Grape expectations

Matt Skinner takes you on the journey from vine to wine

 Matt Skinner
 The Guardian, Saturday 6 September 2008
 Article history

The vineyard
Vineyards are complex and demanding creatures. Like us, every vineyard has its own distinct
personality or DNA - known in the wine world as terroir (te-wah). A French term with no
straightforward English translation, terroir is used to describe the combination of environmental
and physical factors that affect a vineyard, including the location, the climate and the type of soil.
Together, these play a huge role in determining how a vineyard's grapes will both fare and taste.
It's because of the complexity of each of these factors, and the many possible combinations they
present, that no two vineyards are ever exactly the same.

The basic ingredients

Grapes. These are, of course, the star ingredient. The species of vine grown for wine production
is vitis vinifera, and the number of varieties within that family runs well into the thousands (these
guides focus on the most popular reds and whites). Wine grapes, as opposed to the ones you eat
on the sly in the supermarket, tend to be smaller, have thicker skins and contain pips. Grapes love
sunshine, but not too much; they like it hot, but not too hot; they love to get wet, but not too wet;
they love bad soil; and they love to get high - altitude, that is.

Climate. The climate in which grapes grow has a dramatic influence not only on taste, but on
how long a wine will last. As a rule, wine produced from grapes grown in the northern
hemisphere - in cooler climates - will be higher in natural acidity and lower in alcohol than those
produced south of the equator, where the exact opposite (lower acid, higher alcohol) applies.

Soil. From chalk to clay to limestone to granite - even volcanic ash - soil plays a huge role in the
health of vines and, to some extent, the final taste of your wine. Some soils drain water better
than others, while some are naturally richer in nutrients and minerals than others. This will
determine things such as how much water the vines will get, their ability to retain heat, flavour,
texture, and even how they will defend themselves against disease.

Water. Vines need water in the same way that any plant does, but they naturally like to be
stressed. Too much water and the vines will be so spoilt they won't work hard enough to produce
good-quality fruit.

The X factor. The unpredictable force in agriculture is mother nature and, as any farmer knows,
she can be as cruel as she can be kind. A different set of climatic conditions from one year to the
next means that a wine will also be different, if only slightly, from one year to the next. Despite
all the innovation, all the advances and all the technology we've employed to date, this is still an
industry very much at the mercy of the elements.

Methods
Growing grapes requires other important considerations beyond climate, soil and water: eg the
distance between each vine, how to train them, and how to protect them against disease.

Conventional viticulture is the most common and most commercial method, in which growers
use what they like (within reason), chemical or otherwise, to ensure they get the best possible end
result.

Organics are an increasingly popular choice, not only with consumers but also with grape
growers who want to get the utmost quality from their vines. Organic wines are those produced
from grapes grown without the use of industrial fertilisers, herbicides, fungicides and pesticides,
and excluding the addition of synthetic additives.

Biodynamic viticulture, on the other hand, is an extension of biodynamic farming - the

brainchild of Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. Biodynamic agriculture takes basic organics
and adds elements of homeopathy, astronomy and astrology. Rather than simply focusing on how
to coax the best out of the vines, biodynamics treats the entire vineyard as a single living
organism which, with the application of various preparations or manures, operates in line with
lunar and cosmic rhythms.

There are many producers who have long practised organic or biodynamic viticulture, but who
pull up short of certification in order to have the luxury of being able to intervene should things
go horribly pear-shaped.

The winery
Converting grape juice into wine is a relatively simple process; making really great wine is far
more involved. As with chefs, some winemakers like to use everything but the kitchen sink
during production, while others adopt a more hands-off approach, allowing the fruit to speak for
itself.

So how is wine made?

The number of directions the winemaker can take are endless, depending on the colour and style
of wine to be made. Fermentation is the one factor common to all wine.

To kick-start fermentation, cultured yeast can be added to the grape juice, or the winemaker can
wait for wild yeasts - which naturally develop and live in the winery - to introduce themselves to
the grape juice, at which point they become active, munching their way through the natural sugar,
converting it into alcohol as they go. Wild yeasts can be tricky to control, but the range of aroma
and flavour they can bring to a finished wine can be well worth the risk.

How to make white wine

White grapes are nearly always crushed and de-stemmed first. With any unwanted items such as
leaves and stems removed, the crushed grapes are then transferred to a press, where they are
gently squeezed to separate the juice from the skins and pips. The reason for taking away the
skins, stems and pips is that they contain bitter and astringent tannins, which are OK in reds but
pretty undesirable in whites.

Sulphur dioxide will also more than likely be added to stop fermentation kicking off and the
wine changing colour and flavour prematurely. The juice will then be "settled" in a tank before
fermentation. Fermentation for white wine can take anywhere from three to 30 days, and is more
often carried out at cool temperatures to preserve freshness of aroma and flavour.

