Video Blog #2: Holiday Wine Buying


I tackle the issue of choosing wine for either a party or as a gift for the holidays. Whether you’re shopping at a run-of-the-mill neighborhood grocery store or a specialized boutique wine shop there are benefits and draw-backs for each location and I help guide you through each experience to help you with your holiday gift giving this year!

In these 2 videos we attempt to tackle a fairly obvious question: which wine opener offers the best value? Watch as we try 6 different wine openers readily available on the market today. We grade the openers on:
1. Useability (is it easy to use)
2. Does it work?
3. Value (compares above with actual price).
I would love to hear your comments about your experiences with these wine keys. Enjoy!

Wine Opener Challenge, Part 1 of 2

Wine Opener Challenge, Part 1 of 2

I had a request recently to breakdown Malolactic Fermentation. What is ML, or MLF or Malo, as it goes by? Well, it’s a secondary fermentation that converts the harsher Malic Acid (think of a granny smith apple) to the softer Lactic Acid (think Milk) via Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB). How? Well, you warm the wine and add the LAB (which consists of bacterium Lactobacillus, Pedioccocus, and Oenoccoccusoeni), ML is initiated. However, ML can occur spontaneously anytime during or after the initial alcoholic fermentation. The purpose of ML for red and white wines are similar. In reds, ML makes the wine more drinkable younger by lowering the overall acidity and making it softer on the palate. It is used in medium to full bodied reds where complexity is desired over fruitiness. ML in reds emphasizes fermentation aromas over fresh fruity aromas. And it makes the mouthfeel rounder, fuller, velvety, lusher as opposed to super tart (acidic) reds.

For whites, because it can mask fruity aromas, ML is really only desired for Chardonnay or other less ‘aromatic’ varietals. For example, ML would not be a great idea with a Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling with their very expressive fruit-driven notes. In Chardonnay it adds texture and flavors (complexity) to the wine.

When ML is not desired, to suppress it, a winemaker can filter and fine the yeasts out of the wine, or they can make sure the wine stays cool and add SO2 (Sulphur) the wine. Also, for ML to occur, the wine must have less than 14% alcohol and a PH of less than 3.3. Also grape pulp and yeast sediment is necessary to promote it’s growth in the wine.

So, the advantages to ML in reds and some whites is that it adds complexity to the wine. Flavors of butter (diacetyl), caramel, and a lush mouthfeel are the optimal results. Disadvantages to ML are that it can cause the PH to rise (which means lower acidity in a wine, which is problematic for warm climate wines that are naturally lower acid-wise). To counter this problem, winemakers add acidity to the wine. Another problem with low acid wines is that they are prone to bacterial infection and require more sulphiting. Also, Partial ML in a wine bottle can cause unintentional carbonation to occur, which would push up the cork and spoil the flavor of the wine. Take note the next time you order a bottle of wine and refermentation has occured..it will taste sparkling and lacking in clean flavors. Not cool. Another reason to store your wines at the proper temperature!! And it can take up to 2 months, and can start and stop and start and stop, which can be frustrating to the winemaker.

As you can see, there are profound advantages and disadvantages for ML. In my opinion, it should be done with caution and focus and only on certain wines.

Me, pushing down the cap to Fermenting Zinfandel!

I have very recently returned from my wine tasting trip through France, and want to share with you some of my adventures.  I had left the country and arranged (via US-Californian importers) some tasting visits.  Unfortunately, I struggled a bit to solidify these appointments because I was going exactly during the harvest season.  Just like in California, when there is harvest, everyone short of freaks out and becomes a wee bit less tolerant and welcoming to outsiders.  Note to keep in mind if you plan a trip for wine tasting…it is best to avoid harvest (@ mid-September through mid-october) if you are seeking people to give you their time and energy.  I found that at the wineries I stopped by where I didn’t have an appointment, they were totally closed to the public.  This was a big bummer in the Rhone Valley, where I couldn’t secure even 1 appointment because of harvest and it was Sunday (the one day that pretty much everything is closed in Europe, aargh!).  According to my fabulous guide of Provence, he informed me that everyone hunts on Sundays, so it would be difficult to get an appointment that day.  Thankfully I had 3 scheduled appointments in Burgundy, which made the experience there entirely better than through the Rhone Valley, where I couldn’t get the time of day from any producer, except one, which I will discuss on my next blog.

