasionally a blend of vintages. They cost around three times more than a Non-
Vintage, and around double the price of a Vintage.
BRAND NAMES
ABELE
AYALA
KRUG
BESSERAT de BELLEFON
BILLECART-SALMON
BOLLINGER
LANSON
LAURENT-PERRIER
MERCIER
CHARLES HEIDSIECK
MERCIER
MOËT & CHANDON

G.H. MUMM & Cie
PERRIER JOUET
PIPER-HEIDSIECK
Louis ROEDERER
Loire Valley Wines

The Loire Valley is famous for its white wines. None of them use Chardonnay as a
main grape variety. Chenin Blanc or Sauvignon are widely used. About 75% of the
production is made of white wine.
Although Loire is a land of white wine, some red wines are very interesting. They are
fruity and pleasant.
The Loire Valley is probably the most beautiful wine region in France and in the world.
The Most Beautiful Villages of the Loire
The most basic information on the wines of Loire is:
From the Massif Central to the Atlantic coast around Nantes. The
Location: Loire wine region follows the Loire river in its valley
Loire region information
Size: n/a
Size of the vineyards: 30,000 hectares
Chenin Blanc
Grapes in Loire:
Sauvignon
400 million bottles

Production:
Loire wine making
Dry white wine

Sweet white wine
Semi-dry white wine
Type of Wine:
Sparkling white wine
Fruity red wine
Rosé wine
Loire Wine and food:

Geography of the Loire Valley:
The Valley of the Loire, in the Centre West of France, is often considered as the most
beautiful French wine region.
The region is wide and follows the river, starting in the Auvergne and Massif Central
and finishing in the Atlantic coast around Nantes city.
The Loire River is wide and deep. The landscape is quiet and undulated.
It is probably more accurate to say that the Loire Valley is made of several different
regions, which have one thing in common: the river.
Loire Region Information:
From the Massif Central mountains to the Atlantic coast

and Nantes cities. The Loire wine region follows the Loire
Location:
river in its valley and the rivers flowing into (Cher, Loir,
Layon, etc)
Size: n/a
Atlantic weather in the West (mild winter and summer)

Weather:
Continental in the East (cold winter, warm summer)
Population: n/a
Nantes
Main Tours
Cities: Tours
Bourges
Châteaux de la Loire (Chambord, Azay le Rideau,

Amboise, etc)
Places of
Loire Valley wine road (the most beautiful in France !)
Interest:
Angers (heritage city)
Atlantic Coast (salt production)


History of wine in the Loire Valley:
Vines already existed when Romans invaded the Loire Valley.
The legend says that Saint Martin was the first to make wine in the Loire region. It was
in 380.
The wine production then grew fast. In both river banks, wine makers made white wine.
On the hills, they went for red wine.
Such as in Burgundy, most of the vineyards belong to monasteries and monks had
developed the wine production in the whole region.
Wine making in the Loire Valley:

The wines reflect the mood of the landscape. They are soft, pleasant, charming and
light. About three-quart of the production are white wines.
The main grapes are Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon for white wine and Cabernet Franc
for red wine.
Loire wine making information:
Size of the
30,000 hectares
vineyards:
Vineyards: n/a
Soil: Various: Clayey-limestone, limestone, siliceous and chalky

soils
Weather: Continental in the East of the Loire Valley

Oceanic in the West of the Valley
White Grapes Chenin Blanc

in Loire Sauvignon
Valley: Melon
Red Grapes Cabernet Franc

in Loire Gamay
Valley: Cabernet Sauvignon
Pinot Noir
Production: over 400 million bottles
Type of Wine: Dry white wine

Sweet white wine

Semi-dry white wine
Fruity red wine
Rosé wine

Wines of Loire and food:
Loire wines go very well with any dish based on pork, from paté to roast, ham and
chicken, from fish to sea-food, from eel to trout. They are just palatable with all the
summer cooking.
Muscadet is excellent with oysters, the Sancerre with goat-cheese.
Muscadet
Muscadet is produced in 4 wine terroirs around the city of Nantes. The Muscadet Sèvre
et Maine is the most important and the best of them.
In the Muscadet region, wine makers use to leave the grape juice to rest during winter
before putting the wine in bottle.
Muscadet is a dry white wine that is a fine companion to shellfish.
The quality of Muscadet varies very much from one winery to another.
Muscadet wine information:
Appellation Muscadet Controlée

Appellation Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Controlée
Name:
Appellation Muscadet Coteaux de la Loire Controlée
Appellation Muscadet Côtes de Grandlieu Controlée
Location: Around the city of Nantes, from Ancenis to the Atlantic coast
Vallet, La Haye Fouassière, Le Landreau, Mouzillon, La

Places: Chapelle Heulin, Château Thébaud, Maisdon sur Sèvre, Le
Landreau, Saint Philbert de Grand Lieu
Soil: Granite
Size: 12,500 ha (30,900 acres)
Production: almost 100 million bottles
Grapes: Melon (or Muscadet)

Type of wines: Dry white wine
also sweet white wine
Age: Drink now and up to 2 years
Vintages:
2003
(recommended)
White flowers
Aromas: Anise
Citrus
Oysters
Food: Shellfish
Aperitif
Cheese: Nantais

Anjou
Anjou wines are made around the city of Angers. They were very popular as soon as in
the 6th century. During the 13th and 14th centuries, Anjou was one of the most popular
wines in England. And then in Holland and Belgium.
Nowadays Anjou is famous for the rosé d'Anjou. Rosé makes about half of the
production in Anjou. However we should recommend the white wine from Anjou. New
techniques and aging in oak barrel have improved the wine. Red wine from Anjou
Villages deserve as well a special note.
Anjou wine information:
Appellation Anjou Rouge Controlée

Appellation Anjou Gamay Controlée
Appellation Anjou Villages Controlée
Name: Appellation Cabernet d'Anjou Controlée
Appellation Rosé d'Anjou Controlée
Appellation Anjou Blanc Controlée
Appellation Anjou Mousseux Controlée
Location: Covers Maine et Loire department, west of Touraine
Beaulieu sur Layon, Thouarcé, Martigné Briand, Saint Lambert

Places:
du Lattay, La Pommeraye, Faye d'Anjou, Rochefort sur Loire,

Rablay sur Layon, Brissac Quincé
Soil: Various
Size: 9,000 ha (22,200 acres)
Rosé and red:

Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grolleau
Grapes:
White:
Chenin blanc, Sauvignon, Chardonnay
Type of wines: Sweet rosé

Dry white wine
Light and medium body red wine
Red: 2 to 6 years
Age: White: 1 to 3 years
Rosé: now to 2 years
Vintages:
2003, 1997
(recommended)
Red:
Black currant and black fruits
Red fruits
Aromas: White:
White flowers
Apricot
Crystallized fruit
Red:
Red meat
White:
Food:
Fish
Rosé:
Cold meat
White:
Cheese: Chabichou du Poitou
Red:

Camembert
Crottin de Chavignol
Coteaux du Layon
Coteaux du Layon is the widest wine area of the Anjou region. Along the Layon river,
the vines are protected by the hills in this lovely contryside. Although wine makers
produce a good semi-dry white wine, Coteaux du Layon is well known for the sweet
white wine and for at least 15 centuries! The most reputed of all is the sweet wine
coming from Chaume.
The vine growers leave the grapes in their vines until they begin to over-ripe. They are
then ready to harvest. It means that harvest take place in Coteaux du Layon later than
other places in the Loire valley.
Coteaux du Layon wine information:
Appellation Coteaux du Layon Controlée

Name: Appellation Coteaux du Layon Villages Controlée
Appellation Chaume Premier Cru Controlée
Location: South of Angers city and West of Saumur, along the Layon river
Rochefort sur Loire, Saint Lambert du Lattay, Beaulieu sur

Places: Layon, Saint Aubin de Luigné, Faye d'Anjou Concourson sur
Layon, etc
Soil: Schist
Size: 1,800 ha (4,450 acres)
Grapes: Chenin blanc
Type of wines: Sweet white wine

