At the core of wine making, be it professionally or at home, is the process of alcoholic fermentation, in which the sugars are converted into alcohol. However, much more happens than this simple chemical process. The grape skins contain color and flavors which come into contact with the juice once the skins are broken.

Most white wines and rosés (made from black grapes) are crushed before fermentation begins, so contact with the skins is limited. In making red wines the skins ferment along with the grapes. Often they are allowed to soak in the juice after fermentation to give the wine as much flavor and color as possible. Only then is the entire mass pressed and the skins removed.

Red wine is often aged in wooden barrels after fermentation; white wines are usually aged in steel tanks. Both types sometimes undergo a second fermentation, during which the harsher (malic) acids are converted to softer (lactic) acids. This is almost always done with red wines, and in white wines sometimes only partially or not at all.

Sparkling wines such as champagne (in which both black and white grapes are used) begin like normal white wines. The wine is fed a ‘dosage’ of extra sugar and yeast and undergoes a second fermentation. This results in more alcohol and also carbon dioxide gas, which is trapped in the bottle and gives Champagne its characteristic effervescence.

You would read in good Wine 101 guides that in fortified wines such as port, the alcoholic fermentation is interrupted by adding brandy, which kills the yeast. Since many of the sugars have not yet fermented, the result is a sweet wine.

In tasting a wine, first of all notice the intensity of the color, hue and clarity. The differences in color can tell you a great deal about a wine’s age and how it was made. The color of red wine can range from purple-black to orange-brown. The deeper the color, the younger and more full-bodied it will be. Rosé is a light-bodied red wine, in which the skins have only been in contact with the juice for a short time and thus have only given off a hint of their color. The hue ranges from almost colorless to light salmon pink to the orange hue of an onion skin.

White wine varies from almost colorless through yellow-green and deep golden yellow to brown. The lighter the color, the younger and lighter-bodied the wine will be. White and rosé wines must be clear, but red does not necessarily have to.

Take a sniff, then swirl. The purity of the aromas is important. They come from the grape and from the method of preparation, and will change during ageing. Words from groups of odors, such as fruity, spicy, floral, animal, woody and burnt are used to describe the various aromas. Usually the ‘nose’ of a wine will be made up of a combination of elements.

Take a little sip and roll it around all of your mouth while carefully taking in a little air. This is one occasion where slurping is highly recommended! The phases of taste can be divided into (in order of appearance) start, development, finish and aftertaste. The first impression is one of relative smoothness and sweetness. Then as the taste develops, the acids make themselves manifest. At the finish, any bitter tastes become prominent.

Tastes are also perceived through the nose. This is the aftertaste, or more correctly, mouth feel. The more intense, complex and longer-lasting the aftertaste, particularly after swallowing, the ‘bigger’ the wine.

The first of these is the choice of glass. A good wine glass is sufficiently large and tapers slightly towards the top, in order to hold as much of the bouquet in the glass (tasting wine cannot be done without smelling it). A “normal” portion of wine is 125 cl.; thus a larger glass will not be more than one-half to two-thirds full.

Once the wine is correctly poured into the proper glass, it can be swirled around to release its aromas. This swirling promotes evaporation, which liberates the individual aroma molecules. It is essential that the bowl of the glass be crystal-clear and free of decoration so that the color of the wine can be judged properly.

But before the wine is even in the glass, the bottle must be opened. There is a huge variety of corkscrews on the market, some good and some bad. The coil or “worm’ should be helical; a bad coil will break the cork during removal.

Still, many people find that even using a good conventional corkscrew is a chore requiring dexterity and strength. More sophisticated wine openers, such as the wing and lever variety of cockscrews, are therefore becoming more commonplace.

The standard bottle held 75 cl long before this was standardized by law. Why? In the time when all bottles were blown by individual craftsmen, this size was what a glassblower could form with one breath.

Decanting is usually associated with aged red wines and port, which have formed sediment over the years. Decanting (pouring the wine carefully into a carafe) ensures that the sediment remains in the bottle. But decanting can also be good for young wines, which are sometimes harsh. In this case the wine is exposed to oxygen to soften the taste.

Do take care, though — too much exposure to the air can lend an unpleasant and oxidized taste to a wine, especially more mature, noble wines. Conventional wisdom in Wine 101 guides for a long time was to open the wine an hour before serving to let it ‘breathe’, but research has shown that the surface area in the neck of the bottle is much too small to be effective. Decanting into a carafe is often the best method for serving young wines.

The most important guiding principle is of course personal taste, but this should not mean that you have to drink the same wine day after day. Dare to experiment a little. Personal preference is more a question of a certain style, which may or not be coupled with a specific variety of grape, than a specific producer or area.