A bit of background on Burgundy.  It is a big mystery to a lot of folks who love wine.  It doesn’t receive the international recognition that Champagne and Bordeaux get, but the best Burgundian producers are quite ok with that.  As a whole, they value quality over quantity, they chase perfection over the dollar.  Some producers won’t release their wines when the importer asks them to, but will make the importer wait until the wine says it’s time.  I’m a fan of this attitude and approach. The best producers of Burgundy are puritanists and meticulous when it comes to their wines.  It is all about the soil and allowing the ‘terroir’ to speak through the grapes, and less about the winemaking showmanship.  Now, this may sound a little ‘tree-hugging’ for you, but it certainly rings true, as I found in my cellar tasting adventure with Louis Jadot.  Their extremely friendly and entertaining representative, Olivier Masmondet, spent 2.5 hours with me and my group tasting us through the different villages and showing us how different the wines taste, even though they are made the same way (same oak regime, use only wild yeast..never any commercial strands).  They avoid anything that would interrupt the ‘terroir’ from being expressed.  We probably tasted over 20 different village, premier and grand crus.  (I actually made a quick video of tasting in the cellars with Olivier, please check it out: copy and paste this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-jyuimyNNA)  Anyways, what hit home, and I believe helped me really understand the essence of Burgundy, is that it’s all about the minutia, the slight variations of the soils, the aspect of a site to the sun, and slope of a site.  All of these factors are calculated in the most elaborate land classification on earth.  These classifications divide individual vineyards into 4 classes and enforces the precise labeling of each wine accordingly.  To further confuse and complicate the matter, because of the inherent fragmentation of vineyard ownership in Burgundy, 1 vineyard may be owned by more than 80 different growers.  Yikes!  This is the one challenge to the quality of Burgundy.  You have to be familiar with the producers as much as you are to the actual classifications.  Let’s explore the classifications:

There are 4 main ones.  Grand Crus are the 1^st class, of which 30 are operating today.  Each Grand Cru has it’s own appellation, which is protected, registered and regulated with the AOC (Appellation d’Origine Controlee, France’s top tier of Quality wine Classifications).  Grand Crus are the best vineyards because they site offers the best aspect, soil type (for drainage and heat), slope and shelter from harsh winds for growing grapes.  They are usually, but not always, located mid-slope to take advantage of the best of these aspects to a site.  Generally, higher above mid-slope, the climate is harsher causing grapes to ripen later, or not at all, and below mid-slope, mists and frosts can get the best of the grapes.  Most of the communes (villages) of Burgundy have at least one Grand Cru, but not all.  The name of the single vineyards will be on the label.

Premier Crus are the 2^nd tier.  These vineyards are the 2^nd best to the Grand Crus, generally, they surround the grand crus, which are usually located mid-slope.  Looking at a detailed map of the vineyards of Burgundy, so you will generally see a pattern where premier crus form a sort of sandwich effect to the grand crus, with the grand crus, of course being the meat in the center.  There are exceptions to this of course.

The next tier are Communal or village level.  Some of the best communes can actually be as good as some Premier crus, so, it’s not always a bad option to buy a village level Burgundy. Some of the best village level wines include Meursault and Puligny Montrachet for Chardonnays, and Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-St-Georges for Pinot Noir, which are the 2 main grapes of this region.

The 4^th level of classifications refer to the less sited vineyards, usually located on the lower-lying or even flat lands east of the commune.  They label their wines ‘Bourgogne.’  These are generally inferior wines, but also noticeably cheaper than the above.

Essentially, the classification breaks apart the land to recognize and put in a proper hierarchy the vineyards.  It truly is a brilliant classification, but one that requires an enormous amount of memorization and money to properly explore.  However, it is totally worth exploring, as I discovered.  There truly are minute differences in the land that can actually be tasted in the final product.  I wish that Californian producers and consumers alike would get out of the varietal game, and into the terroir game, because I personally would like to have a better understanding locally of how the different soil types, aspects of a site compare with each other.  Right now, you have to know the producer, and there is no national regulation, like in Burgundy, that recognizes and controls vineyard designations.  I believe this will come soon, as our industry matures and our consumers become more worldly with their palates.

Cheers!