Semi-dry white wine
Age: 10 to 20 years
Vintages:
2003, 1997, 1995, 1990, 1989
(recommended)
Honey
Aromas:
Fig

Acacia
Food: Dessert wine
Livarot
Cheese: Maroilles
Pont l'Eveque
Saumur
In Saumur, wine makers build caves in the chalky soil so that wine can rest in stable
condition. If you visit the area, we recommend you visit one of these caves (called
"tuffeau" in french).
Wine makers produce red, dry white and sparkling white and rosé wines.
Red wines are fruity and light. The ones from Saumur Champigny are among the best
red wines in the Loire Valley.
Sparkling wines take advantage of the chalky soil and of the caves mentioned above.
They can be a cheaper alternative to Champagne.
White wines from Saumur are nervous and can age a few years in a cellar.
Saumur wine information:
Appellation Saumur Champigny Controlée

Appellation Saumur Controlée
Appellation Cabernet de Saumur Controlée
Name: Appellation Coteaux de Saumur Controlée
Appellation Saumur Rouge Controlée
Appellation Saumur Blanc Controlée
Appellation Saumur Brut Controlée
South East of Angers city, on the left bank of the river, and East
Location:
of Coteaux du Layon and Anjou.
Saumur, Le Puy Notre Dame, Varrains, Vaudelnay, Saint Cyr

Places:
en Bourg, Turquant, Champigny, Dampierre sur Loire, etc
Chalk
Soil:
Limestone
Size: 4,000 ha (9,900 acres)
Grapes: Red: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon

White: Chenin blanc, Chardonnay
Type of wines: Fruity red wine

Dry white wine
Dry sparkling white wine
Red: 2 to 8 years
Age:
White: 1 to 3 years
Vintages: Red: 2003, 1998, 1997

(recommended) White: 2003
Sparkling wine:
White flowers
Brioche
White wine:
Aromas: Apple
Broom
Red wine:
Red fruits
Licorice
Food: Various
Red:
Chabichou du Poitou
Cheese: Crottin de Chavignol
Saint Nectaire
Valencay
Touraine
Touraine is a huge wine area, just at the centre of the Loire Valley. It is also the place
where you can find most of the famous Châteaux de la Loire.
All kind of wines are produced in Touraine.
Red wines from Touraine are predominantly made from Gamay grapes. The other
place where we can find Gamay is in Beaujolais where it is the only grape used. Here in
Touraine, Gamay is used with Cabernet, from Bordeaux, and Pinot Noir, from
Burgundy. It means that red wine from Touraine is a great condensed french wine

However Gamay wines in Touraine do not taste that good. More and more, wine
makers use Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir to bring balance to the
wine.
Touraine wine information:
Appellation Touraine Controlée

Appellation Touraine Mesland Controlée
Name: Appellation Touraine Azay le Rideau Controlée
Appellation Touraine Noble Joué Controlée
Appellation Touraine Amboise Controlée
At the heart of the Loire valley, around the city of Tours and
Location:
close to the Châteaux de la Loire
Noyers sur Cher, Meusnes, Saint Georges sur Cher, Pouillé,

Places:
Chatillon sur Cher, Amboise, Limeray, Cheillé
Sand
Soil: Clay
Limestone
Size: 6,000 ha (15,000 acres)
Red and rosé: Gamay, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Malbec,

Grapes: Pineau
White: Chenin blanc, Sauvignon
Type of wines: Light and fruity red wine

Light and fresh dry white wine
Medium rosé
Sparkling red, rosé and white wines
Red: 2 to 7 years
Age: White: 1 to 4 years
Rosé: drink now and up to 2 years
Vintages:
2003
(recommended)
Red:
Aromas:
Red fruits

Black fruits
Raspberry
White:
Menthol
Vanilla
Litchee
Red:
Red meat
Food:
White:
Aperitif
Red:
Boursin
Camembert
Chabichou du Poitou
Cheese: Saint Nectaire
Valencay
White:
Maconnais
Cheddar
Bourgueil
Bourgueil is a terroir of red wine, similar to Chinon. You need to be an expert to
distinguish the one from the other. This is because Bourgueil and Chinon share the
same terroir specificity, history and wine making tradition.
It seems that some Bourgueil wines mature longer than their Chinon neighbor.
Specially the ones coming from the south of the appellation and called "vins de cotes".
Bourgueil is often compared to the wines from Médoc in Bordeaux. Cabernet grapes
are used to make both wines.
Bourgueil wine information:
Appellation Bourgueil Controlée

Name:
Appellation Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil Controlée
Location: West of Tours city, and East of Saumur
Bourgueil, Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil and Restigné, Benais,

Places:
Ingrandes de Touraine

Limestone
Soil: Sand
Gravel
Size: 1,200 ha (2,900 acres)
Grapes: Cabernet Franc (or Petit Breton)
Type of wines: Fruity red wine

Dry rosé (less than 5% of the production)
Bourgueil: 3 to 10 years
Age:
Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil: 2 to 5 years
Vintages:
2003, 1997
(recommended)
Red fruits
Aromas: Black currant
Green capsicum
Food: With a starter
Port Salut
Reblochon
Cheese: Saint Nectaire
Valencay
Gouda

Vouvray
There is not only one Vouvray but several different Vouvrays. The wine can be sweet,
flavored or full-body and dry. But one can say that Vouvray is always at its best.
The sweet wine has a golden color, is vigorous, fruity and fresh. The dry and semi dry
are rich and intense.
There is also a sparkling wine in Vouvray. It is fruity as well - a trademark of the

Vouvray terroir ! - and can mature for a few years which is quite uncommon for a
sparkling wine.
Vouvray is definitely an unique wine, well more accurately, Vouvray are a few unique
wines!

Vouvray wine information:
Name: Appellation Vouvray Controlée
Right bank of the Loire river

Location:
Close to Tours city and the Châteaux of Loire
Places: 8 villages: Vouvray, Rochecorbon, Vernou sur Brenne, etc
Clayey limestone
Soil:
Chalk
Size: 2,000 ha (4,900 acres)
Grapes: Chenin blanc (Pineau blanc de la Loire)
Type of wines: Sweet viscous white wine

Dry white wine
Semi dry white wine
Sweet: sometimes over a century !

Dry: 5 to 25 years
Age:
Semi-dry: drink now and up to 5 years
Sparkling: 1 to 4 years
Vintages:
2003, 1997, 1995, 1990, 1989
(recommended)
Quince
Aromas: Honey
Almond
Chicken in white sauce

Food: Veal in white sauce
Fruits
Cabécou
Camembert
Cheese:
Livarot

Pouilly Fumé
Pouilly Fumé has an unusual flavor for a dry white wine: a strong flavor of musk and
smoked.
Pouilly sur Loire is a different wine made with Chasselas grape variety. It should be
drunk young. When the phylloxera destroyed all the vines 2 centuries ago, vine growers
replace them with Sauvignon to create the Pouilly Fumé. Nowadays Pouilly sur Loire
makes less than 5% of the production of Pouilly.
Pouilly is very close from Sancerre, just on the other side of the river. However both
wines are a little bit different. Pouilly Fumé is probably thicker, deeper and has more
structure.
Pouilly Fumé wine information:
Name: Appellation Pouilly Fumé Controlée
Eastern part of the Loire Valley

Location:
East of Sancerre and Bourges
Places: Pouilly sur Loire, Saint Andelain, Tracy sur Loire, etc
Limestone
Soil:
Clayey-limestone
Size: 850 ha (2,100 acres)
6 million bottles
Production:
White wine only!
Pouilly Fumé: Sauvignon

Grapes:
Pouilly sur Loire: Chasselas
Type of wines: Thick dry white wine
Age: 1 to 5 years
Vintages:
2003
(recommended)
Smoked
Aromas: Broom
Acacia

