Have you ever heard of a crush widow? Here’s the story:
Maybe you’d like to take a lonely crush widow – or widower – to lunch! Cheers!
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What’s the word on every grower’s and winemaker’s lips right now? Brix!
How sweet is that? 😉
Visit A Million Cooks for more brief videos from experts on the food you eat: Where it comes from, where to buy it and how to prepare it.
Send me your wine question. I’ll get back to you in a jiffy!
For a free email subscription go to the top of the page
Filed under wine harvest, wine making, wine trivia, winegrowing
Doesn’t sound very winey, does it? Is it about the proper way to arrange your chapeau or ?
Cap management is a term that’s used only during harvest, but it’s an important one.
As you know, all of the color and most of the flavor and tannin in red wine comes from the grape skins. With very few exceptions the juice of a dark variety runs clear.
TRIVIA! The few varieties with red juice and flesh are called teinturier (ten-toory-AY). The best-known example in the wine world is probably Alicante Bouschet, which is often part of a field blend and can also be used when the winemaker wants to ramp up the color.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming: The thing is that the darned skins keep going up to the top of the tank, buoyed by the carbon-dioxide gas produced by the fermentation. If the “cap” of skins is allowed to stay at the top, color and flavor extraction isn’t good and it also tends to get hot up there. You don’t want it to get so hot that it starts killing the yeast. Continue reading
Filed under wine making, wine trivia, winegrowing
“Crush” has just begun in Napa Valley. Kind of early this year – at least two weeks, if not more.
The term is used as a synonym for the harvest. And, of course, it brings to mind images of Lucy, madly stomping away on the purple moosh in a large vat, and over-competing with her co-worker.
If you want to appear in the know you’d say “I go to Napa Valley every year for crush.” Or “Of course, the weather during crush is has a huge impact on the vintage.”
But, when it comes to actual winemaking, I find that people are a little confused as to what crushing actually means. It’s very often confused with pressing.
For winemaking, crushing is the first step , after the grapes are picked, for nearly all red wines and most whites. In most cases, the winemaker uses a stainless steel machine that first de-stems and then breaks the grapes open (crushes them.) The best producers will sort out the yucky stuff (don’t ask 😉 )before the clusters go into this machine. Continue reading
Filed under wine harvest, wine making, winegrowing
The Tasting Group 