Wine - The Beauty is in the Process

chillibreeze writer — Deepti Aravind

As I make myself comfortable in a restaurant chair, the neighboring table catches my attention. There she was. Tall, splendid, dark yet lusciously sexy, and full of passion. “Waiter!”, I summon for help while my eyes still stuck on her beauty. “Could you get me a glass of ‘that’ wine please”, childishly I point towards the next table, “and a glass of fresh lime water, sweet” for my teetotaler husband. Interested in wines, as I always have been, it’s rather lately that my interest drifted to wine making. And believe me, the more I learned on the process of wine making, the more I truly appreciated the final product, and (I don’t know why) my taste slowly drifted towards more elegant, classy (in other words, more expensive) wines. But this time, as I sipped on my Red Bordeaux from Chateau Gloria, I felt the wine all the way down to my toes. It worked its magic through my body and made me realize that a wine had a lot more mystery and history than I had first thought.

Realization only began to dawn after I observed the structure of wine – the tannin, the acidity, alcohol, flavors like oak, nutty, biscuit, fruity, woody, and so on. Did you know that the size of the bubbles spoke volumes about the quality of champagne? The knowledge helped me to judge a wine by its looks too.

It all begins with the kind of seed, the quality of soil, water, the climate, the humidity, and of course the passion and knowledge of wine maker. The next important stage is ideal time to harvest the fruit. The more ripened the grapes, the more alcoholic and sweeter would the wine be. Then the grapes are crushed to extract the juice or ‘must’. Now in case of black grapes, if the skin is left in contact with the must, the color or Tannins are extracted. The more time they are left in the must, deeper the color of the wine. Tannins also give wine its dryness (the dry or rough feeling left on the tongue after sipping the wine). With age the tannins are broken down giving wine a softer feel on the tongue.

Must is allowed to rest for a few hours during which sugar and yeast content are checked. If less cane sugar and cultured yeast is added. The combo is responsible for desired level of alcohol and the sweetness of the wine. This may be fermented in a steel vat or oak barrels. What is left after fermentation is cloudy juice which is then clarified using agents. However wine that remains cloudy for long develops a bready, biscuity aroma (a desirable angle for a few types of champagne). If required, a second fermentation is carried out. After this, the clear wine is allowed to rest or age in the oak barrels. French oak may give more buttery aromas, whereas American oak gives stronger vanilla and spice aromas, although, it’s more subjective than just a statement. The longer it stays in the barrel the more prominent the flavor will be. Also new oak barrels and reused oak barrels give different flavors. These aged wines are then bottled and transported to various corners of the world.

“Hey Deepti, let’s dance on this number” asked my husband, awakening me out of my wine world. I smile and blush as I look through my empty wine glass. After about half an hour of dancing, we hit the table again. I wonder how chemistry between two different people works well, to hold them together for decades. I order for another glass of my red wine, and this time with Fuseli in arabiatta (pasta with red sauce) and some cheese crackers. And my husband, as usual, goes straight to the dessert section. How contrasting can the two of us be? Well this reminds me, how important it is to pair food with correct wine as the combination could make or break the whole experience. For beginners, white wine with white meat, red wine with red meat and any tomato based sauce and champagne or sweet wine with desserts. Food and wine pairing is like two people having a conversation: "One must listen while the other speaks or the result is a muddle". This means either the food or the wine will be the dominant focus of the pairing, with the other serving as a complement to enhance the enjoyment of the first. Like in a marriage, here also, two main strategies work – complement or contrast.

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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in November, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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—About our writer:

Deepti Aravind has an MBA in International Business along with a degree in Hotel Management. She is working as a Senior Consultant in a multinational recruiting firm. She has written articles on travel and business. Her passion lies in writing about food and wine, travel, hotel industry, and hospitality experience.

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