Salmon
Chicken
Food:
Veal
Aperitif
Cheese: Crottin de Chavignol
Sancerre
Sancerre is one of the most famous white wines in France. Sancerre is also a very nice
village with a typical castle.
Sancerre white wine is more delicate than close-by Pouilly Fumé. Sancerre matures a
little bit fast than its neighbor.
Although wine tasters need to differentiate the Sancerre wines coming from marl
terroir from the ones coming from limestone vineyards. The first are fruity and well
balanced, the second are full flavored but less stable.
Sancerre is produced on 15 villages. The wines coming from Bué and Chavignol are
the best
Sancerre wine information:
Name: Appellation Sancerre Controlée
North-east of Bourges city, in the east part of the Loire Valley,

Location:
on the left bank of the river
Bannay, Bué, Chavignol, Crézancy, Menetou-Ratel, Ménétréol,

Places: Montigny, St-Satur, Ste-Gemme, Sancerre, Sury-en-vaux,
Thauvenay, Veaugues, Verdigny and Vinon
Marl (called "white soil")

Soil:
Limestone
Size: 2,200 ha (5,400 acres)
Grapes: Sauvignon Blanc

Type of wines: Nervous dry white wine
Light and flavored red wine
Age: 1 to 5 years
Vintages:
2003
(recommended)
Grapefruit (and citrus)

Aromas:
White flowers
Shellfish
Food: Trout
Fish
Chabichou du Poitou
Cheese:
Pouligny Saint Pierre
Valencay

Sparkling Wine
The traditional of all of these wines is closely connected with
that of sparkling wines. Today the designation (SPARKLING
WINE) is reserved for products produced in certain French
districts and in determined amounts. But the production of
sparkling wines is also carried out in many other wine districts.
In general, sparkling wines are those which foam readily
because of the presence of high concentrations of dissolved
CO2. The CO2 pressure is 4.05-5.06Pa (4-5 atm) at 20 C.
However, in the United States, wines containing a pressure of
slightly more than 2.03 Pa (2 atm) may be called sparkling
wines. The methods of production are the following:
1. Sparkling wine process (bottle fermentation,
removal of yeast by gorging)
2. Transfer process (bottle fermentation, transfer to a
tank, and removal of the yeast by filtration)
3. Bulk fermentation
4. Carbonation

Sparkling wine Process:-
In the classical bottle fermentation, a dry white wine (cuvé) undergoes a secondary
fermentation after the addition of about 25 g per liter of sucrose fermentation takes place
in thick walled, tightly closed bottles at 9-12C. The fermentation requires several
months. After that the wine remains on the yeast for several months or years. During this
period the yeast collects in the neck of the bottles, a process which is aided by shaking
and by an increasing inclination of the bottles so that they approach a vertical position.
Finally, the yeast deposit is frozen in the neck of the bottle and disgorges when the bottle
is opened. The lost amount is then replaced by adding a solution of sucrose in wine. The
sucrose concentration depends on the desired and product and the bottles are tightly
closed after addition of the dosage.
Transfer Process.-
In this process the bottle fermentation is carried out as above, but the yeast is removed
by transferring the wine from the bottles to a tank in a closed system and under nitrogen
pressure. After addition of the dosage, the wine is filtered in a closed system and with
nitrogen or carbon dioxide counters pressure and filled into bottles. This method
permits retention of the carbon dioxide in the wine.

Bulk fermentation:-
This process is suitable for mass production of sparkling wine and results in wine of
somewhat lesser quality the secondary fermentation is carried out in a pressurized
vessel. A certain concentration of unfermented, residual sugar is retained in the wine so
that there is no need for addition of dosages. After filtration the wine can be filled into
bottles. In this process the carbon dioxide evolved during the secondary fermentation is
also retained.
Carbonation:-
In contrast to the preceding process the sparkling character of wine obtained by
impregnating the base wine with carbon dioxide. That means that there is no secondary
fermentation. This process is suitable for the production of less expensive wines and its
quality is largely determined by the quality of the base wine. Also in contrast to the
preceding processes, which involve a secondary fermentation, the carbon dioxide is
only weakly bound and escapes more quickly after the bottles are opened.
The choice of yeast is highly important for bottle fermentations since this fermentation
is carried out under more demanding conditions. The alcohol concentration of the cuve’

(about 11% by vol.) the low temperature, and slowly increases pressure of co2 are all
inhibitory for the yeast. It is also important that the yeast be fairly flocculent and forms
a compact deposit. Strains of S.cerevisiae and S.bayanus are used in commercial
practice.

TRADITIONAL METHOD OF SPARKLING WINES
- Original clarification process was discovered by Dom Perignon who used pinot noir
grapes to make SPARKLING WINES
Champagne - The Region
• Most northerly major wine producing region in France.
• Continental climate, which means cold winters and warm summers.
• Main grape varieties grown in this region are:
• Chardonnay (w)
• Pinot noir (r)
• Pinot meunier (r)
• Sub-soil is chalk
Production Steps of the Traditional Method
1. Primary Fermentation
Sugar + yeast -------> -OH (alcohol) + CO2 + heat
This primary fermentation will usually yield a product which is 9% alcohol by volume.
The different grape varieties are always vinified separately.
Most of the vinifications is done in stainless steel, rarely is oak used (oak exceptions are
Krug and Bollinger).
The porduct of primary fermentation is quite acidic.
Some wines undergo malolactic fermentation, some do not.
2. Blending (Assemblage)
Different percentages of varietals are combined for consistent house styles. This can
either mean that different varietals from the same (current) year are blended, or Vin
Clair from other vintage years are blended in as well.

3. Secondary Fermentation (in the bottle, ALWAYS)
The product of the blending process (the cuvee) is taken, and to it is added just the
precise amount of liqueur de triage. The liqueur de tirage is a solution of sugar and
yeast which will re-initiate the fermentation process.
Secondary fermentation is done to raise the alcohol percentage by 2%, to a total of

about 11% alc/vol.
Secondary fermentation always takes place in the bottle according to the traditional
method of Champagne. Magnums are regarded as the perfect sized vessel for the
secondary fermentation process.
The product is then crown capped (like beer), so that the CO2 gas produced by
secondary fermentation does not escape.
4. Maturation
Maturation occurs on the lees (in the bottle) and is dependent upon yeast autolysis.
The minimum maturation requirements for traditional method are:
- Non-Vintage, 1 year on the lees

- Vintage, 3 years on the lees
5. Riddling (Remuage)
The repositioning of bottles from horizontal to a somewhat vertical position to assist in
the removal of the sediment (lees).
Long ago, this was accomplished by using a sandwich board type device called a
pupitres. Modern gyropalettes are mechanised riddling mechanisms which take most of
the hand work out of riddling.
6. Degorgement
Originally done by freezing the sediment plug in the neck of the bottle. Inverted bottle's
neck was dipped in an icy brine vat, the solids of the plug then coagulated, and could be
removed in one go.

Modern method of plug removal is to use nitrous oxide (N2O).
7. Dosage (aka, the Colonel's Secret Step)

In Champagne, the product is dosed with something called liqueur d'expedition.
This stage determines the final sweetness of the wine (acidity balance by altering
sweetness level).
The liqueur d'expedition is different for every producer, and is usually a fairly well
guarded secret. However, it could be something like Cognac or icewine, depending on
how the producer wanted to affect the sweetness/acidity balance of the final product.
The following are sweetness levels commonly associated with qualitative labelling
descriptors:
Extra Brut (not common) -----> 0-6 gr/L residual sugar

Brut (more common) -----> 6-15 gr/L residual sugar
Extra Dry -----> 12-20 gr/L residual sugar
Sec -----> 17-35 gr/L residual sugar
8. Corkage
Finally, the product is closed with a cork and hasp.