While preparing for the start of my advanced class (which begins this     Sunday), I have been studying up on Viticulture and Winemaking.  I want to devote this blog to the main factors that influence the quality level of wine produced in a specific site.  And if you ask any quality winemaker about this subject, they will be the first to explain that there is a distinct and direct correlation between quality of wine and good grapes.  Basically, if the fruit isn’t of good quality, you won’t be able to get a quality wine.  Granted, winemakers can do many things to wines with their bag of tricks and ’spice racks’ that affect the flavors and overall style of a wine.  But in the end of the day, if you don’t have quality grapes to start with, you’re gonna stuggle to make decent wine.

That being said, I would like to devote this blog to Viticulture, and as it really all begins in the vineyard.

When choosing a site to grow grapes, you must consider many things:  Is the site near a large body of water?   Where and what is your water source? What is the weather like? What is the soil structure like?  Is the site on a slope or high in altitude? What grapes grow well at this site?   I will start off this discussion with water.

A site located near a large body of water is considered ideal for several reasons.  Water can store heat more effectively than land, so when the air temperature falls, it is able to release that heat.  This is ideal for cooler regions where the evening get quite cool.  Inversely, in summertime, warm air from the land rises in afternoons to be replaced by cooler air from the water.  This cools the land and equalizes temperatures and the humidity levels.  This is the effect that the Pacific Ocean has on the most important growing regions of California (Santa Barbara, Monterey, Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino).  We also have the cooling effect of the fog rolling in from the ocean, as is the case in Monterey and Santa Barbara.  This fog settles in and keeps the grapes cool all evening and well into the morning, as I have personally witnessed driving out of Santa Barbara on the 154 around 10am.  Additionally, major ocean currents play a large role in keeping the climate cool on land masses.  The Alaska Current keeps California cool, the Humboldt Current keeps Chile cool, the Benguela Current keeps South Africa cool.  And the Gulf stream actually keeps Western Europe warm, as it brings the warm gulf waters up to Europe.  Let’s also not leave out the effect that large rivers have on grape-growing.  In the Mosel and Rheingau River valleys  in Germany, the only possible way they can grow grapes (otherwise it’s too darn cold) is to plant vines right up alongside a moving river.  Why?  Well, since rivers move water, they prevent fog from settling in and hurting the vines.  They also act to temper the region, much like the ocean tempers the land mass it is directly next to.  The further you are from a large body of water, the more continental the climate will be (meaning you will have distinct seasons…cold winters and hot summers.)  A clear example of this would be to compare the climate of California with say, Nebraska.

Not only is the overall cooling/warming effect important with water, but the actual water source to use to irrigate your vines is equally as important.  You must have a water source to grow grapes.  In some regions, like in Chile and Argentina, they have an ample supply of water from the Andes mountain range snow-melt. This gives them access to an abundance of water. They have so much, that they do what is called ‘flood irrigation,’ which basically means they flood their vineyards with water.  Now, here in California we don’t have an abundance of water, and water is extremely expensive, regulated, and limited, so growers here are very judicious about how they irrigate their vines.  Most quality growers ulitize a ‘drip-irrigation’ system where the amount of water that comes out and drips on the vines is timed and the quantity regulated.  This allows growers to conserve water.  Regions like Burgundy, Oregon, Bordeaux, Loire valley recieve enough natural rainfall so that they have an accessible water source.  Australia faces similar issues as we do here in California, in that it is extremely dry.

The latitude, altitude, and slope of a site are also important to consider when growing grapes.  Grapes grow best between 30 and 50 degrees latitude.  When closer to the equator and the grapes don’t know when it’s summer and when it’s time to go dormant (winter).  Further than 50 degrees is too far north and too darn cold for grapes, generally speaking.  Altitude is important because in warmer climates, like Mendoza in Argentina, the only way grapes don’t bake to death in the near-desert conditions is because they are planted at altitudes of over 2000 meters. This creates a cooler condition of the site.  The slope of a vineyard is also important in site selection.  Slopes that face the sun are preferred over flat sites because the incoming solar radiation (insolation) is greater facing the sun.  The effect becomes apparent at the end of the growing season when the sun’s heat is weaker.  This warms the soils so that grapes can ripen easier.  Slopes also allow for cool air to travel down the slope to allow the warmer air from above to replace it, keeping the site warmer into the evenings.  This is referred to as the ‘thermal zone.’  The problem with this is that sites at the bottom of the slope can trap the cool air and develop frost pockets, which is not good.  The best slopes face SE or SW. SE slopes catch the morning sun and warm up quicker, where SW slopes catch the afternoon sun and stay warmer longer.  Wind must also be considered when growing grapes. When I visited the 2 different sites in Malibu last week, one site felt stifling hot because there was no breeze compared with the second site.  So wind can be your friend in hotter climates, and it can be your enemy in cooler climates, as it cools the vines, reduces rates of growth and delays ripening.  To counter the negative effects of wind, many sites plant windbreaks.  Trees can be a natural way to plant a windbreak.

