Wine Dog Boot Camp Blog

Wine Interrupted

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:39:27 -0800

Port Day is January 27. If you want to learn more about port you can follow the #portday twitter tag all day! Our Portuguese friends will be breaking out some special stuff to taste and as we have been privy to some of those bottles...Ahhh, my-oh-my lovely wines.

Why a Port Day? Well, port shows up in wineries from all over the EU, California and even Nevada. These wines are in a port like style, not authentic port. Port is a protected name representing a wine made in the Douro Valley in Portugal, just like Champagne is only made in the region of Champagne, France.

Why so picky? Specific grapes, terroir, history and methods make port unique. The Douro River Valley is made up of pre-Cambrian schist and granite and that equals unique terroir; the main grape is Touriga Nacional, but over 100 varieties are sanctioned.

Ports come in bottle-aged; smoother, less tannic and barrel-aged; which through some evaporation, leaves the wine a little thicker and concentrated.

But what makes port port? Stopping the fermentation of the must, by adding grape brandy, leaves a sweetness in the wine. The addition of the brandy makes it fortified, or a higher alcohol content wine.

And here’s where is gets a bit complicated, but affords a wide variety of flavors. There are many styles to chose from:

Barrel-aged ports

Tawny ports are wines, made from red grapes, that are aged in wooden barrels, exposing them to gradual oxidation and evaporation. As a result, they gradually mellow to a golden-brown color. A tawny port from a single vintage is called Colheitas. Instead of an indication of age the actual vintage year is mentioned.

Garrafeira is an unusual port made from the grapes of a single harvest that combines the oxidative maturation of years in wood with further reductive maturation in large glass containers called demijohns.

Bottle-aged ports

Ruby port is the cheapest and most extensively produced type of port. Preventing oxidation gives the wine its rich claret color.

Vintage port is made entirely from the grapes of a declared vintage year and accounts for about two percent of port production. Not every year is a vintage in the Douro. While a vintage is simply the year in which a wine is made, most producers of vintage port restrict their production of year-labeled bottling to only the best years, a few per decade. Vintage port needs to be decanted.

Late bottled vintage have LBV on labels. There are two distinct LBV styles; one is fined and filtered before bottling, while the other is not. LBV is intended to provide a bit of the experience of drinking a vintage port but without the need for lengthy bottle aging or higher prices.

Single quinta vintage ports are wines that originate from a single estate.

And some oddities:

Rose port is a very recent addition to the port market. It is technically a ruby port, but fermented in a similar manner to a rose wine with a limited exposure to the grape skins.

White port is made from white grapes and can be made in a wide variety of styles.

Crusted port is usually a blend of port wine from several vintages. It is bottled unfiltered, and sealed with a driven cork. Valerie likes these; it almost looks like it has a cap that needs punching down! Like vintage port, boy, does this need to be decanted before drinking.

So what are we drinking this #portday? A Quinta De Ventozelo, 10 year old Tawny Port, bottled in 2011. Check in with us at @chezvino Jan. 27 to see what we think.

Bats out wine in

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 07:36:34 -0800

We had a root cellar in my home as a child; it kept all the fruits and vegetables cool throughout the humid summers and kept apples fresh all snowy winter long. Not many of us have these miniature caves in our homes today but the modern day wine cellar grew out of cave storage history.

Many wineries in California have caves, but it is only in recent years that they have become as much a part of the tasting tour as a visit to the barrel room or a tour of the vineyard. I have been in a few caves for lavish evening dinners and receptions; the atmosphere and design is unique to every venue, but with echoing voices and vaulted labyrinths lit by candles the experience of cave dwelling for an evening can be somewhat primordial.

The stable cool temperature, high humidity, low levels of light found in underground facilities naturally provide ideal conditions for aging wine. And caves rarely cost more to construct than a comparable above-ground structure.

The average temperature of a wine cave is around 55° F. to 60° F. Cool temperatures allow for prolonged aging of delicate wines. Wine caves maintain a constant 90% humidity which prevents wine evaporation during aging. In hot dry aging environments like parts of California limiting wine evaporation while it is aging improved the quality and the taste of the wine.

The history of caves as wine storage dates back 7000 years. An archeologist was excavating a site in Iran and found wine residue in bottles stored in the earthen structure. In Rome wine was supposedly stored in the catacombs. There are over 250 chalk pits all over France that were dug by the Romans 1800 years ago that still house some of the finest wine and champagne from that country.

In California the volcanic rock base, which is the most common geology, needs to be drilled out. In Napa and Sonoma many of the Chinese immigrant laborers who build the railways also build the early wine caves, and they don't look much different than a gold mine you might see in the Sierras. In places with softer soil, like Oregon, the earth is excavated, then as concrete holding room is built in the hole and covered back up with the removed earth.