SPARKLING WINE:-
A type of wine, usually white, that is effervescent with bubbles of carbon dioxide gas
which sparkle as they rise to the surface. While champagne is the best-known, sparkling
wines are produced in almost every wine region in the world. They are generally at their
best when made by the méthode champenoise, acquiring their sparkle through a
secondary fermentation inside a sealed bottle which prevents the gas from escaping.
Inferior versions may be made by carbonation, the injection of carbon dioxide gas into
the wine. There are many styles of sparkling wine and these vary greatly both in
sweetness and in the amount of effervescence. Sparkling wines in France are called
mousseux for fully sparkling, pétillant for lightly sparkling, and perlant for very lightly
sparkling. The Italian equivalents are spumante, frizzante and frizzantino. Crémant is
another type of sparkling wine from France, while the predominant sparkling wine from
Italy is spumante, from Germany Sekt, and from Spain cava. See also Charmat method.

SPARKLING WINES
From California, Spain, Italy, Germany, Australia and France
All that glitters is not gold and all that sparkles is not Champagne. Despite the
American penchant for calling all wine with bubbles Champagne, the only kind of
sparkling wine that has a right to call itself Champagne is stuff that comes from the
region of the same name in northern France.
Does that mean the only good sparkling wine comes from the Champagne region? Not
at all. Many good sparkling wines come from Italy, Spain, Germany, the United States,
and other areas of France.
California
Several French Champagne houses have California sparkling wine operations. And
they’re no weak sisters, either. In fact, many think the non-vintage California wines
may be as good as or better than non-vintage French Champagnes, and certainly they
are better values at $12 to $18.
As with their French counterparts, the California sparkling wine wineries are in cooler
climates (Sonoma and Mendocino counties) and use the same grapes, primarily pinot
noir and chardonnay with some pinot meunier. This produces a richer taste than
sparkling wines made from grapes in other countries. The richest wines have the highest
percentage of red pinot noir. All chardonnay sparklers, called blanc de blanc are the
lightest. The 1992 Domaine Carneros Le Reve is an elegant California blanc de blanc
from the house of Taittinger. Domaine Chandon's Blanc de Noir, made from pinot noir,
is a consistently good full-flavored sparkling wine from Moet & Chandon. Maybe the
best California sparkling wine of all is Roederer Estate Brut Anderson Valley NV.
But you don't have to have French parentage to make good value sparkling wine in
California. Also look for Korbel, S. Anderson, Gloria Ferrer, Iron Horse, Jepson, and
Scharffenberger (now owned by Moet). And beyond California, there is Washington
state, particularly Domaine St. Michelle Brut from the wine juggernaut Chateau St.
Michelle and Gruet Brut New Mexico NV (yes, New Mexico).

Spain
Spain is the largest consumer of sparkling wine in the world and it's hard to beat
producers such as Freixenet, Codorniu, and Paul Cheneau on price, which is rarely
more than $10. Spanish sparkling wine, called "cava" after the word for cellar, is made
in Penedes in northeast Spain. Cavas are made in the French style, called "metodo
classico," a reformation of "methode champenoise," a French term now illegal under
European Community rules unless the wine comes from Champagne. "Metodo classico"
means that the second fermentation—which produces the bubbles—takes place in the
bottle. Traditionally, cavas were made from native grapes such as macabeo, parellada,
and xarello, but more wineries are switching over to chardonnay to achieve a more
universal and thus less distinctive taste. Spanish cavas are generally light, crisp and very
refreshing, but not terribly interesting, though there are some exceptions such as Fleur
de Nuit and SeguraViudas.
Italy
In Italy the name of the game is prosecco, a sparkling wine made from the grape of the
same name in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. The best proseccos such as
Rustico by Nino Franco and Venegazzù Prosecco Brut di Valdobbiadene nv from count
piero loredan gasparini don’t cost much more than $12 and are bone dry with light
citrus flavors and a faint nip of bitter almond on the finish, which is typical of Italian
white wines.
The key to prosecco is freshness. If you see dust on the bottles, head elsewhere.
Freshness is also the key to moscato d'art, a sweet sparkler made in Piedmont in
northeastern Italy that's about the same price as prosecco. Thorough chilling will
mitigate some of that sweetness, but even without it, the best moscato d'Astis are never
cloying. They're great with brunch, perhaps on Christmas or New Year's morning since
they are quite low in alcohol. But don't overlook them as an aperitif. Producers to look
for are Vietti and Rivetti.
Germany
German sparkling wines, called Sekt, are engaging alternatives to traditional
Champagnes. They can be made of pinot blanc but more often are made with riesling
and generally range in price from $12 to $18. Most have bracing acidity. Deinhard Lila
Brut NV is a widely available example. More obscure, but worth seeking out is
Schumann-Nagler Cuvee Rheingau Riesling, a Sekt trocken, meaning very dry.

Australia
One would think Australia too hot for sparkling wines. Yet Aussie winemakers do some
amazing things, particularly in the case of Seaview Brut Sparkling Wine (about $10).
You won't confuse this with Champagne. But this blend of pinot noir, muscadelle,
chenin blanc, and semillon is a fine quaff.
France
Now we come full circle back to France for sparkling wines that aren't Champagne,
meaning they come from everywhere but that specific place. In the Loire Valley,
sparkling Vouvray is made from chenin blanc grapes, typically when the grapes are not
ripe enough to make still (non sparkling) wine. Because only riesling has more acidity
than chenin blanc, these wines are refreshing but with more creamy mouthfeel than the
German sparklers. Foreau Brut is about $18.
The Jura and Savoie in eastern France produce a lot of lesser known sparkling wines.
One of the better ones is Brut Dargent. Cremant d'Alsace is a sparkling wine from
Alsace usually made of combinations of pinot noir, pinot blanc, and pinot gris. Because
they are very high in acidity, they are crisp and very refreshing. Lucien Albrecht (about
$15) is a good name to remember.
Regardless of where your sparkling wine comes from, it should have a clean aroma,
though not a varietal character since most are blends. Citrus notes are almost always
positive and the tinier the bubbles the better. They give the mouth a creamy feel rather
than a foamy one created by larger bubbles. Most of all, good sparkling wines should
leave the mouth refreshed and ready for another bite of food'or another sip of wine.
Storage of Wine
Wine Temperature Chart : Temps for Serving / Storing Wine
What's the big deal about storing a wine at a certain temperature? Simply put, wine is a
perishable good. Storing a fine wine at 100° will cause it to lose its flavor, while storing
it at 0° will cause as much damage.
The trick with wine is to store it at a stable, ideal temperature, and then to serve it at a
temperature which best shows off its personal characteristics. If you serve a wine too
cool, the flavors will all be hidden. It's like eating a frozen pizza while it's still frozen. If
you serve a wine too hot, all you can taste is the alcohol.

Wine Serving Temperature Guidelines
Temp F Temp C Notes
100° 39° Warm Bath
68° 20° -
66° 19° Vintage Port
64° 18° Bordeaux, Shiraz
63° 17° Red Burgundy, Cabernet
61° 16° Rioja, Pinot Noir
59° 15° Chianti, Zinfandel
57° 14° Tawny/NV Port, Madeira
55° 13° Ideal storage for all wines
54° 12° Beaujolais, rose
52° 11° Viognier, Sauternes
50° 10° -
48° 9° Chardonnay
47° 8° Riesling

45° 7° Champagne
43° 6° Ice Wines
41° 5° Asti Spumanti
39° 4° -
37° 3° -
35° 2° Fridge Temperature
33° 1° -
32° 0° water freezes
0° -18° Freezer Temperature
Most of the enjoyment that comes from drinking wine involves its aroma. Taste only
has four aspects - sweet, sour, salty, acid. The nose does the rest. Vapors are created as
wine warms up, so the wine needs to be a few degrees below its ideal drinking
temperature for this to work. Room Temperature is rarely 'wine drinking temperature' -
if you're in the Indian Ocean on a yacht, you hardly want 100° Chardonnay! How about
Houston in July? Warmth makes white wines taste dull. Few homes are regulated to
match wine-drinking temperatures.
So throw out the old "refrigerate all whites, drink all reds at current room temperature"
adage. Here is a chart to indicate in general best temperatures for drinking wine at.
Remember, though, that you also want to keep in mind the temperature of the room
relative to this 'idea temperature'. If your room is 60°F and you are serving a fine
Burgundy, perhaps chill the Burgundy to 58°F to allow it a little warming up in the
glass. Fridges do well for cooling a wine when necessary, but for warming I prefer to
warm it with my hands, glass by glass.

