1.
Washington (state)
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It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, Washington is the 18th largest state with an area of 71,362 square miles, and the 13th most populous state with over 7 million people. Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States, Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano, is the states highest elevation at almost 14,411 feet and is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. Washington is a leading lumber producer and its rugged surface is rich in stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, ponderosa pine, white pine, spruce, larch, and cedar. Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles, shipbuilding and other equipment, lumber, food processing, metals and metal products, chemicals. Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee Dam, built for a variety of purposes including irrigation, power, flood control, the Washington Territory was named after George Washington, the first President of the United States. The area was part of a region called the Columbia District after the Columbia River. The area was renamed Washington in order to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia, Washington is the only U. S. state named after a president. To distinguish it from the U. S. capital, which is named for George Washington, Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, or, in more formal contexts. Washingtonians and other residents of the Pacific Northwest refer to the state simply as Washington, calling the nations capital Washington, D. C. or, often, Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Washington is bordered by Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming the western part, to the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean. The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state, from the Cascade Mountains westward, Western Washington has a mostly marine west coast climate, with mild temperatures and wet winters, autumns and springs, and relatively dry summers. The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains, from the north to the south, these major volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in the state, is 50 miles south of the city of Seattle and it is also covered with more glacial ice than any other peak in the contiguous 48 states. Western Washington also is home of the Olympic Mountains, far west on the Olympic Peninsula and these deep forests, such as the Hoh Rainforest, are among the only temperate rainforests in the continental United States. Eastern Washington – the part of the state east of the Cascades – has a dry climate. It includes large areas of steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Farther east, the climate becomes less arid, with annual rainfall increasing as one goes east to 21.2 inches in Pullman, the Okanogan Highlands and the rugged Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains cover much of the northeastern quadrant of the state
2.
Champagne
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The primary grapes used in the production of Champagne are black Pinot noir and Pinot Meunier but also white Chardonnay. Champagne appellation law only allows grapes grown according to rules in specifically designated plots within the appellation to be used in the production of champagne. Royalty became associated with Champagne in the 17th, 18th, the leading manufacturers made efforts to associate their Champagnes with nobility and royalty through advertising and packaging, which led to popularity among the emerging middle class. Patricia Harmsworth, Viscountess Rothermere, the English socialite, was nicknamed Bubbles after her love of champagne, wines from the Champagne region were known before medieval times. The Romans were the first to plant vineyards in this area of north-east France, with the region being cultivated by at least the 5th century, later, churches owned vineyards and monks produced wine for use in the sacrament of Eucharist. French kings were anointed in Reims, and Champagne was served as part of coronation festivities. The Champenois were envious of the reputation of the wines made by their Burgundian neighbours to the south, however, the northerly climate of the region gave the Champenois a unique set of challenges in making red wine. At the far extremes of sustainable viticulture, the grapes would struggle to fully and often would have bracing levels of acidity. The wines would be lighter bodied and thinner than the Burgundy wines they were seeking to outdo, the oldest recorded sparkling wine is Blanquette de Limoux, which was apparently invented by Benedictine Monks in the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire, near Carcassonne in 1531. They achieved this by bottling the wine before the initial fermentation had ended, Merret presented a paper at the Royal Society, in which he detailed what is now called méthode champenoise, in 1662. French glass-makers at this time could not produce bottles of the quality or strength. As early as 1663 the poet Samuel Butler referred to brisk champagne, in France the first sparkling Champagne was created accidentally, the pressure in the bottle led it to be called the devils wine, as bottles exploded or corks popped. In 1844 Adolphe Jaquesson invented the muselet to prevent the corks from blowing out, initial versions were difficult to apply and inconvenient to remove. Even when it was produced as a sparkling wine, Champagne was for a very long time made by the méthode rurale. Champagne did not use the méthode champenoise until the 19th century, the 19th century saw an exponential growth in Champagne production, going from a regional production of 300,000 bottles a year in 1800 to 20 million bottles in 1850. In 2007, Champagne sales hit a record of 338.7 million bottles. In the 19th century Champagne was noticeably sweeter than the Champagnes of today, the trend towards drier Champagne began when Perrier-Jouët decided not to sweeten his 1846 vintage prior to exporting it to London. The designation Brut Champagne was created for the British in 1876 and they include codification of the most suitable growing places, the most suitable grape types, and a lengthy set of requirements specifying most aspects of viticulture
3.