Soils, like choosing to grow grapes on a slope or not, can also warm or cool the vines.  The best soils promote water drainage and heat retention such as dark soils or stone soils (Slate in the Mosel, Gravel in Bordeaux).  Wetter soils are generally cooler as they retain more water, such as heavy clays.  The most important and defining elements of a soil are its structure and texture.  The best structure allows for free draining of water, nutrition in the soil, and good water holding capacities.  In the end of the day, you need soils to provide sufficient nutrients and water for it to crop succesfully and to survive until the next growing season.  Different soil types cause a vine to grow more or less vigorously.  This affects the way that the vine ripens its crop, the crop level, sugar and acid levels and the quality produced from them.  The best soils have an equal balance of sand, loam, clay, natural drainage, yet can still store moisture sufficiently to keep the vine supplied with water throughout the growing season and sufficient oxygen for roots to breathe and grow.  Soils may reflect light and heat, or trap them releasing it into the evening.  Soils should be sufficiently deep to allow for development of a solid root structure of the vine.  Vines with extensive root systems can overcome quite extreme variations in water and nutrient supply.

Which grapes grow in which region is well defined in the traditional ‘old world regions’, but continues to be an exciting and ever-changing topic in the new world.  We are not limited by tradition with winemaking in the new world, so we can experiment with grapes in different regions.  For example, Paso Robles, Temecula, Malibu are still trying to find their indentity in which grapes grow best there.  Of course, there is market demand that has a large part to do with that.  When I was visiting Malibu last week, B-Allen, my viticulture friend was explaining that for the new vineyards he plants, people really want to grow Cabernet.  He said that Sangiovese, Tempranillo, Zinfandel, Syrah, Grenache, even Merlot grow better in Southern California than Cabernet does, but if his clients want to grow Cabernet, than Cab is what he’ll give them.  Not only does the market dictate what grapes to grow, but like B said, certain grapes grow better in certain regions that others.  It’s too hot to grow Riesling, it’s almost too hot for Cabernet in Malibu.  Inversely, it’s too cool for Cabernet in Willamette Valley Oregon, and Pinot Noir loves it there, as does Riesling (which are cooler-climate grape varieties).

I hope that you were able to gather a better understanding of what it takes to grow quality grapes. Grape-growing truly is agriculture at it’s most advanced levels.  In both the winery and in the vineyard, to make quality wines, you must have money, patience, and a very detailed oriented nature.  As B-Allen explained, he can’t just leave the vine, come back once a month, because if there are any problems that develop (like bees, birds, rot, or mildew), they move fast and before you know it your crop is devastated.

If you want to get even more detailed about grape growing, I would recommend purchasing the book, Viticulture by Stephen Skelton, MW.  This is the book I have been studying myself and is the basis of most of the information I provided above.  Furthermore, if you really want to learn about the world of wine, please reach out to me!

I recently started my Level 2 WSET program, and remembering how daunting the world of wine can be, I threw French Wine Laws at them on the first day of class.  Mean teacher?  No.  Not understanding how to read and interpret European wine labels is a big part to understanding European wines as a whole, and it all starts in France. A lot of wines made in Europe are not labeled as their ‘New World’ counterparts do, by Grape Varietal, but instead label their wines by regions (could be a large region like Burgundy, or a district within that region like Cote de Nuits, or a commune/village like Gevrey-Chambertin, or even a single vineyard Premier or Grand Cru like Chambertin.)  Confused?  Don’t worry, you are not alone.  As a teacher, it is my job to point out patterns and help simply the world of wine, but as the student, it is ultimately their responsibility to understand it, and know it cold.  I force my students to memorize this stuff.  Granted, it’s not fun to memorize names of places you don’t really know how to pronounce, but it is very important, as it is the key to unlocking the ‘old world’ of wine.