If you run into someone hooked on Room Temperature, have them imagine
drinking a fine ice wine in Barrow, Alaska in February. At that temperature,
even a wine meant
How long will an open bottle of wine keep?
QUESTION ANSWER
Should I be Simply keep your bottles of wine in a cool place away from
storing the wine I direct sunlight until you’re ready to drink them. If you are going
drink everyday to store them for more than a few weeks, it is best to store them
in a special way on their side rather than upright. This will keep the cork moist
or place? and therefore airtight.
There is no need to store white wines or Champagne/sparkling
wines in the refrigerator if you are not planning on drinking them
soon. Simply chill them before serving.
Where should I There are two types of wine you may not plan to drink
store wine I don't immediately--wines you have purchased that are ready to drink,
plan to drink and wines designed to be aged. Most wines on the market today
immediately? are designed to be ready to drink as soon as you purchase them.
Therefore, the long-term storage conditions recommended for
wines designed to be aged are not necessary.
Keep these ready-to-drink wines away from direct sunlight and

heat, any source of vibration, and lying on their sides. This will
ensure that the cork will remain moist and therefore airtight.
There is no need to store white wines or Champagne/sparkling

wines in the refrigerator if you are not planning to drink them
soon. Simply chill them before serving.
If you do begin to accumulate wines designed to be aged, storage

becomes more important. The key conditions to keep constant are
temperature (needs to be about 55 degrees) and humidity (70% -
80%). To achieve this at home, you may need to convert a closet
or buy a special unit designed.

Where should I A re-corked, leftover bottle of red or white wine can be stored in
store wine after it the refrigerator for 3 — 5 days without compromising its flavor.
is opened? Just take the red wine out of the refrigerator to let it come up to
room temperature before drinking. A tightly corked leftover
bottle of Champagne/sparkling wine can also be kept fresh in the
refrigerator for 3 - 5 days.
How long will an Longer than you may think. Don’t throw it away! Re-cork the
open bottle of wine (if you’ve thrown away the cork use plastic wrap and a
wine keep? rubber band). An open bottle of red or white wine will keep in the
refrigerator for 3 — 5 days. A bottle of Champagne/sparkling
wine (tightly re-corked) will also keep for 3 — 5 days in the
refrigerator.

Whether or not to bottle age your wine after you have purchased it is a very personal
and somewhat complex decision. While most white wines are designed to be enjoyed
within two to three years after their vintage date, many robust red wines, particularly
Cabernet Sauvignon such as William Hill Winery's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and
Aura, will continue to evolve and improve with additional aging in proper storage
conditions.
Under the proper storage conditions, the components of red wines will interact and
evolve. During bottle aging, the wine's varietal aromas and flavors, as well as tannins
and pigment, interact with oak compounds imparted during fermentation and barrel
aging. Tannins and pigment compounds will link together to form longer, smoother
polymer chains, softening the tannic impression of the wine. This integration can help
to develop increasingly complex flavors and aromas, and deepen the wine's color from
purplish to a deep, brick red.
However, the primary caveat of a fine red wine improving through additional aging is
the quality of its storage conditions. The ideal storage environment for wine mirrors the
conditions of many wineries' storage caves:
• Cool Temperature:
55-65°F. Cool temperatures slow the aging process and help to develop complex
varietal character.

• Consistent Temperature:
Less than 10°F fluctuation throughout the year. Temperature fluctuations can cause the
wine to expand and contract, possibly causing damage to the cork.
• Humidity:
Between 60-80%. Humidity over 80% can encourage mold, while dry conditions can
cause evaporation and oxidation.
• Darkness:
Excessive light exposure can cause proteins in wine to become hazy, and can create
"off" aromas and flavors.
• Vibration-free:
Vibration (from appliances or motors) can travel through wine and be detrimental to its
development.
• Odor-free:
The storage area should be free from chemical odors, such as cleaners, household
paints, etc.
Basements are usually wonderful for storing wine because they meet many of the above
criteria. Other options include a little-used, interior closet in an air-conditioned home.
Wine storage systems are available that provide optimum temperature and humidity
conditions for serious wine collecting.

Storing Wine
For any wine lover, storing wine well is very important. There are a few simple
principles that need to be understood in order to select proper wine storage conditions.
We can logically break down the process into just 3 categories: storing wine for the
short haul, storing wine for long term aging and storing (or saving) wines that have
already been opened.
Short Term Storage

This is wine you will consume within 6 months. These may be bottles that are just
home from the store and destined to be consumed shortly or bottles that have been
pulled from longer storage to be accessible for spur of the moment consumption.
The closer you can duplicate the conditions required for long term storage, the better.
However, in many situations, keeping the wines in a box in an interior closet is a
satisfactory solution.
Keep the bottles stored so that:

• the cork stays moist
• the wines are at the lowest stable temperature possible
• the location is free of vibration
• the location is not a storage area for other items that have a strong odor
Stay away from those little 9 bottle racks that end up on top of the refrigerator; it's hot,
close to the light and vibrates from the refrigerator compressor.
Long Term Storage:

This is wine that you will keep for more than 6 months before consumption. A good
storage location for wine is generally dark, is free of vibration, has high humidity and
has a low stable temperature.
Generally accepted 'ideal' conditions are 50 to 55 degrees fare height and 70 percent
humidity or higher. The high humidity is important because it keeps the corks from
drying and minimizes evaporation. The only problem with even higher levels of
humidity is that it brings on growth of mold on the labels or the loosening of labels

that have water soluble glue.
Temperatures lower than 55 degrees only slow the aging of the wines. There have
been wines found in very cold cellars of castles in Scotland that are perfectly sound
and are much less developed that those kept at 'normal' cellar temperature. A near
constant temperature is preferable to one that fluctuates.
With regard to light, most modern bottles have ultraviolet filters built into the glass
that help protect the contents from most of the effects of UV rays. Despite the filters in
the glass, long term storage can still allow enough rays in to create a condition in the
wine that is referred to as 'light struck'. The result is that the wine picks up the taste
and smell of wet cardboard. This is especially noticeable in delicate white wines and
sparkling wines. The condition can be created by putting a bottle of champagne near a
fluorescent light for a month.
Regular or constant vibrations from pumps, motors or generators should be avoided

since the vibrations they cause are thought to negatively affect the evolution of the
wines. One additional factor to avoid is storing other items with very strong odors near
the wine. There have been many reports of wines picking up the aromas of items
stored nearby.
If you do not have a suitable wine cellar, there are many types of 'wine refrigerators'
that will work as well. They differ from common refrigerators in that they work at
higher temperatures (50-65 degree range) and they do not remove humidity from the
air. There are kits available that will convert regular refrigerators into suitable wine
storage units.
Storage after opening:

This is storage for bottles of table wine that have been opened but not completely
consumed. There are many methods for prolonging the life of opened table wines but
even the best can only slow the degradation of the wine. These methods are for still
table wines. Sparkling wines and fortified dessert wines have different characteristics
and requirements.

Gas Systems: Sparging the bottle with a gas (nitrogen or argon) can be very effective
but it is expensive and I've never known anyone who actually used a gas system over a
long period of time. They just seem to ultimately be more trouble than they are worth.
If you do elect to try such a system, stay away from carbon dioxide since it will mix
into solution with the wine.
Vacu-vin: An item came on the market a few years ago called a Vacu-vin. This
consists of rubber bottle stoppers that hold a weak vacuum created by a hand pump
that comes with the system. While some people swear by them, there is a consistent
complaint that wines treated with a Vacu-vin seem 'stripped' of aromas and flavor.
They actually create a lower pressure environment instead of an actual vacuum. This
means they don't remove all the oxygen and oxidation of the wine will still occur.
Half bottles, marbles and progressive carafes: These are all ways of limiting the
amount of air in contact with the wine. The concept is good if you move quickly and
refrigerate the remaining wine.

