P H I L'S B L O G
Welcome to Phil’s Blog on the Baily Vineyard & Winery site where every two weeks I share my thoughts on one aspect of wine making or wine appreciation. My goal is to make it interesting for people who like wine and want to know more about it, and to present a little different take than you get in the conventional wine media.
Because I am doing this myself, and I still have to make the wine, market it, and wash the tanks and barrels, I will not normally be able to respond to everyone, but you can communicate with me at blog@bailywinery.com and I will do my best to reply.
Phil Baily
Disagreeable Odors in Wine
And the Fruit Fly Demonstration
August 30, 2009
In an earlier post we defined a good wine as a wine that smells good with no disagreeable odors, a wine that is smooth in the mouth, and a wine that leaves a pleasing and lingering aftertaste. In this post we’ll talk about one of the disagreeable odors commonly found in bad wine and how to learn to identify it.
Wine is basically one stage in the conversion of fruit juice to vinegar. Put simply, fruit juice is converted to wine (alcohol) by the action of yeast cells, and wine (alcohol) is converted to vinegar (acetic acid) by the action of acetobacter in the presence of oxygen. Acetobacter is spread by fruit flies, one species of which (drosphila melanogaster) is the same one that is used to teach high school biology students the basics of genetics.
While all wine has some amount of acetic acid, a good wine has an amount that is below the threshold of our ability to detect it by itself. A bad wine has an amount that is detectable by almost anyone.
But what does it smell like? Not like the fragrant red wine vinegar you put on your salads. For one thing, another compound, ethyl acetate, will be present and contribute to the disagreeableness. Ethyl acetate tends to smell like nail polish remover. While trained noses can pick out each one separately, together they have an odor for which winemakers use the shorthand term “VA” (volatile acidity).
Here is how to learn what VA smells like, and once you smell it you will always be able to detect it and know exactly what it is:
Take a nice red wine that smells clean and fresh and pour a couple of ounces into each of two wine glasses. Cover one of the glasses so that nothing can get in. Leave the other glass open and put them both outside in a shady area. Hopefully, within a short while a fruit fly will land in the open glass and begin to flounder around in the wine. (This will work best on a hot summer day.) Ten minutes after that, smell the two wines and you will instantly know what VA is.
© 2009 Phillips B. Baily
If YOU Like the Wine, Then it’s a
Good Wine Part 3
August 16, 2009
Given a good wine (see my previous two posts for a definition), the single most important determinant of whether you will like it is the food you have it with. A good match means that the wine tastes better with the food and the food tastes better with the wine. A bad match can render that same wine almost undrinkable.
While the classic rule of having red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat is a simplification, this rule will keep you out of trouble and is a good place to start. Here’s why:
Red meats like beef and lamb neutralize the tannins in red wines, and after a bite of the meat, the wine tastes softer and smoother than it does by itself. But tannic red wines overpower more delicate fare, such as fish and shellfish. Whereas a nice crisp, somewhat acidic, dry white wine makes seafood seem sweeter and taste more flavorful. And the wine taste less acidic than it does by itself.
Another classic rule is lighter more delicate wines with lighter foods and heavy wines with heavy foods. This takes into account that some red wines are low in tannins and therefore lighter, while some white wines, such as a barrel fermented oak aged chardonnay are heavier than some red wines.
Beyond those basic rules, here are some things to consider:
Wine with a small amount of residual sugar can go with sharply spiced food. For example, try a slightly sweet or off-dry rosé wine with your next meal of Mexican food, or a Riesling or Gewürztraminer with Szechwan or Thai cuisine.
Deglazing a sauté pan with some of the wine you are serving (or a similar wine) and pouring it on the meat will ensure a good match. Even better is using a good amount of the wine in braised dishes like boeuf bourguignon or coq au vin. And speaking of coq au vin, it can either be coq au vin blanc or coq au vin rouge. If made with red wine you want to serve it with red wine, a classic exception to the white wine with white meat rule.
Salads don’t always match with wine because the vinegar in the dressing can make the wine taste sour. Try using an off-dry white or rosé wine and a little lemon juice in the dressing instead of vinegar and serving the same wine with the salad.
Years ago when we first started the winery, we were trying to decide what food to serve with our Sauvignon Blanc at the time of its release to the public. Carol made pasta, three sauces, and several side dishes of herbs and vegetables, and we tried various combinations, sipping the wine after each taste of food. Sautéed onions in the mix didn’t work; they were too sweet for the wine. The flavor of cilantro didn’t help the wine but rosemary did. Bell peppers and asparagus matched well with the wine, as Sauvignon Blanc has some of the same flavor compounds as these vegetables. Cheese in the sauce was a good match; but most dry wines taste good with most cheeses.