If I might digress for just a moment…..this brings up an interesting observation I have of living in California.  I am a  New England transplant here,  and where I grew up, people bought Italian and French wines knowing about Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Loire Valley, Chianti, Brunello, Barolo, etc. I was a bit surprised when I started teaching wine out here in California that people generally lacked a rudimentary understanding of the important growing regions of Europe.  Perhaps it’s because generally people in California drink Californian wines, so they don’t have the need to look outside of the state for a drink?  Or maybe it is because we are 3000 miles further away from Europe than the East coast is, so there is less of an influence of Europeans here in California?  Whatever the reason may be, the bottom line is that they have to memorize names of places they have never heard of before and  I think this is the most challenging part.  So, in an effort to help decipher the mysterious French wine laws (thereby paving the way to understanding European wines as a whole), I am devoting this blog to the French AOC.

AOC means Appellations d’ origine and was created in 1935 to protect the names of the best wines of France from fraud and quality variations within a region.  It is still today supervised by the INAO (institut Nationale de Appellations d’Origine).  An appellation of origin is a collective property right belonging to individual wine-growers.  It is designed to protect and control geographically based regions.  According to Andrew Jefford, author of The New France, he argues in favor of the French AOC system, as it met with a lot of criticism around the world, especially in New World growing regions.  Andrew argues that “French wine law is splendidly resistant, furthermore, to the depredations of capitalism and the abusive perversions of the free market.  It is the major reason why French wine has achieved the level of refinement, beauty, and complexity that are it’s hallmarks….It is the single name (of a region) which small-scale, economically vulnerable individuals jointly own. Nonetheless, provided you follow certain rules…your wine can be recognized and understood as offering a certain sensory experience in every country of the world. Until you reach the very highest branches of the French wine tree, indeed, the appellation name will be more important than your own name.”  He continues to argue that this sort of situation, where you are not competing as your own ‘brand’ as they do in the new world, but you are part of a larger community, and your individual wine, being labeled as a place and not a brand on your own, fosters the unity and fellowship and community spirit over capitalism’s polarizing and profit-focused spirit. Basically, your success as part of a protected AOC is measured at a community level, whereas brands are measured at an economic level.

This got me to thinking about my experience at Pinot Noir camp in Oregon in 2008.  I think Willamette Valley and Oregon as a whole have successfully marketed themselves as a unified region, much more so than any one particular American brand has done.  I think to some extent Napa Valley has done something similar.  When you think of domestic Cabernet, you think Napa valley over one individual producer.  When you think about domestic Pinot Noir, you think about Willamette Valley.  When I was a camper, the entire premise of the camp was to work together.  We rode busses together, we did tours together.  And the wineries never represented themselves in lectures as individuals, but always described their relationships amongst fellow winemakers as helping each other out.  I remember one producer saying that she recalls when they first started growing Pinot in that region, she said she would borrow her neighbor’s (a competitor’s) tractors and winemaking equipment, and doing this was commonplace.  Furthermore, the during the entire camping experience, the wineries never wore a shirt with their own logo, but wore an Oregon Pinot Noir logoed shirt instead.  I loved the true spirit of community that has defined this region, and I believe this is what Andrew Jefford loves about the AOC.  In a world where corporations have no loyalty to it’s hard-working employees, where BP oil companies get away with making tax-payers pay for their mistakes, and wall street fat cats feed on the little guy, I too love this idea of community.

Okay, back to the nuts and bolts of the French wine laws.  The wine laws fall into 4 categories: Vins de Table (table wines), Vins de Pays (country wines), Vins Delimites de Qualite Superieure (VDQS: delimited wines of superior quality), and AOC or appellation wines:

French table wines are rarely found outside france, and offer nothing to the consumer from a marketing angle because they cannot be labelled with grape variety, year, or a region.  So they essentially will tell you nothing about the wine.  And, they are generally cheap.

VDQS was created as a sort of wating zone for aspiring AOC wines.  It is a very small category, with less than 1% of all French wines found here.

AOC’s are based on the idea of “terroir,” or a sense of placeness that all wines from a specified AOC share. So, obviously the geographical boundaries are very important, geology is also important as it affects slope and aspect of a site, and of course climate is a part of determining an AOC, as are to a lesser degree political boundaries.  I think the planting of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay within Burgundy clearly make this point.  Where there is limy marl, you will find Pinot Noir, where there is calcerous clay, you will find Chardonnay.  Speaking of Grape varieties, in an AOC quality wine, these are regulated.  Generally they are traditional, have being planted in that region for centuries assuming that the trials of tribulations of history and tradition in the world of grapegrowing have merit.  Yields are controlled, winemaking methods regulated as is chaptilization (the adding of sugar to a must to increase the alcoholic content of a wine…not to sweeten it).  Cool climate AOCs can chaptilize and warm climate AOCs cannot, logically.  Alcohol levels are also regulated in the different AOCs.  Obviously, that is a lot of regulation, and it can arguably lead to limit progress and creativity.  But, according to Andrew Jefford, “If you purchase an AOC wine, you are purchasing the true scent and taste of a place, defended, and controlled by the AOC rules and regulations.”