STORE WINE
You can keep a bottle of wine any where in the house or in the apartment as long as the
wine is protected from:
- Temperature (too warm or too cold)

- Vibration
- Light
- Humidity (too much or too less)
- No air circulation
Each of these 5 enemies can kill wine or prevent it from maturing.

Aging is essential in order to bring wine to its optimum. In time, wine delivers typical
aromas and flavors. The process works only if the wine is kept in perfect condition.
How long can I keep my bottle of wine?

Aging depends on how the bottle is kept, it is also depend where the wine is coming
from. Red or white, from Bordeaux or Burgundy, every wine needs much or less time to
mature. Please have a look at the list of french wines to find out how long you should
keep a bottle of french wine.
How to store wine?

The easiest way to keep wine is to purchase a self-contained unit (known as a wine
cooler). A wine cooler can be as small as a little fridge, with enough space for 24
bottles. Some can hold more than 2,500 bottles. In between the two extremes lies a vast
number of options to fit nearly any need and budget.
How to store wine

The possibility of keeping a good number of bottles in store means you can follow the
natural progress of a specific wine, as well as avoiding continual transport of the bottles
from the shop home, which certainly doesn't help to enjoy the wine at its best. If it isn't
possible to have a basement area where you can build a cellar then you should choose
the room in the house where the temperature varies least from summer to winter. In
fact, even though the recommended temperature for storing wine is 12°-14°, slightly
higher but constant temperatures guarantee sufficient security.
If you have an old wardrobe you can insulate it using polystyrene and this will also
mean that the bottles are not exposed to direct light, which can have a violent effect on
the colour. The bottles should be stored horizontally so that the cork comes into contact

with the wine and remains damp and springy. Vertical storage tends to dry out the cork
and allows oxygen to get into the bottle, oxidising the contents.
If you have a room for the purpose you can arrange the bottles on shelves in wood or
metal. A high level of humidity may cause the formation of mould on the cork or more
simply the label may come off. To prevent this happening you can cover each bottle
with transparent film. If the room is too dry you can use a humidifier. The cellar should
be kept clean and should not be used to store other foodstuffs. No hams or salamis
should be hung there and the storage of detergents or paints would be even less
appropriate.
CELLARING ...preserving the flavors while postponing the pleasure...

Sooner or later, anyone who enjoys wine regularly will start a collection, although often
quite unintentionally. Only a very small percentage of all wines produced will improve
with age, either tastefully or capitalistically, and the risk of ultimate disappointment is
quite high. The risk seems however, to have little deterrent effect.
Typically, the one-bottle-at-a-time wine buyer will at some point discover their regular
merchant is sold out of their current and typically new-found favorite wine. So,
embarking on a desperate mission of serious wine shopping, they get lucky enough to
find another source with a few remaining bottles and make the decision to stock up.
And so it begins: The Cellar.
This "cellar" may wind up in a counter top wine rack on display, a kitchen cupboard, or
a cardboard box in a closet, crawl space, or garage. But make no mistake about the
implication, this IS the ominous beginning of a wine collection. For now, we'll simply
refer to it as "the stash."
IT'S ALIVE..!
Factors that will cause the drinker to morph into collector and the stash to grow (often
uncontrollably) are sentimentality, discovery, boredom, and speculation. Sentimentality
results from saving the last bottle or two of a particular favorite for a "special occasion".
Discovery of new favorites tends to slow depletion of the existing stash, while, at the
same time, adding to its overall volume. Boredom has the same effect.
Speculation usually begins when inflation, created by supply and demand, makes
monsters out of bottles that began as "great values". The drinker purchases a wine that
inadvertently pays a (theoretical) dividend and so decides to begin purposeful wine
investing (aka: collecting).

"Rules" of Wine Collecting
1. Take your time; choose wisely.

(There's no hurry to fill your "cellar". There are new wines every year. Read what the
critics say, but follow your own taste. Spend more money tasting than acquiring.)
2. Taste before you select.

(If you don't like it now, you won't like it later; an ugly duckling might become a swan,
but ugly-tasting wine becomes ugly-tasting old wine.)
Regardless of the cause, the effect of the growing stash is to make the drinker-cum-
collector think about protecting and preserving it. Although this is the most common
way wine collections start and grow, it is also completely the opposite of how it should
be done. The right way to collect wine is to plan and invest in a proper place to store
the collection first, but I won't waste another breath trumpeting this largely lost cause ...
THE HEAT IS ON The most important factor in storing wine is CONSISTENCY of

temperature. Rapid changes -- plus or minus 10° F within a 24-hour period -- ruin
wines. Although one incident may not be fatal, it will permanently change the flavors
away from the fresh-and-fruity side, toward the old-and-musty. Repeated temperature
fluctuations will surely ruin wine. Heated wine may smell and taste "cooked" or
madeirized, like burned sugar.
Lacking a dedicated temperature-controlled room or cabinet, it's best to store wine on

the floor of an interior closet, where no wall is shared with the outdoors, a furnace,
stove, refrigerator, water heater, dish washer, clothes dryer, sauna, kiln, boiler, foundry,
particle accelerator, etc. The garage, the root cellar, crawl space under the house, or the
unfinished basement are very bad places to store wine, because of wide and rapid
temperature fluctuations.
There is a tool to help find and monitor suitable temperate environments: a

minimum/maximum thermometer. This relatively inexpensive device will show the
highest and lowest temperature in any given time period. The analog version is U-
shaped with little steel plugs inside the tube, showing the min-max temperatures
reached since last checked (it is reset by stroking the tube with a magnet to reposition
the plugs). Newer electronic min-max thermometers may be more convenient for the
digitally-inclined.

Place either thermometer in the potential storage area and monitor, morning and night,
for a week. If the daily Fahrenheit swing is over a few degrees (5-8?), pick a new
location and begin again. Once a likely spot is found, the wine stash can be moved
there, but monitoring should continue weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually,
centennially, etc., until confident of the location's temperate stability.
The great body of anecdotal evidence suggests that wines stored at lower ranges (50° -
55° F) will be preserved longer and have a longer time for drinking while the wine is at
its "peak" of aging. Wines stored at higher ranges (65° - 70°) will age sooner, but not as
well, and have a shorter time window for maximum enjoyment.
Stored past five years in the vagarities of "room temperature", most wines are likely to
show browning color and taste lifeless, flat, or tired. If stored where temperature ever
reaches above 75°, the wines may taste cooked or maderized (Sherry-like, but without
the floral appeal).
Wine aging is not predictable with any certainty and there are no guarantees that even
properly stored bottles will improve. Conversely, wine that's not expected to hold up
well occasionally does improve with age. Both disappointments and surprises can
occur.
PROCRASTINATORS' PLONK As the stash grows, you will lose track of individual
bottles, guaranteed. Where is that bottle? I know I bought one; did I trade it ... sell it ...
drink it? Eventually, this becomes a bigger problem than keeping the temperature
stable. It's an ounce-of-prevention problem that most collectors don't consider until it
requires a pound-of-cure to inventory and map the cellar.
Start simple, but start somewhere. Label each box or bin with a number or letter. Keep a
notebook with columns and develop consistent abbreviations for often-repeated info,
like varietal, merchant, etc.:
Be diligent about entering new purchases and logging consumption. As the collection
swells, make tags for each bottle. Save the tags in an envelope tacked to the "cellar
door" and batch-process your depletions monthly or quarterly.
When hand entry gets old, the computer is the greatest collector's tool yet invented.
Lacking the hacking skills to design a custom wine data base? There are inexpensive,
excellent, downloadable software programs available, such as Vinoté, that keep track of
even more information, such as tasting notes, and make bottle tags.

