Lesson 1 - What to look for in a wine? So what to look for in a wine? Any expert will tell you that a good wine is the combination of three elements:
- Balance (tanins / acidity / fat)
- Complexity of aroma (range of aromas and their concentration) sometimes referred to as "depth"
- Length of the wine in the mouth: how long does the taste last for: a split second? More than 10 seconds?
"Depth", "length", "balance"... it feels like a geometry problem-solving test, right? Let's try to put this all in easier terms, for everyone to understand what we are talking about!
First, let's review what "balance" means.
I'm sure all of you have one day popped a bottle of red wine, and have felt that rough, bitter taste which was more aggressive to your palate than you expected, and you had a hard time finishing your glass.
This is because the wine is unbalanced.
In order for a wine to be correctly balanced, the raisin must have reached its physiological and phenolic maturities (not making it any easier, am I? :)).
The physiological maturity is the maturity of its sugar and acid. Thanks to the biological phenomenon of photosynthesis, sun fills the raisin with sugar, which after time transforms into alcohol (it is called the alcoholic fermentation). This means that the wine will consist of more alcohol.
The phenolic maturity is its skin, its tanin, its colors, its aromas.
So we want to make sure that the wine is balanced between its acid and sweet virtues, as well as a tanin* that hangs onto your tongue, but isn't too rough that it becomes unpleasant.
Second, a good wine has a range of aromas that reveals its complexity, or depth. Typically, Bordeaux Red Wines will deliver more hints of blackcherry, blackcurrant, bell pepper; where Burgundy wines, with a Pinot Noir influence, will offer red berries, a bit lighter in the mouth. That's why beginners tend to like Burgundy Pinot Noir wines more, because they are easier to understand, and lighter in the mouth. Connaisseurs will prefer the darkness of Cabernet Sauvignon, with its black berry tastes, slightly stronger, an explosion of more flavors in the mouth.
Third, the length of the wine. It's such a shame to have a great taste in your mouth that disappears right away, isn't it? A superior wine is proud of its taste, and lasts longer in your mouth, up to almost a minute sometimes, unleashing different flavours at different points in time! The aftertaste is extremely important, especially as you are pairing your wine with food.
*There are two main phases of development of a grape vine: hibernation from November to March, and a vegetal cycle from April to October. The climate conditions of that vegetal cycle are critical to a successful wine, because the raisin will be able to develop its maturities.
When the raisin is unripe, it will have an unpleasant rough taste. But a few weeks later, the same raisin becomes less acid, more sweet, and when you chew it, there are certain aromas coming out, and the tanins are more appreciable.
Most people understand that a nice sunshine makes a good wine.
But what is the phenomenon behind that?
It is called photosynthesis. We have all learned in Biology class that Trees transform our carbon dioxyde back into oxygen for us to breathe.
But the world is so perfect, that this phenomenon even helps the development of wine!
What we don't learn in those classes, is that photosynthesis creates sugar as well. Take a look at the full equation of photosynthesis that occurs in plants:
Overall equation for the type of photosynthesis that occurs in plants
Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities (energy transformation).
So the climate has a real impact on the product. Other than the sun, the maturity of the raisin will greatly depend on the temperature (the colder, the more the raisin will remain acid; the warmer, the more the acid will turn to sweet) and rain (it is a dilution phenomenon. It's like if you added water in your glass of wine. The wine becomes less concentrated, less colorful, fewer aromas, fewer tanins... the wine will have less structure, as it will be diluted).
There is a very detailed table of all vintages that you can download here, but let's keep it real. You're never going to afford a bottle from 1982! So let's focus on the last 10 years, to see which years in France were good, and which ones are not worth your money. 2005, 2009, and to a lesser extent, 2007 and 2010, were excellent years. Very sunny, warm temperatures, less rain than usual. 2006, 2008, 2011 are good years. The climate was not as warm and sunny, but the raisins still got enough to come to a tasteful maturity. 2012 and to a lesser extent 2013 are years to forget. Heavy rains in June and July throughout all of France, low temperatures, followed by a month of August which was much warmer and sunnier than average... There was clearly a bad harvest that year. 2014, 2015, are still young, so you can't really put them in the rankings. Considering the fact that most good bottles are put in a barrel for 1 to 2 years before being bottled, you can quickly understand that these bottles are not yet out on the market. So what you're currently served at the moment is clearly not top-notch, and certainly too light to drink (it might taste like water). Of course, this also depends on the region: a Bordeaux 2012 is to ban, but a Bourgogne or Rhone 2012 is a very decent year.
* Tanin: what is it? It is the aroma intrinsic to the fruit, which develops more or less according to the sort of grape and the climate conditions it has faced.
Take a bag of black tea and put it in your cup filled with hot water. If you keep the bag too long in the water, then your drink will become too rough, too bitter to taste. It will stick to your tongue for many seconds or minutes. That is called a strong tanin. Black tea has stronger tanin than green tea, so you can potentially keep your green tea longer in your cup.