There are 3 types of Vins de Pays: regional, zonal, and departmental.  This category was created to allow for more flexibilty in regulations, which has lead to creativity and plantings on non-traditional grapes in certain regions.  Terroir no longer plays a big role in this category of French wines.  This is the one category that you would think more french producers want to explore.  However, they seem to enjoy the AOC framework, and why experiment with different grape plantings if you are a producer of a grand cru wine when you make a great living making your grand cru?  So, there is not tons of motivation for quality minded-producers.  The big flaw with this category of wines is that in the famous AOC protected regions of Alsace, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne there are no Vins de pays.  So, if you are a quality-minded producer in Burgundy and want to experiment with say, Sauvignon Blanc, you would be forced to declassify your wine to table wine level.  Yikes!

There are many very valid arguments against the French wine laws.  Among these include the fact that they stifle creativity, fail to gaurantee quality (they gaurantee origin, not quality), they are protectionist (protecting against the corrosive effects capitalism has on the human value system…as Jefford argues), they are too complicated for today’s wine consumer.  I totally agree.  They should allow for varietal labelling like the rest of the new world regions do.

In the end, there are many reasons for and against this system, but I am not a politician or a lawyer, I’m just a teacher.  My job is to help decipher the world of wine to my students.  If it were up to me, I would have all French wines have maps on them (like the Spanish wines do), grape varietals listed in decending order according to the percentages (like the Australian wines do), and a certification seal of quality (like the South African wines do).   These changes would make my job a whole lot easier, and the novice’s learning curve a lot shorter.  However, doing something simple and logical would be very ‘unfrench,’ as it’s  a culture based on details, perfection, and uncompromising traditions.

Okay, so the title of this blog is a bit sappy, but Sweet Wines is what I want to discuss this week in honor of my upcoming Tokaji class on Monday.  Tokaji!?  What’s that, you must be thinking…Okay, I’ll give you the technical and the translated version simultaneously:

Tokaji refers to a region in the far North East of Hungary.  It is a region so famous it is mentioned in the national anthem in Hungary!  The wines have been made here since the 16th century, and were historically the wine of choice for the French and Russian Royal Courts.  It was known as ‘the wine of kings and king of wines’ druing this period of sweet wine worship.

The style of wine this region is most famous for are botrytisized dessert wines made from ‘aszu’ or shrivelled grapes.  The grapes become shrivelled because botrytis is a fungus. In the west, we refer to it as ‘Noble Rot.’  This noble rot attacks the skins of healthy grapes, penetrating the skins, causing the water in the grapes to evaporate, concentrating the sugars and also imparting their mold-musty flavor to the grapes.

So, how do we get a sweet wine from moldy grapes?  Well, at harvest, the winemaker will pick both healthy grape clusters and botrytisized grape clusters.  He will ferment them separately, with the healthy grapes made into dry wines, and the rotten grapes ground into a paste.  It is how much of this paste that determines the end sweetness level of the wines, and it is measured in ‘puttonyos.’  Most Tokaji Aszu wines are between 3 and 6 puttonyos.  3 Puttonyos mean there are 60 grams of sugar per liter in the wine, 4 puttonyos=90g/l, 5 puttonyos=120g/l, and 6 puttonyos=150g/l of sugar.  The level of puttonyos will be on the label.

The wines are then fermented in oak cask for 3-6 years, allowing oxygen to impart it’s flavorful wisdom on the wine, turning the wine more amber in color, with intense aromas of orange marmalaide, apricots, and honey.  Because the wine was made by blending the uber-ripe botrytisized grapes with the dry wine, you will still get a high level of refreshing acidity on the finish, preventing the wine from tasting cloying.

Did I lose you?  Do you have more questions?  Come to the wine event featuring these remarkable wines on Monday, May 24th at the Ivy Hotel.  It will be sweet, trust me For more details, go to the ‘classes’ tab on my website.

Lindsay