Another factor which is important in choosing a wine is the occasion for drinking the wine. Often this will be to accompany a meal. Although there are very many possibilities when combining wines and foods – certainly more than the rules and books suggest – it is worth the trouble to discuss the menu and wine to accompany it with someone who knows wine well.

Are you buying a wine to drink now or to lay down? By far the most wine on the market today can be drunk right away. If you want to buy a special wine to keep for a special anniversary (or simply out of curiosity), however, you will have to be quite selective. Only a very limited group of wines has the potential to mature for a longer time. Always ask for advice and remember that paying a little more money will often put much more quality in your glass!

An important step came when it became possible to produce wine ‘industrially’ so that the wine could be ‘portioned’. The logical next step came in the early 1980s with the birth of wine retention containers, and at last the biggest problems of oxidation were consigned to history.

This was an enormous success, a revolution, especially in the wine world. The pubs and bars saw their biggest problem solved practically overnight, as did winemakers selling directly from the establishment.

Consumers, too, have benefited from this wine technology, which in this age of ‘drinking less and enjoying it more’ has proven indispensable.

Once a wine is uncorked, its quality deteriorates due to exposure to oxygen (oxidation). How quickly this happens depends on the strength of the wine. Re-seal an open bottle using wine savers (with reusable rubber caps and vacuum pumps) can keep the taste of wine at its best, and delay the oxidation process. For sparkling wines, there are also champagne savers that you can use.

Ageing Wine

A Wine 101 learner may ask if there is a point to ageing wine? Only a few wines appreciate in quality over time. In general 9 out of 10 wines come to the market ready to drink and are intended to be drunk within 1 to 2 years. These wines, too, have to be stored properly.

Make sure the bottles have as little exposure to harmful influences as possible. Store them in as cool, dark, and vibration-free a place as possible. Keep them on their sides, so the cork does not dry out. A dried-out cork will let in more oxygen than a wet one, and too much oxygen causes wine to age too quickly. Champagne, even though it is usually drunk right away, is best kept horizontally as well.

A real cellar is of course the ideal location for keeping wine, but fortunately there are plenty of alternatives if you haven’t got one. Wine can be kept in closets, under the stairwell or in the bedroom under the bed. For both the cellar and less orthodox locations, use standard wine racks to hold your wine.

Scott Pactor, owner of Appellation Wine Store in New York City, discusses how these wines are becoming popular in his wine store where he has taken care and pride to stock a large variety of organic wines. He also speaks to the advantage of being in the New York for the wine trade, where you can taste thousands of wines in a single portfolio tasting, allowing merchants to access a wider variety of wines and offer the same to their customers.

Mike Benziger then talks about how his biodynamic winery works, and how people are more then welcome to visit his organic winery to learn more about environmentally friendly wine making techniques and share in the fruits of his labor.

Jonathan Russo, of the Organic Wine Journal de-mystifies the popularity of biodynamic wines for Wine 101 learners, which are fast becoming a natural alternative to industrially processed wines.

• A short visual history of European wines, from ancient times to medieval times.
• The impact of food and wine from colonial times to the 20th century- from new foods in Europe to new avant-garde wineries.
• Luxury food and wine orientated tours, a new trend in travel.
• Experience wine tours- unforgettable places, unforgettable people, unforgettable experiences.

The reason was said to be their consumption of red wine. It was already known that a modest intake of alcohol had a favorable effect on the heart and blood vessels, but there were certain substances in the skin of black grapes which were said to provide extra protection. Further research indicated that the active substances were mainly flavonoids and polyphenols, which act as anti-oxidants.

Since then news has been heard from the other camp. American scientists point out that French eating patterns lag behind those of Americans and that within a generation the French will have the same mortality patterns as Americans. Renaud is also supposed to have concealed other figures of those who died of alcohol consumption.

Evidence is mounting, however, that consuming a moderate amount of wine, preferably daily, does promote better health. The largest recent study, published in 1995 by the Heart Institute of Copenhagen, followed 13,000 men and women aged between 30 and 70 from 1976 to 1988. The wine drinkers turned out to have half the mortality rate of the teetotalers. Not only were the heart and vascular diseases less prevalent among wine drinkers, and especially red wine drinkers, but so were Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, dysentery and other digestive disorders including ‘travelers’ diarrhea’.

In June 2000 Dr. Martin Edeas of the Biochemical Department of the Hôpital Antoine Béclère in Paris, a prominent HIV research centre, publicized the fact that adding two glasses of red wine per day to an anti-virus medicinal treatment significantly lengthened the ‘latent period’ of HIV infection. Welcome side effects were improved appetite and better general well-being.

These are the key reasons why most Wine 101 education resources recommend a glass of red wine everyday to maintain good health.