Through experience, anyone can develop a feel for wine and food matching. So be adventurous and don’t be afraid of bad matches. You’ll learn more from them than from the good matches.
If YOU Like the Wine, Then it’s a
Good Wine Part 2
August 3, 2009
In the last post, I ended by giving my definition of a good wine: one that smells good with no disagreeable odors, one that is smooth in the mouth, and one that leaves a pleasing and lingering aftertaste. Then I asked “Why do you like my Riesling and not my Cabernet Franc, both of which would be good wines by that definition?”
Basically, just three wine ingredients determine whether a person will like a table wine: sugar, acid and tannins. While excessive or deficient alcohol can enter the equation, the vast majority of wines these days have an acceptable level of alcohol, so let’s leave alcohol out of the discussion for today.
Sugar in a table wine is the natural grape sugar that was not converted into alcohol by the action of the yeasts. Most people detect some sweetness at a level of between one-half and one per cent, but the effect of sugar is greatly influenced by the acid and tannin level of the wine.
All wine is acidic to varying degrees, with most white wines more acidic than most red wines, and again the perception of acidity is greatly influenced by the sugar level.
Tannins in wine come primarily from the grape skins and seeds that are present when a red wine is fermented, and are essential to its structure and aging potential. A small amount can come from oak, so while tannins are predominantly associated with red wines, white wines that are fermented and/or aged in barrels can have some tannin. The taste of tannins is associated with an astringent sensation on the tongue and surfaces of the mouth.
Most people seem to fall into four groups according to these three ingredients: (1) People who only like wines with residual sugar (sugar lovers), (2) People for whom any hint of sugar is off-putting (acid lovers), (3) People who only like red wines (tannin lovers) and (4) people who like all kinds of wine (wine lovers). But over time, people tend to move among the groups, mostly going from a lower numbered group to a higher numbered one.
Physiological factors play a part in determining which group you are in, most importantly the actual number of taste buds you have on your tongue. These can vary greatly among individuals and women tend to have more than men. If you are on the high end of the taste bud scale, you will be more sensitive to the astringency of tannins, and if you are on the low end you will not detect the full strength of the tannins.
Whether you like a wine is also influenced, both positively and negatively, by what you had in your mouth prior to the ingestion of the wine. For example a crisp dry white wine is going to taste downright sour if you taste it after eating or drinking something sweet. On the other hand, a tannic red wine is going to taste less tannic after a bite of roast beef. The point is that if you have wine with food, and experiment with the combinations, you may find that you actually like wines that you thought were not your cup of tea, so to speak.
In the next post I will talk about the basics of wine and food matching
If You Like the Wine, Then it’s a
Good Wine
July 12, 2009
Too often, I hear wine makers and other winery representatives tell consumers that if they like a wine then it’s a good wine - end of conversation. At best I find this condescending, and at worst, downright insulting. What they’re telling you is that you’re not smart enough to understand all the things they know about wine, and they don’t want to waste their time with you.
Wine ratings don’t help a lot either. Have you ever tasted a wine that got a 95 from some prestigious wine publication and wondered “How did this get a 95? I can’t even drink it!”
Results from wine competitions are not particularly useful either. The wines are tasted blind, but instances abound where a wine gets a gold medal in one competition and no award at the next.
It is true that we humans vary in the number of taste buds we have (women generally have more), our ability to detect certain aromas and the thresholds at which we do detect them, and the wine tasting experience we bring to the table. But it does not follow that there are no reasons for why you like a wine or find it undrinkable. Delving into these reasons can enhance our enjoyment and help us in what is for many of us a lifelong quest to find and appreciate really fine wines.
So what makes a good wine and what makes a bad wine? Why do you love my Cabernet Sauvignon but not the one from the winery down the road? There are really only two things to consider: What does it smell like and how does it feel in the mouth. That’s it.
As to smell, is it pleasing or do you detect a hint of a disagreeable odor? There is a tendency these days to describe wines by listing eight or ten fruits, vegetables and other assorted articles that the wine supposedly smells like, and a kind of a parlor game to see who can list the most. Forget this! It will not tell you if you are going to like the wine or not. Decide if you like the smell and move on.
By far the most important aspect is what the wine feels like in the mouth. Is it harsh? Or is it smooth and silky? Does it leave a dry feeling after you swallow it? Or does it leave a clean and pleasing taste after you swallow it? Is it too acidic? Or not acidic enough? Is it too tannic or not tannic enough?
Basically, it’s simple: A good wine is a wine that smells good with no disagreeable odors, a wine that is smooth in the mouth, and a wine that leaves a pleasing and lingering aftertaste.
But why do you like my Riesling and not my Cabernet Franc, both of which would be good wines by that definition? That will be the subject of my next posting.
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