Start now. Failure to keep track will sooner of later result in Bottles Discovered Post
Mortem and you'll be forced to consume Procrastinators' Plonk (an excellent match with
Crow).
BIN THERE, DUN THAT One can get as fancy as one wants with wine racking,
cubicles, bins, whatever. A general rule seems to be, the more customized a cellar, the
less flexible the storage and the sooner it is outgrown. Strictly a personal choice, of
course, but I'd rather spend money on the bottles than the bottle holders.
Cardboard cartons make fine wine storage bins. They're cheap, custom fit to bottle
dimensions, and modular. They protect the labels from scuffing and absorb any excess
moisture. Stored on their sides, with the ends cut off, the bottles can be viewed by their
end caps and the boxes can be stacked three high with relative confidence. Simple
plywood shelving can add structural stability and arrangement flexibility.
Many wine bottles with cellaring potential come packed in wooden crates. These are
also good storage containers for the long term. Whether cardboard or wood, the boxes
should be opened and the bottles checked immediately after purchase to find any low-
fills, leakers, or empties (it happens!). Re-pack after inspection. Ten years after may be
the right time to pull the corks, but too late for merchant warranty.
Always store bottles on their sides. Neck-up invites air contamination from corks drying
out, shrinking, and losing their seal. Neck-down allows sediment to collect on the cork
where it is unwanted and nearly impossible to remove. This position also hides any
seepage that may occur from defective cork seals, temperature spikes, or other causes.
Bottles resting on their sides keep the corks supple, sediment sequestered, and seals
visible.
Plan ahead. Eventually, either the quality or quantity of bottles acquired may suggest a
more elaborate solution than the stash of cardboard boxes on the closet floor. Escalating
options may include faster consumption, renting a wine locker, purchasing a dedicated
wine cabinet, insulating and cooling a spare room, or building a passive underground
cellar, winery, distillery, etc.
MYTHS & DON'T-DO-ITS The only time wine should be kept in a refrigerator is
after it has been uncorked. In fact, the smart way to chill wine is to put it in a bucket,
filled 2/3 with ice and 1/3 with water, for 20 minutes (using ice alone takes longer,
because air pockets between the cubes, even if finely-crushed, insulate against the cold).
A refrigerator is not a good place to store wine for several reasons. Refrigerators are
designed for short-term cold storage; temperatures within change over a fairly wide

range, every few minutes or hours. The components are engineered to drop temperature
rapidly to below 50° F and not necessarily maintain it within a narrow range of a few
degrees. The low temperatures reached, rapid temperature swings, and vibrations from
the self-contained compressors that cycle on and off several times daily, all are harmful
to wine development.
Repeated fluctuations between normal and low temperatures can cause wine to
precipitate crystals of potassium bitartrate that look like broken glass (myth), but are
completely edible and perfectly harmless; they are merely an annoyance. Dried and
powdered, these become "Cream of Tartar" commonly used in baking. The other more
serious danger of refrigerating bottles is that the temperature changes (and low
humidity) might cause the corks to leak.
Bottle-turning as a means of avoiding sediment buildup is a stupid urban myth and

completely antithetical to removing particles and sludge. Turning disturbs natural
settling, has no reasonable purpose, and will cause premature aging or spoilage.
Sediment which settles on one side of the glass usually stays there. This build-up, in
fact, makes it easier to remove by decanting and forfeit less wine in doing so. To help
settle the loose stuff, stand the bottle (don't shake it) in a cool spot (not the refrigerator)
for 24 to 48 hours before decanting (see Sedimental Journey).
AGING WINE
Most people assume that the longer that you keep a wine, the better it will get. So
probably the most commonly asked question you hear is, how long do I keep the wine
before drinking? (Since its best to store wine under certain conditions, like in a cool
damp underground cellar, this is known as "cellaring" wine.)
It is a misconception that you must age wine. The fact is, throughout the world, most
wine is drunk "young" (that is relatively soon after it is produced, perhaps 12 to 18
months), even wines that are "better" if aged. While some wines will "mature" and
become better over time, others will not and should be drunk immediately, or within a
few years. Eventually all wine will "go over the hill," so even the wines meant to be
kept for many, many years should be drunk before its too late.
Wines which are expected to be matured in the bottle before drinking can go over the
hill faster if not properly stored. If someone is giving you a very good deal on an old red
wine that you would otherwise expect to be great, start to wonder how it was kept! And
a famous name on the label is no guarantee whether a wine will age well (sometimes

they make mistakes, or the grapes that year ("vintage") just won't produce wines
suitable for extended aging ("cellaring").
Tannin is a substance that comes from the seeds, stems and skins of grapes. (For a taste
of heavy-duty tannin, try a strong cup of tea.) Additional tannin can come from the
wood during barrel aging in the winery. It is an acidic preservative and is important to
the long term maturing of wine. Through time, tannin (which has a bitter flavor--"mouth
shattering"?) will precipitate out of the wine (becoming sediment in the bottle) and the
complexity of the wine's flavor from fruit, acid and all the myriad other substances that
make up the wine's character will come into greater balance. Generally, it is red wines
that are the ones that can (but do not have to be) produced with a fair amount of tannin
with an eye towards long term storing and maturation. The bad news is that you
shouldn't drink it young since it will taste too harsh (and probably cost too much,
besides). The good news is that (with a little luck) after a number of years, what you get
is a prized, complex and balanced wine.
Remember that red wines get their color from the stems and skins of the grape. This
gives the wine tannin and aging capacity. White wines may have no contact with the
stems and skins and will have little tannin (though some can be added, again, through
barrel aging). Therefore most white wines don't age well. Even the ones which do get
better through time will not last nearly as long as their red cousins. A fair average for
many "ageable" whites would be about 5 to 7 years (some might go 10). On the other
hand, really "ageable" reds can easily be kept for 30 years and longer.
So, how do you figure out how long to keep a wine before drinking it? We'll get to a
summary, but it is just a summary. Check out other sources for the particulars! The
Internet provides a wonderful medium through which people who may have the wine
you are thinking about drinking might already have done so. They usually are willing to
share their opinions. There are several Usenet groups to this end.
Two wineries, side by side, producing the same grapes and the "same" wine. One ages
considerably longer than the other. Why? While they are the "same" grapes, perhaps the
soil or microclimate (small variations in the local weather due to terrain; what the
French call "terroir") is just a bit different. Maybe the vines are older. The winery may
have processed the wines differently (for example, heavy filtering). (In fact, even the
size of the bottle matters--a half bottle ages faster than larger bottles.) There are lots of
reasons, so general rules are just that--general.

In any event, the red French Beaujolais Nouveau is meant to be drunk within days. Its a
light, fruity wine.
White wine is the next least aged wine. But here there is a range from a light wine like
Sauvignon Blanc or a light Chardonnay, to more ageable "complex" Chardonnay of
good White Burgundies. Probably drink the former within a few years (aging isn't
needed, and the latter from 3 to 7 years). Dessert wines like Sauternes or other late
harvest wines (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, etc.) should be aged. Sauternes get better over
a very long time: 10, 20, 30, 40 or more years!
Then come the reds. While the vast majority of wines produced today can be drunk
immediately, a good number of red wines will benefit by SOME aging and some will
benefit from a lot of aging. The ones that you open now that taste like road tar may very
well be fantastic in 5 or 10 or 20 years. Look to some French Bordeaux (maybe up to 30
years) or Cabernet Sauvignon.
Getting more specific about some red grapes, rules of thumb might be for the very best
wines: Cabernet, 10 to 15 years; Merlot, 4 to 7 years for many; Nebbiolo, 10 years or
more; Pinot Noir, about 5 years to start.
Some people contend that while California wine won't "go bad" in the bottle, it doesn't
get any better--unlike French wines that mature (get better) with cellaring. Don't ask me
to explain this controversy as I have had plenty of California wine that seemed to me to
be better after aging (but then, I said I wasn't an expert. On the other hand, I know I like
it when I drink it.)
So much for the summary. Didn't help much, did it? As you learn more and more about
wine, you get a feel for which wines are produced to be aged. That doesn't mean that
you still know when it is the best time to drink the wine. You need to check around.
Ask fellow wine drinkers (and, any unbiased wine merchant with whom you can
establish a relationship). Get a book that gives opinions. Read the magazines. Ask
around on the 'net. These resources have the ability to tell you what happened when
they drank the wine. Was it still good, is it starting to go over the hill, is it gone? At
least one correspondent tells me that Australian wines seem to mature faster in Australia
than in Europe, even if kept at similar temperatures and humidities. Just one more
reason why it is best to ask (and taste) about individual wines.

