by Subhash Arora
Think of the three white noble grapes. Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay come to mind immediately. But you may scratch your head before thinking Riesling. You are not alone. It is one of the three classic white varieties, growing the most in Germany, but found also in Austria, Alsace, Australia, New Zealand, USA, South Africa, Ukraine and Canada. But the varietal has not been very popular in India so far. I have reasons to believe that it will be soon in fashion here. The German Riesling has been considered an aristocratic wine and was the noblest variety, some selling at prices even higher than the Bordeaux Chateaux wines a century ago. It was truly the grape for the kings, nobility and czars. Unfortunately, the quality started going down over time till it became identified as a mere com...
by Emily Schindler
Perhaps you have noticed that the 2004 Sauvignon Blancs are hitting the market. Depending upon where they are from, some are being touted as being the result of one of the all-time great vintages in years. So what makes a Sauvignon Blanc stand out from one year to the next? Most great winemakers will tell you that a wine is made in the vineyard. In other words, you can't turn bad grapes into a great wine. To get the best grapes, a winemaker will put a lot of work and experience into massaging the grapes to their optimum flavor. Irrigation, canopy management, thinning and careful timing are major factors. The name Sauvignon comes from the French word sauvage, which means wild, and wild is what the vines quickly become without careful management. What else is needed? Well, you'll n...
by Shiv Singh
Pierre Henry Gagey of Louis Jadot was in Delhi recently to promote his wines. Louis Jadot is one of the five largest Burgundy wine producers. Louis Jardot wines are available in most five star hotels and select restaurants across India. Read excerpts from an exclusive interview that he conducted with Sommelier India. Pierre-Henry Gagey was born in Beaune, France in 1955. He became President of Maison Louis Jadot in 1991 after working as assistant MD under his father, André Gagey, one of the most respected figures in the Burgundian wine trade. In India recently with his wife, Mr Gagey spoke to Sommelier India in an exclusive interview. Excerpts from the wide-ranging interview are given below: Can you tell us what makes Burgundy such a great wine producing region? We have been producing ...
by Emily Schindler
The wine regions of Austria are divided into 4 areas, called Lower Austria, Styria, Burgenland, and Vienna. Each of these regions is then further divided, for a total of 19 designated wine growing areas. To roughly get your bearings, Lower Austria encompasses the wine growing areas north and west of Vienna, with Burgenland south and east of Vienna and Styria south and west of Burgenland. Lower Austria, called “Niederosterriech”, is divided into 8 sub-regions: Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal, Danubelands, Traisental, Carnuntum, Weinvertel, and Thermenregion. Calling this region “Lower Austria” may be a bit confusing. As mentioned above, the four main wine regions of Austria are all in proximity to Vienna, and so are all in the eastern half of the country. Of the four, Lower Austria is th...
by Gabrio Tosti
Throughout history, divine properties have been attributed to wine. Jesus miraculously transformed water into wine. Catholics represent the blood of Christ by wine. The Popes made their own wine, the Chateauneuf du Pope, which was used for their own holy consumption (and also served to dignitaries). In historic texts predating Christianity, miracles involving wine abound. The Greeks had one god devoted entirely to wine. The habit for winemakers in ancient Greece to chant the name of this deity while crushing the grapes persisted well into the Roman Empire. It was common to hear a Roman say "in vino veritas" meaning "there is truth in wine." Perhaps not exactly a religious statement, but the idea that people were more likely to be honest while drinking wine was considered something ...
by Ron Kapon
Dorothy J. Gaiter and husband John Brecher wrote in the Wall Street Journal mentioning wines they had tasted from the Temecula Valley of California: “If you haven’t heard of the Temecula Valley, you’re hardly alone. But now is a very good time to start getting to know some of the lesser-known wine regions of the US. Temecula (pronounced te-MEC-u-la) is about an hour north of San Diego.” James Laube wrote in California Wine: “ Whites, led by Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and some Viognier have an edge over the reds, but that may change as winemakers study Rhone varietals, including Syrah. The area is inland and warm, but the Rainbow Gap lets through the afternoon breezes which cool things off by late afternoon & evening.” Temecula wineries and grape growers take adv...
by Emily Schindler
One would expect ice wine to have a long history in winemaking, but it does not. In fact, ice wine has only been around for about 200 years. The prevailing theory of its “birth” centers on a German winemaker who was surprised by an early frost. He decided to press the frozen grapes anyway, but separated them from the rest of his vintage so as to avoid ruining everything. To his surprise, the resulting wine was pure and sweet. Ever since, ice wine has been produced to some degree in all wine producing countries of the Northern hemisphere, including Austria, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland and others. The difference between ice wine and other dessert wines is that ice wines show a much clearer fruit and varietal character. This is because other sweet wines are made from botrytis (”nobl...
by Emily Schindler
Ruster Ausbruch is a specialty sweet dessert wine from Austria. In understanding what Ruster Ausbruch is, it is helpful to first look at the name itself: Ruster is pronounced “rooster”, like the bird, and it simply means that the wine comes from the town of Rust (pronounced roost) in the Burgenland region of Austria. Ausbruch is pronounced ahs-brook, and comes from the German word Ausbrechen, which means to “break out.” There are a number of dessert wines hailing from different countries called Ausbruch, and it refers to the method used to select the grapes during harvest: the grapes which have been affected by botrytis cinerea (also known as noble rot) are “broken out” of the bunch, leaving the clean, un-affected grapes behind. It is this noble rot that is being referred to w...
by Denman Moody
By Denman Moody Around the same period of history that our Civil War was coming to a close, a tiny, almost microscopic louse (read, ugly little bug) was accidentally imported, probably from the eastern United States, to Europe. The native East Coast vines somehow had become immune to the parasite’s potential danger. However, once in Europe, it multiplied and spread to such an extent that the non-immune vinifera vines of Europe—Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay, Riesling, etc.—were systematically devastated. Although the nascent problem was noted in the early to mid-1860s, nobody had a clue for years what was causing the death of the vines. It was finally discovered that this louse, the phylloxera, attached itself to the roots of the vines and sucked out th...
by Darby Higgs
Terroir is a word that gets bandied about a lot lately. You need to know what it means if you want to know if the speaker or writer knows what she or he is talking about. Terroir is a French word which does not translate directly into English. It is derived from “terra” the Latin word for earth that gives us English words such as terrain and territory. But terroir is a word that has much deeper meanings than just earth. The best definition I can find is that it refers to the totality of the environmental factors which influence viticulture at a particular site. The obvious factors are soil and climate, but it is worthwhile digging a little deeper; topography and hydrology are also important. The French have developed the idea of terroir in tandem with their Appellation Control...
