{"id":1185,"date":"2016-05-31T23:43:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T06:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2016-06-19T09:49:48","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T16:49:48","slug":"wine-tastings-and-wine-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/2016\/05\/31\/wine-tastings-and-wine-science\/","title":{"rendered":"I went in for wine tastings, and left with a view into wine science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not a wine connoisseur, but through visits to various vineyards this spring,\u00a0I not only took home delicious new wine varieties but also caught a glimpse of the\u00a0intricate choices in wine making\u00a0that shape our wines.<\/p>\n<p>With a tasting menu in hand, I awaited the <span style=\"color: #000000;\">winery\u00a0staff to ask the exciting question:\u00a0&#8220;Which wine would you like to try?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1187 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2016\/05\/1703-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"1703\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2016\/05\/1703-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2016\/05\/1703-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2016\/05\/1703-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2016\/05\/1703-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>I would usually reach for the classic white wines and red wines, but deferring to the wineries&#8217; recommended specialties, I was pleasantly surprised by their varieties of ice wines, fruit wines, and ros\u00e9s.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Though ice wines often can be\u00a0excessively\u00a0sweet, Lulu Island Winery offered a unique\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Pinot Gris<\/span> which let me savor the distinct ice wine flavor without the heavy sweetness. Meanwhile at Paumanok Vineyards in Long Island, New York, their award-winning\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">2014 Semi-dry Riesling<\/span> and <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Vin Ros\u00e9<\/span> became my new favorites.<\/p>\n<p>Since a ros\u00e9 was not on my radar much before then,\u00a0I asked, &#8220;What makes a\u00a0ros\u00e9 wine?&#8221; One casual question led to another, and in the developing discussion with the winery experts, the wine making process became much more imaginable.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Starting with the basics<\/strong>, using only the pulp of grapes makes a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">white wine<\/span>, but leaving the grape skins on slightly longer into the wine making process makes a\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">ros\u00e9<\/span>. Also compare the amount of grapes in one bottle of wine: t<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">he 750ml bottle of Pinot Gris I tasted was made from 3-5 pounds of grapes, whereas the same size bottle of their <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">ice wine<\/span> uses 30-35 pounds of grapes for a white ice wine, or\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.luluislandwinery.com\/index.php\/our-wines\/icewine\/icewin\/\">60 pounds for a red ice wine variety<\/a>\u00a0(12 &#8211; 20 times more grapes!). For ice wines, h<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/the longer time the grapes stay on the vine as the sweetness condenses\">arvesting the grapes later into the freezing days of winter ripens and concentrates the grapes<\/a>, and allows to compress a lot of grapes&#8217; sweetness into one bottle of ice wine.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Those are the broad types of wine, but every step of wine making affects\u00a0a wine&#8217;s finish<\/strong>: from handling the crop plant and soil, to adjusting the subtle flavors and aromas with different ingredients and fermentation processes, and to bottling and sealing.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Knowing the chemistry and processes\u00a0of wine making, can wineries\u00a0consistently make their great wines<\/strong> like the\u00a0Lulu Island Pinot Gris, Paumanok 2014 Semi-dry Riesling, and Vin Ros\u00e9? <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com\/advancesinwinescience.htm\">Here is what\u00a0scientists have done for us<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to help advance wine making; without them, we won&#8217;t have the wines we enjoy today. <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Yet, as\u00a0Paumanok Vineyards credited their great harvests in\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ediblelongisland.com\/2015\/08\/14\/paumanok-vineyard-ny-winery-year\/\">winning the New York Winery of the Year of\u00a02015<\/a>, consistent processes also depend on the source materials.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Also, a wine&#8217;s flavor is not only based on what we can analyze with numbers; <\/strong>the flavor is\u00a0affected by <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">human perception<\/span><strong>.<\/strong> Lulu Island Winery&#8217;s white ice wines came in two flavors: a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Riesling Chardonnay<\/span> with honey flavors and a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Viognier<\/span> with mango flavors. Interestingly, most people naturally associate honey with a sweet taste, so even though scientifically the sweetness rating is higher for the mango flavored ice wine, the honey feels more sweet and heavy, and the mango more refreshing.<br \/>\n<strong>A\u00a0more in-depth look of how scientists study the relationship between taste, smell, and our personal perception and tolerance<\/strong> to different tastes is covered in\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/winefolly.com\/review\/science-of-wine-tasting\/\">this article on wine tasting<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Comparing different flavors of wine is also comparing wine makers&#8217; careful choices in\u00a0the\u00a0wine making process and our tastes. The science behind delicious wine is better learned with tastings, isn&#8217;t it?<br \/>\nI welcome\u00a0stories about everyone&#8217;s\u00a0favorite wine tastings!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not a wine connoisseur, but through visits to various vineyards this spring,\u00a0I not only took home delicious new wine varieties but also caught a glimpse of the\u00a0intricate choices in wine making\u00a0that shape our wines. With a tasting menu in hand, I awaited the winery\u00a0staff to ask the exciting question:\u00a0&#8220;Which wine would you like to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1637581,265,558],"tags":[979840,1637731,1637738,1637737,388200,394893,561117,1637733,7416,3274,1637736,675551],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-and-drinks","category-home","category-technology","tag-flavor","tag-ice-wine","tag-lulu-island-winery","tag-paumanok-vineyards","tag-perception","tag-red-wine","tag-rose","tag-science-of-wine","tag-white-wine","tag-wine","tag-wine-chemistry","tag-wine-tasting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1223,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}