After fermentation, unwooded whites can be bottled pretty much straight away, making them
relatively cheap to produce and therefore also to buy. Some wooded wines are fermented from
start to finish in oak, a process known as barrel fermentation. Others go through their primary
fermentation in stainless-steel tanks before being transferred to oak barrels either to finish
fermenting or for ageing. At this point, the wine can go through a secondary fermentation known
as malolactic fermentation (try saying that quickly after a few glasses of wine). MLF is the
process whereby the malic acid in wine (think tart granny smith apples) is transformed into lactic
acid (think milk). This is used widely for red wines, but for whites it is usually only employed for
such varieties as chardonnay and semillon, softening undrinkably high acidity and producing
smells of butterscotch and cream. Wooded whites can spend any time between six and 12 months
soaking in oak before being transferred to a tank for filtration and fining.

Filtration and fining are like giving the wine a good spit and polish. Filtration machines and
special additives (from the traditional egg white to modern chemicals) are used to help get rid of
any particles left in the wine. Some winemakers shy away from this stage, believing it will strip
the wine of characters developed during the winemaking process. Fined or not, the wine is then
bottled and sealed, ready for sale and, more importantly, ready to drink.

How to make red wine

The main difference in red wine production is the addition of the skins (and sometimes stems,
too). Squeeze a red grape
between your fingers and you'll discover that the juice is clear, as with a white grape. It is the
skins that provide red wine with colour, structure, texture and flavour. The cocktail of grape skins
and juice is transferred, after crushing, to open-topped tanks, which can be made of wood,
stainless steel or concrete. Once fermentation begins, the build-up of carbon dioxide (a byproduct
of fermentation) will push the skins (known as the cap) to the top of the tank. But to extract the
colour and flavours locked in the skins, they need to be continually mixed back into the juice.
Back in the good old days, workers would hop nude into the tanks and push the cap down with
their legs. Not only was this process physically exhausting, it was potentially fatal - not from the
risk of drowning, but because of the high levels of carbon dioxide given off during fermentation.
Regulations have, in effect, outlawed this method. Less hazardous methods include pigeage
("pee-garge"), the French term for using a long broom-like device to manually push the skins
back down into the juice. Pumping over is a far more common (and easier) method, and modern
technology has meant that much of this process has now been automated.

Whichever method is used, the process is usually carried out several times a day, depending on
the amount of extraction the winemaker wants, and is continued until primary fermentation has
finished.

What's left in the bottom of the fermentation tank (whole grapes, skins and pips) will be
separately transferred back to the press to wring out any remaining juice. This extracted juice will
be super-rich in colour and tannin, and can be used as a blending component. Most red wines,
with a handful of exceptions, spend any time from six months to two years in oak barrels of
varying age, make and size.

What about rosé?

With a foot in each camp, rosé is a red wine that is made like an unwooded white. And although
there is a number of different ways you can go about it, the most common method of producing
rosé is simply to leave the skins in contact with the juice for a short period of time - perhaps only
a matter of hours - allowing a small amount of colour extraction (pink!), together with the faintest
lick of tannin.

How to make sparkling

Sparkling is any wine that is saturated with carbon dioxide (bubbles) under pressure (a bottle).
The cheapest method of getting bubbles into the bottle is carbonation (think Sodastream). The
transfer method is used to produce large volumes of low- to medium-priced sparkling wine.
Yeast is added to a sweetened base wine and a second fermentation takes place in an enclosed
tank, so that the carbon dioxide can't escape. When the fermentation is finished, the wine is
clarified, re-sweetened or blended if necessary, then bottled (again under pressure to retain the
gas).

The methode traditionelle (called methode champenoise in Champagne) generally produces the
best-quality wines. Here a second fermentation is allowed to take place in the bottle, with the
resulting carbon dioxide trapped underneath the seal. The dead yeast cells form a deposit in the
bottom of the bottle, and need to be removed to get the champagne looking its best for sale. This
is achieved by riddling, or remuage, where the bottles are placed horizontally in wooden racks
and each day are turned an eighth and tilted until vertically positioned upside down. The
unwanted sediment is trapped in the neck of the bottles. The necks, and their contents, are then
frozen by dipping them into a very cold brine solution. Disgorgement (not a form of gruesome
medieval torture) is next. The seals on the bottles are removed and the pressure of the built-up
gas forces the frozen sediment out. The bottles are topped up with a sugary wine (liqueur
d'expedition), to offset the high acidity of the base wine, and corks are inserted and wired. The
wine is then rested for a further period before it is finally ready for sale.

How to make sweet wine

The number of ways to produce sweet wine is dizzying. To make the most famous sweet wines,
such as Sauternes from Bordeaux, the grapes are picked late, when overripe and, ideally,
shrivelled by botrytis cinerea, a beneficial mould that reduces the grapes' water content and
concentrates their sweetness (known as noble rot).

To make fortified wines, such as port and sherry, the fermentation is prevented from finishing by
the addition of brandy spirit, which increases the alcoholic strength up to around 18 degrees. This
level of alcohol kills the fermenting yeasts and the result is a super-sweet wine with a super-high
alcohol content.

· Matt Skinner's Thirsty Work is published by Mitchell Beazley (£17.99)