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New federal labels may tell us more than we want to know.
EVER wonder what goes into a bottle of wine? The story winemakers love to tell on the bottle label is one of a mystical alchemy of climate, soils, ancient practices and long traditions. Wine labels tend to focus on romance; the small amount of government-mandated information includes the percentage of alcohol, a warning against consuming wine when pregnant or driving, and a disclosure of sulfites.
It might be disenchanting if the label also listed the chicken, fish, milk and wheat products that are often used to process wine. And it would be hard to maintain the notion that wine is an ethereal elixir if, before uncorking, consumers read that their Pinot Noir or Syrah contained Mega Purple (a brand of concentrated wine color), oak chips or such additives as oak gall nuts, grape juice concentrate, tartaric acid, citric acid, dissolved oxygen, copper and water. The mention of bentonite, ammonium phosphate and the wide variety of active enzymes used to make some wines would end the romance.
Snippet from the article: For all of the posturing about terroir, very little wine sells because it is distinctive," Smith says. "Additives are cosmetics. They are supposed to enhance, improve a wine. [Wine enhanced this way is like] a beautiful woman whose makeup is invisible. It's the clumsiness of the winemaker who is using the additives that is the problem." Those wines end up tasting "tarted up," he says, instead of improved.
McCloskey of Enologix sums it up. "A great wine is obvious. It doesn't need any additives."
However, any winemaker who doesn't control what's happening in his vineyard is using additives in his wine, McCloskey says. "When you can't create the value in the vineyard, you have no choice but to create it in the winery.
"The industry lives and breathes on the story of being a natural product. But there is a lot of fast food in wine."
The problem with listing additives, says Lee, the Wine Institute general counsel, is it could change consumer perception of all wines. "Wine would look engineered instead of natural," he says.
Yes, we already must read about sulfites and be told that women should not drink wine if they are pregnant. If we need to be told about allergies and calorie, fat and carbohydrate counts, there won't be enough room on the bottle for all of the information.
Not long ago I read a book called Judgment of Paris. It was about the birth of California winemaking, when back in the 70's some young vintners took their product to Paris where it won recognition in a blind tasting.
It was interesting reading about the various techniques and trends in wine production, such as fining, especially when you compare and contrast what is done from country to country. As in any industry, there are is the "old school" and the upstarts, though the two are not necessarily older/younger generations. Viticulture looks difficult but rewarding. Marketing is another story.
I suppose that I wish we could keep a bit of romance in wine, rather than have it be treated so clinically.
Dark chocolate enjoyed with a good red wine is VERY good for your soul
Mmmmm good.
Years ago I read some little blurb some place that declared that wine and chocolate do no go together. Yeah, right.
I'll take a small port with my dark chocolate mousse layer cake, please.
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Originally Posted by cil
Mmmmm good.
Years ago I read some little blurb some place that declared that wine and chocolate do no go together. Yeah, right.
I'll take a small port with my dark chocolate mousse layer cake, please.
It was one of those little reminders to me that there are many things worth trying even if the initial thought is Nah!
It might be disenchanting if the label also listed the chicken, fish, milk and wheat products that are often used to process wine. And it would be hard to maintain the notion that wine is an ethereal elixir if, before uncorking, consumers read that their Pinot Noir or Syrah contained Mega Purple (a brand of concentrated wine color), oak chips or such additives as oak gall nuts, grape juice concentrate, tartaric acid, citric acid, dissolved oxygen, copper and water. The mention of bentonite, ammonium phosphate and the wide variety of active enzymes used to make some wines would end the romance.
A lot of that stuff is just coloring. Animal products are probably used less, now that synthetic clarifying agents are available - these are things that are added to clear murkiness in the finished product that people don't like. Bentonite is just a kind of clay, also used to clarify the wine.
I heard a bad story about them putting propylene glycol in wine. This is a chemical, similar to that used in antifreeze, but much less toxic, that's added to some cheap wines to improve the "mouth." That, I'd object to.
Tartaric acid and its salts are found naturally in wine. In fact, potassium hydrogen tartrate, or "Cream of Tartar", was the compound that Louis Pasteur first observed the phenomenon known as "optical activity" in. He noticed that the crystals at the bottom of the wine vat came in two kinds - mirror images of one another. He sorted them out with a pair of forceps, dissolved each in water, and found that they rotated polarized light, in opposite directions.
Actually, it was sodium ammonium tartrate, of synthetic origin. Natural tartaric acid is all of one type, it's only the synthetic that exhibits the behavior I described.
Mmmmm good.
Years ago I read some little blurb some place that declared that wine and chocolate do no go together. Yeah, right.
I'll take a small port with my dark chocolate mousse layer cake, please.
Any left?
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