So are you thinking you might like to have a cave in your own back yard? You do need a hill to start with and it must be surveyed to make sure it can support a cave. The first tunnel is excavated and then covered with a layer of sprayed concrete called Shotcrete; it hardens into a stippled shell. To form the other tunnels a machine called a roadheader cuts a circular path through earth or rock. Structural support is imperative so the work is slow and precise. A few feet of earth is dug out at a time and then the area is sprayed with the concrete. There are companies that will design and build wine caves for the home owner. Hosting a dinner party in your own personal wine cave is certainly different than having a backyard BBQ!

Stepping inside the box

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 07:31:02 -0800

I was at a BBQ a few weekends ago, a kick off to a long list of summer parties, BBQ's and outdoor concerts. Sitting on a side table was a series of little black boxes looking like high end gift boxes, glossy and well designed little tuxedos with gold trim. Wine was inside.

Yes wine in a box is making a comeback.

I am dubious at best about boxed wines; I'm old enough to remember the stuff that used to pass for wine sitting for months in someone's refrigerator with the spigot ready to be turned on, orange in color and tasting like the inside of a refrigerator. Yuck!

Wine marketing is as much about the packaging as it is about the allure of the product, we are all attracted to bottles of wine by the labels. So, here was an elegant packaging of a boxed wine; could the contents reflect the packaging?

Surprisingly the Black Box Cabernet and Chardonnay are premier wines.
The Cabernet Sauvignon won a gold medal at the 2004 Orange County Fair Wine Competition, one of the most prestigious competitions in the country.

Walnut Creek California Vintner, Ryan Sproule, founded Black Box in early 2003 after enjoying premium boxed products in Europe and Australia. In a recent interview he said, "Just because it's in a box doesn't mean it is bad. Just because wine's in a bottle doesn't mean it's good."

I like taking wine to outdoor concerts, and I'm always forgetting to put it in a plastic container. Last year at a San Jose Thursday night concert my friend and I found ourselves siphoning a very respectable Mexican Merlot into a water bottle we had just drained onto the lawn. Where were the boxed wines then?

I don't think you will see boxed wines replacing the bottle in a fine restaurant, but having good wine in a portable container is a great addition to summer fun.

Wine in a box is really wine in a bag packaged in a box. The wine is sealed inside a plastic bladder with an attached tap that lets the wine out but doesn't let air inside. And this is the real beauty of the bag in a box wine, no air means the wine can keep once it has been opened for as long as 90 days.

The bag used in U.S. boxed wines was invented as a package for battery acid in the 1950s, but caught on in Australia as a way to sell wine. In the last few years the bag's been improved and the tap has also been designed to function better and that means portable wine that will be fresh all day long at a BBQ.

Box wine has been popular in Australia and France for decades. According to the United Kingdom's Decanter magazine, Norway's boxed wine sales now exceed 40 percent of its total wine sales; Sweden is experiencing 22 percent annual growth in boxed wine sales, with 65 percent of all wines sold in the summer packaged in boxes. In Australia, 52 percent of the wine sold is in boxes. In the USA boxed wines have held their own for years, accounting for around 15 per cent of wine sales but with California wineries like Black Box and Manteca-based Delicato Family Vineyards producing award winning wines in a box the industry is going to see a shift in consumer interest in this kind of packaging.

Boxed wine is now referred to as "Cask" wine, a marketing strategy designed to leave the bad reputation of the past behind. Most casks are sold in three liter bags in a box for around $15. that's the equivalent of three bottles of wine in a box for a very reasonable price.

So this holiday weekend why not look for a cask wine to compliment your BBQ...step outside the bottle and get inside the box!

Pruning

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 07:25:55 -0800

With spring is in the air we're noticing the world flowering around us, once bare fruit trees on the back roads of our county are now hosting tender leaves or bright blossoms for our first taste of spring. Out in the vineyards, the vines are coming to life again after a dormant period where they rested their weary limbs, and collect their energies for the next season.

The vineyards are pruned about twice a year and early spring is one of those times. As spring growth begins, the sap starts to flow through the dormant grapevines. Grape growers like to get out before the buds break and leaves appear to prune the vines to give them the best head start for the coming warmth. It is important to prune vines when the buds are plump but not broken open.