Lucky ones (like wine critics or friends of expansive people with big cellars) can get to
be part of "vertical tastings." A "vintage" is the year in which a wine is produced. Line
up a particular wine on a table with a bottle from each vintage, say, 1971 through 1992
and what you get is a "vertical" of that wine. A young wine, designed to age, can taste
harsh (from the tannin). As you sample older and older bottles, the wine will mellow.
Flavors come into balance. The oldest wines will lose their tannin and their fruitiness
and eventually have a flat taste. Somewhere in there is the vintage which tastes the way
you like it. That part is up to you, not to the pundits. But their comments can help.
There are lots of resources (see Learning About Wine) which can help you get an idea
which wines should be drunk when.
When we first started learning about wine, we bought way too much white wine, which
somehow we still have. Some of it--which was wonderful when purchased--can now
best be described as awful. Since you'll hear the old cliche that you should cook only
with wines you would drink, that wine isn't even good for cooking. I plan on trying to
turn it into vinegar.
Aside: One of the first really "good" wines we had was a 1984 Acacia Winery Lake
Chardonnay. We bought a case of it and drank it slowly (like I said, we've got a lot of
white left over). A few years back we asked the winemaker how it would be. His
answer was "never open it . . . just remember the way it was, you'll be happier." We're
glad to say he was wrong. As this is being written, that bottle was opened last night (it
was 10 years old). Past its prime but still pretty good! So even the winemaker may not
always know, either.
When you are just starting out, it probably doesn't pay to buy many wines for aging
("laying down"). First off, you are going to want to drink some of them, and the ones
that are "good" won't be so good this young, and they'll cost too much besides. There
are plenty of wines that are good now. As you drink these wines, you'll get an idea of
what types of wine you like. With a little learning, you'll get an idea of the style of wine
you want to put away. And you may not make the mistakes we did, besides. (On the
other hand, we did manage to get a few wines that did age well and we are just drinking
now. So much for rules.)

Don't forget, how you store the wine will affect how long it lasts as well. Even the size
of the bottle will change its life. Getting good advice about particular wine is the only
good idea here.
INTRODUCTION
VINE
Creeper of grapes.A vine is any plant of genus or, by extension, any similar climbing
or trailing plant.
VINEYARD
Vineyard, land on which cultivation of the grape takes place.
VINEYARD MANAGEMENT
Vinryard Management includes all the steps in vineyard from the growing of vines to
the harvesting of grapes during this time wine faces many things like vine training,
proper feeding of pest and dieses control
Before the rainy season vigneron prepares the vineyard to get good quality of grapes, he
also takes cares of many things like use good quality of soil, good quality of vine
varieties. He handles the vines according to the climate.
At the end final step is to harvest the proper ripened grapes with proper care this can be
done manually or mechanically.
VINE
A vine is any plant of genus Vitis (the grape plants) or, by extension, any similar
climbing or trailing plant. The word, ultimately derived from Latin vīnea, originally
referred exclusively to the grape-bearing plant; the modern extended sense is largely

restricted to North American English, which then uses grapevine to refer specifically to
the grape-bearing Vitis species. (Conversely, British English tends to use climber to
refer to the broader category, including, for example, ivy.)
VINEYARD
Vineyard, land on which cultivation of the grape—known as viticulture—takes place.

As many as 40 varieties of grape, Vitis vinifera, are known. The few that grow wild are
generally not used; all domesticated varieties require careful cultivation to produce
good fruit. While the primary purpose of vineyards throughout history has been the
production of grapes for wine, many vines, largely in the New World, are cultivated for
eating grapes, grape juice, and dried grapes, or raisins.
Beer Mug
Beer pilsner Brandy snifter

Collins glass
Cocktail glass
Champagne flute
Cordial glass
Highball glass
Hurricane glass
Margarita/Coupette glass Old-fashioned glass

Irish coffee cup

Parfait glass Pousse cafe glass
Punch bowl
Sherry glass
Red wine glass
Shot glass

Whiskey sour glass

Need more improve your hospitality knowledge invite us as Hotel Team Manager to build your hotel
become standard to go your corporate goals
Hoi An – Quang Nam – Viet Nam

April 23, 2009
Drs. Agustinus Agus Purwanto., MM

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BALI HOSPITALITY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

The top ten wine producing countries are:

Principle Grape varieties used in wine :

Factors Affecting wine quality

Still wine or table wine

Sweetness in sparkling wine

Extra trut : Very dry (upto 6 g)

Temperature: A steady moderate temperature is essential for maintaining the quality

Glass required for wine service

1. White wine or hock capacity : 5½ oz

1. Wine basket or wine stand with ice

2. Opening the bottle –

4. Placed the rest of Wines –

5. A few general rules to note while pouring wine –

Opening a Champagne Bottle

One Acre of Land Averages: One Barrel of Wine Contains:

One Case of Wine Contains: One Bottle of Wine Contains:

Czech: Na Zdravi (Na zdrah vi) To Your Health

Q: What does “late harvest” mean?

Q: What are French Hybrid grapes?

Q: How long can I store wine?

Q: How long will wine retain its flavor after opening?

If a wine has spent up to 12 months in oak barrels allow 1 hour;

Gewurztraminer, full-bodied and well-structured, is probably the best-known Alsace

Alsace Wine Information

The most basic information on the wine in Alsace are:

Alsace Wine and Food: Sauerkraut

Food from Alsace best match with Alsace's wine:

Choucroute: Riesling, Sylvaner

Flammekueche: Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Riesling

Onion tart : Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc

Cheeses from Alsace:

Each choice in the successive steps of the elaboration of wine has

The winemaker assists the action of the yeasts by maintaining the

The fermentation process goes on for 4 to 10 days until the maceration

At this stage, complex operation will prove the talent of the

For "Vins primeurs" or "Vins nouveaux" (new wines) the maceration is

This fermentation is obtained in a tank during a few weeks at a temperature between

White wine making

Vinification of white wine is more delicate than vinification of red wine.

Two methods coexist to make white wine:

Preparation of the must:

White wine results of the fermentation of must only.

There are at least three methods of making rosé wine:

Gray or pale rosé wine

Colored pink wine

Why wine does not turn into vinegar ?

It is composed of sulphur and oxygen. Fermentation naturally produces small amount

Sylvaner, light, fresh and fruity.

Pinot Blanc, well-balanced, supple and racy.

Riesling, triumph of the Alsace vineyars, delicate fruitiness and fine

Muscat d'Alsace, dry, an inimitable fresh grape taste.

Gewurztraminer, robust, full-bodied, marvalous flavour and bouquet.

The 3 Appellations d'Origine Contrôlées

At first sight, the Route du Vin seems just like a

Between one gateway at Thann and the other at

Mâcon is a commune of France, préfecture (capital) of the Saône-et-Loire département,

The appellations of the Côte de Nuits are as follows:

Gevrey-Chambertin: Chambertin, Chambertin Clos de Bèze, Charmes-Chambertin,

Chambolle-Musigny: Musigny, Bonnes Mares.

Sub-Village Appellations: These include Côte de Nuits Villages (may be applied to

The appellations of the Côte de Beaune are as follows:

Aloxe-Corton: Corton (the largest Grand Cru in Burgundy, with a number of

Puligny-Montrachet: Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet,