A Taste of Wine
Why is wine so expensive? There
are three major traits to expensive
wine and they are oak, time and ter-
roir. The most coveted wines in the
world age their wines in oak, and
many use new oak. Putting wine
in an oak barrel does two things. It
adds oak ‘flavors’ to a wine (such as vanilla and bak-
ing spice) and it exposes the wine to oxygen. Oxygen
makes the tannins become less intense and the taste of
the wine become smoother. Since oxygen permeates
through the barrels, some of the wine inside also evapo-
rates at a rate of about 2% per year. This evaporation is
called the ‘angel’s share’ but the result is that the wine
in the barrel tastes more concentrated.
“The older the better.” This is the assumption when
it comes to wine; however this mainly pertains to red
wine. It is important to understand what time really
adds to certain wines to make them taste better. Time
changes the taste of the fruit flavors in a wine as well
as reduces the acidity and tannin in a wine. A well aged
wine has fruit notes that lean more towards dried fruits
and stewed fruits; they are much more subtle. As the
acidity and tannin are reduced, the wine becomes
rounder and smoother.
Terroir is how a particular region’s climate, soils and
aspect (terrain) affect the taste of wine. Every great
winemaker admits that great wine is made in the vine-
yard. To make great grapes, wineries focus on reducing
yields (e.g. making their vines produce less grapes) so
that the resulting wines are more intense. The location
of where the grapes are grown also matters. It has been
noted time and time again that the best vineyards tend
to be in an area where the vines struggle to produce
grapes. For example, good grapes tend to grow on a
hill with low-nutrient soils versus in fertile soils on flat
lands closer to a river.
Packaging, marketing, importing, and distributing
wines are a huge factor in the cost as well, but not as
much fun to discuss so I have skipped those details.
Happy March and Happy Tasting!
– Nancy Biggs, Wine Aficionada
!!We’ve moved!!
New Address
Effective December 4th
Randall Chiropractic
Dr. Michael P. Randall
1101 N Old Chisholm Trail, Ste. A
Dewey, Arizona
(sill serving PCC)
Call for appointment
928-775-7221
(Formerly Agua Fria Health Center)
14 March 2018 pccnews