Training and pruning vines are two of the most important activities to get high quality grapes and a good yield. If not pruned, grape vines like any vine will get tangled into a briar patch of strands that look like my box of necklaces after I've moved. An unpruned vine will have between 10 and 100 times the buds necessary for a good crop of quality grapes. I've been to a few pruning workshops and also have chatted with local grape growers about their methods, and I've learned that what happens out in the vineyard makes a huge difference in what you ultimately taste in your glass.

A grape vine grows off older wood, some of the new canes are suckers and they need to be removed, others end up hosting the new buds. Typically by the end of first year growth the vine has 3 buds, by third leaf or the third season the vine has 27 buds, and by the 4th year it will have sprouted 81 buds. Once the buds emerge it will take about eight weeks for the foliage and flowers to appear. The grape clusters form from the buds. Like any plant you prune it to give strength to the main canes and to open the plant up to sunlight and good circulation of air, producing bigger sun ripened clusters of grapes.

How the vine is trellised, or cordoned, determines the method of pruning. Some of the older vines you see in local fields look like small trees with canes trailing down to the ground, these are head pruned vines and although grape growers like the quality of the grape, I've been told, the yield is low. Different kinds of cordoning, or how the vines are strung along horizontal wires, are the most used in California today. The plant's natural disposition is to put out as many canes and buds as possible, but as the vine struggles for quantity the grower struggles for quality and pruning is the perfect method for get the best and consistent quality from a grape vine over its growing life.

But once the pruning is done that doesn't mean grape growers can put their feet up. The new canes imprint on the old by how they are positioned and their development needs close watching and pampering. All of the pollinated and fertilized flowers will become grapes. Once those little embryo grapes appear the fertilizing and vineyard maintenance will go into full swing right through harvest.

I've dreamed about having a few vines of my own, but I think I'll try being better to my house plants first! The challenge and the vigilance it takes to get an award winning grape from the ground is a gift, and the true art of agriculture that we just take too much for granted.

Wine storage for the beginner

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 07:19:32 -0800

I know many of us are collectors of things. Now that I own two wine racks that hold about 120 bottles, I'm a minor collector of wine, and I have enough variety and substance to hold an impromptu wine tasting or multi course dinner. My racks are in the living room and double as a TV stand, not ideal conditions for keeping wine at its best.

However, I keep wine to drink; not to trade or to invest in, or keep for 100 years. So my storage solution works for me. But there are some important things to know about storing wine and a variety of methods to consider.

A wine cellar usually evokes the Old World image of dim subterranean alley ways lined with dark wooden floor to ceiling racks cradling expensive dusty bottles. Or a natural cave in the side of a hill, overlooking the vineyard below. Many wineries in California have cellars along with their tasting rooms, some elaborate, some purely functional. I was invited to a Wine Institute event last year that highlighted the wineries in Livermore. Wente Vineyards, one of the earlier wineries in California, has an incredible cave system, with a labyrinth of vaulted hallways, and lamp lit-alcoves. It functions as both a wine cellar and as an event venue.

You can have your own wine cave built; there is company in California who will do that for you for about $100 a square foot. Wine storage underground means cost savings other than construction; wine evaporates at a much slower rate. But if your needs are smaller, a wine refrigerator or a rack is a good option.

Here are some basic guidelines to storing wine.

Maintain a constant temperature. The ideal temperature for storing all wine is 55 to 65 degrees but it needs to be constant. While heat is the worst enemy of wine, having it too cold or frozen impedes its storage life significantly. A common problem with wine kept too cold is that glass-like crystal tartrates can form, you can still drink the wine but its appearance is diminished.

Maintain constant humidity. High humidity, around 70-80%, will keep the corks moist, and thus minimize evaporation and leaks. Putting a pan of water near your rack or using a humidifier will do the same thing in your home.

Keep the environment free of vibrations, which can cause the corks to not seal well, and prevent the wine from properly settling. Strong light means heat, and odors from paint cans or even pets can get into the wine.

But one of the most important rules is to store wine bottles on their sides. This is done to keep the wine in constant contact with the cork. If the cork becomes too dry, air will get in and the wine will spoil. Most corks have a 10-20 year life span. So if you are planning to hold on to wine longer than that, recorking should be done. I don't recommend turning the wine bottles; the whole point of racking it is to let it settle properly.

So if you are just looking to have a ready supply of some favorite wines on hand, empty wine boxes turned on the side works well. Many of us start wine cellars because we have found buying wine by the case is a cost effective way of enjoying a favorite brand of wine at home. But remember, the rule of thumb is, the longer you intend to keep and age your wine the more care you need to take.

I noticed the other day one of my wine racks is turning slowly into a book case as I drink the contents. But as a wine hobbyist with storage space, that just gives me incentive to hit the wine tasting trail again soon and refill the shelves with some new discoveries!