Wild About Macchia! Fall Release Party

After a safe landing back in the Cleve, I am now in recovery mode from the past weekend at Macchia Wines’ Fall Release Party. From the incredible weather, to the fantastic turnout, I think Dionysus was smiling. I had the great opportunity  to work the Futures Barrel Tasting, which gave party goers a first taste of the ’11 Voluptuous and Oblivious Zins. It was both fun and a challenge; I knew some basics about wine, but clearly there was more I needed to learn. So I did what any good student would do: I asked  most of the knowledgable staff for the information. As resources they were helpful, patient and so much more fun than doing a Google search.

I wanted to thank Tim and Lani Holdener, their daughter Tanya, staff  and friends of Macchia who were so welcoming and friendly throughout the event and my time there.

My next posts will be about some thoughts (and pictures) of our adventures in Lodi and Amador County.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some of my pictures of Macchia’s Fall Release Party.

Cheers!

A Taste of Macchia and Amador County

It’s been a whirlwind trip so far and I’ll write more about the experiences at the wineries we toured in Amador County. In the meantime, I wanted to share some quick pics of my time there.

I’m off soon to the Fall Release Party at Macchia Wines and I’ll post those pictures later today.

Cheers!

On the prowl in Napa

This morning, I woke up in Napa and it isn’t one of those lost weekends where I don’t know how I got here. I’m here to help out at the ‘Wild about Macchia’ wine event in Lodi. I’ll be pouring wine, taking a few pictures for the blog and learning about the event side of the wine industry.
Celebrating their ten-year anniversary, Macchia Winery is going all out with a jungle theme. According to owner Lani Holdener, “Cougars are welcome!”
With my animal print shirt, I should fit right in.
Cheers!

Of Port and Sherry

I wanted to add a little more about my experience at the Fabulous Food Show on Sunday. I went as I normally do for the wine sampling. I was particularly interested in the seminar on chocolate and wine pairing given by Joe Fink of Fantasy Candies and Marianne Franz of the American Wine School. I wasn’t disappointed.

Joe and Marianne

 

Four Sips of Yum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We started with four wines in front of us ranging from a hearty Cameron Hughes Bin 257 Cab Sav, a Warre’s Warrior Special Reserve Port, Warre’s Tawny Port and finally an Osborne PX Sherry. Starting from left to right we paired the Cab with a dark chocolate containing about 72% cocoa. The wine on it’s own was great but pairing it with the  exotic richness of the dark chocolate opened up and new level of deep rich berry and  added a light caramel finish I didn’t expect. While I’d pair chocolate with just about anything, I hadn’t thought of enjoying it with a Cab, which I generally save for a hearty beef dinner on a cold winter’s night. But that’s why I’m the student, and this is a learning experience.

We moved on to a 65% cocoa and paired that with the Special Reserve Port (alright, I tried some of the 72% with this as well, and it was really good). I’m not really a port drinker; in the past I’d found it to be too sweet, almost cloying, so this was a nice way to open my eyes to the world of port and how it could be served. As Marianne noted, sometimes two sweets together can cut down the sweetness you actually experience. But maybe it was the high I got from all the great chocolate that made me feel so accepting. Either way, I was enjoying the combination of the port and chocolate. Of the two, I found the tawny port much richer, complex when paired with the 65% cocoa sample.

Samples of the Day ~ Vote for Pedro!

As the tasting went on, I became more interested in what the PX in my last glass would taste like. For years, I’ve had the cliched idea that sherry was something you kept in a cupboard and threw into a crock pot when nothing else was available. I was about to be schooled. I found myself intriqued by the color: a rich, golden brown with thick legs when you swirled it. Thick legs, in this case, is a compliment. The bouquet was of a buttery caramel toffee with a hint of a sweet cigar. Yes, cigar. You know when you smell a waft of a sweet tobacco in the air on a warm summer night? It was like that. When I told my friend Terri (who was also sampling) what I tasted, she looked at me like I was crazy…or needed to be cut off. I was neither. We paired this with with a honey-like milk chocolate and it brought out even more depth of the flavours. Once Terri tried the chocolate and sherry  together, she understood what I meant. When I researched a little further, I learned that Pedro Ximenez is actually made from a sweet vinegar made from grapes that have been sun-dried.

We had a great hour of decadence.  The best part was we didn’t get kicked out of class.

Cheers!

 

 

 

Field Trip ~ The Fabulous Food Show in Cleveland

 
Cheers!

Wine Making 101 ~ Red, Red Wine

It’s November and harvest time is really winding down. Now in the vineyards, they’re getting ready for late harvest and in a few areas of the US and Canada (notably Niagara), preparing for Icewine. That’s a topic I’ll delve into more throughly a little later on.

I thought I’d head back to the study hall and focus on red wine making.

Beautiful Grapes [Image via LovetoKnow

The initial process is the same as I described a few posts back with white wines, the difference for reds is the amount of time the juice is left in contact with the skins. Most blue skinned grapes have a colorless juice which contains: water, sugar and acid. Once the mustis placed in a vessel to soak the skins with the liquid juice a very quick separation occurs. Seeds settle to the bottom, skins float to the top and form what’s called a ‘cap’.

The skins contribute the color, flavor, tannin and some aromatics. It makes sense that the skins need to stay in contact with the juice as long as possible to achieve the quality the winemaker is looking to produce. The amount of time that there is skin contact is called maceration. Say that slowly to yourself a couple of times; if you say it fast it sounds like something else.

After the initial separation, the seeds are removed once by straining through a screen. The juice and skins are then reintroduced to one another one of two ways: by pumping the juice over the skins or by punching down the cap. Punching the cap is exactly what it sounds like: the skins are pushed or plunged into the juice to allow for more skin contact, thereby increasing all the qualities we look for in a truly, wonderful red wine.

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Punching the Cap [Image via Flickr

The total amount of punching down the cap, pumping over; maceration time depend on the type of grape, the style of wine, equipment and the winemaker, depending on his or her style and philosophy. plunging the cap is generally done every four hours when fermentation is most active. With time and manipulation, the skins become saturated with liquid and the cap drops. The wine is then drained off, leaving the skins to be pressed (since they now contain wine). The wine produced from skins when pressed is called press wine(makes sense) is highly concentrated, more intense and more tannic.

A final step sometimes involves what’s called chaptalization: adding sugar to the must, before fermentation, to yield the desired alcohol in the finished product. I say sometimes because countries such as Australia, Austria, Italy, South Africa and the state of California prohibit the practice. Regions where sugar content in the grapes is low are able to do so.

While all this punching, plunging and pumping is great, it’s a matter of timing that truly makes a great wine. A tight reign must be kept on the temperatures produced by processing; too much heat (caused by too much manipulation) will cause too much fermentation, rendering the end product undrinkable. Colder temperatures prevent excessive fermentation and allow for maximum fruit extraction. When fermentation takes place, so does alcohol production. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing, I know, but it’s another factor that that can go against the winemakers vision of how the style of their wine should be.

The whole process takes around 7-21 days to complete depending on the type of red. It’s then transferred to either stainless steel tanks or barrels where it’s stored and then bottled.

A nice leggy Red

I don’t know about you but all this writing about wine is making me thirsty.

Cheers!