Sancerre
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Sancerre is a medieval hilltop town, commune and canton in the Cher department of central France overlooking the Loire River. It is noted for its wine, located in the area of Gaul settled by the powerful Celtic tribe, the Bituriges, or the Kings of the World, and after their defeat at Bourges, part of Roman Aquitania. Name possibly derived from Sacred to Caesar and later Christianized to Saint-Cere, during the Carolingian period there was a small village on the hillside, clustered around the Saint Romble Church. An Augustinian abbey was founded in Saint Satur in 1034, a natural fortress 312 meters in height, Sancerre is a former feudal possession of the Counts of Champagne in the province of Berry. They built a chateau on the hill and ramparts to protect the city, the chateau had six towers including the Tower of the Strongholds and the Tower of Saint George. In times of war, a fire was lit on the top of the Saint George tower that could be seen for 40 kilometres around. The Customs of Lorris, a charter granted by Stephen I to the merchants of Sancerre was considered one of the most progressive in the Capetian kingdom, in 1184, the Count of Sancerre led a band of rebels called the Brabançons against the king. They were defeated by the Confrères de la Paix, the Confraternity of Peace, in 1190, Stephen I was among the first feudal lords to abolish serfdom. Sancerre was the seat of Joan of Arcs great comrade-in-arms, Jean V de Bueil, Sancerre was also the site of the infamous Siege of Sancerre during the Wars of Religion where the Huguenot population held out for nearly eight months against the Catholic forces of the king. The siege was one of the last times in European history where slings, the siege was documented by a Protestant minister who survived the battle, Jean de Léry, in The Memorable History of the Siege of Sancerre. In 1621 much of the chateau and city walls were destroyed by orders of the king to prevent further resistance. In 1637 the county was sold by Rene de Bueil to the Prince of Condé, Henry II of Bourbon, the area suffered economically from the mass exodus of Protestant merchants, tradesmen and others during the 17th century, especially after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. During the French Revolution, Sancerre was the site of a royalist rebellion led by Louis-Edmond de Phelippeaux – small Vendee Sancerroise, Sancerre was designated the seat of government for the district during the First Republic, but in 1926 the sous-préfecture and other administrative services were transferred to Bourges. Count Jean-Pierre de Montalivet, of Chateau de Thauvenay, Minister of the Interior under Napoleon, was a landowner in Sancerre during the 19th century. Area transportation was improved by the construction of a bridge at Saint Thibault, the Lateral Canal of the Loire and later. A mansion was built on the ruins of the original Chateau de Sancerre in 1874 by Mlle de Crussol dUzès in the style of Louis XII, in 1919, the mansion and part of the vineyards were purchased by Louis-Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle, the liqueur manufacturer. During World War I, Sancerre was the site of a military hospital, during World War II, Sancerre was a regional command center for the French Resistance. Operation Spencer” in 1944 was to prevent the Germans from crossing the Loire River between Gien and Nevers and reinforcing troops in Brittany, the French Resistance and Free French Forces blew up the bridge at Sancerre and sabotaged communication, road, canal and railway lines
4.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
5.
Portuguese language
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Portuguese is a Romance language and the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, and has kept some Celtic phonology. Portuguese is also termed the language of Camões, after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem, the museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was destroyed in a fire, but there are plans to reconstruct it, when the Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BCE, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages descend. Between 409 CE and 711 CE, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia. It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and this phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, by then reigning over Galicia. In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period, the language was used for documents. For some time, it was the language of preference for poetry in Christian Hispania. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal, in the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century, some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal. The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin, and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Portuguese. Portuguese is the language of the majority of people in Brazil and Portugal, perhaps 75% of the population of Angola speaks Portuguese natively, and 85% are fluent. Just over 40% of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, there are also significant Portuguese speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra, Bermuda, Canada, France, Japan, Jersey, Namibia, Paraguay, Macau, Switzerland, Venezuela. In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa and Daman and Diu, in 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa. Equatorial Guinea made an application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010. In 2011, Portuguese became its official language and, in July 2014. Portuguese is a subject in The school curriculum in Uruguay
6.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
7.
Wine
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Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes. These grapes are generally Vitis vinifera, or a hybrid with Vitis labrusca or Vitis rupestris, grapes are fermented without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, water, or other nutrients. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol, different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts produce different styles of wine. These variations result from the interactions between the biochemical development of the grape, the reactions involved in fermentation, the terroir. Many countries enact legal appellations intended to define styles and qualities of wine and these typically restrict the geographical origin and permitted varieties of grapes, as well as other aspects of wine production. There are also made from fermenting other fruits or cereals. Wines made from other than grapes include rice wine and various fruit wines such as those made from plums or cherries. Some well known examples are hard cider from apples, perry from pears, pomegranate wine, Wine has been produced for thousands of years. The earliest known traces of wine from Georgia in Eurasia where 8000-year-old wine jars were found and in Iran with 7, the earliest known winery is the 6, 100-year-old Areni-1 winery Armenia. Wine reached the Balkans by 4500 BC and was consumed and celebrated in ancient Greece, Thrace, throughout history, wine has been consumed for its intoxicating effects, which are evident after the normal serving size of five ounces. Wine has long played an important role in religion, the earliest chemically attested grape wine was discovered at Hajji Firuz in the northwestern Zagros Mountains dating back to 5400 BC. The earliest evidence of a fermented drink was found in Georgia, where wine residue inside ceramic jars dates from 6000 BC. The earliest evidence of a production facility is the Areni-1 winery in Armenia and is at least 6100 years old, presumably. A2003 report by archaeologists indicates a possibility that grapes were mixed with rice to produce mixed fermented beverages in China in the years of the seventh millennium BC. Pottery jars from the Neolithic site of Jiahu, Henan, contained traces of tartaric acid, however, other fruits indigenous to the region, such as hawthorn, cannot be ruled out. The spread of wine culture westwards was most probably due to the Phoenicians who spread outward from a base of city-states along the Lebanese, Syrian, the wines of Byblos were exported to Egypt during the Old Kingdom and then throughout the Mediterranean. Evidence includes two Phoenician shipwrecks from 750 BC discovered by Robert Ballard, whose cargo of wine was still intact. As the first great traders in wine, the Phoenicians seem to have protected it from oxidation with a layer of oil, followed by a seal of pinewood and resin
8.
Wine color
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The color of wine is one of the most easily recognizable characteristics of wines. Color is also an element in wine tasting since heavy wines generally have a deeper color, the accessory traditionally used to judge the wine color was the tastevin, a shallow cup allowing one to see the color of the liquid in the dim light of a cellar. The color is an element in the classification of wines, the color of the wine mainly depends on the color of the drupe of the grape variety. The Teinturier grape is an exception in that it also has a pigmented pulp, the blending of two or more varieties of grapes can explain the color of certain wines, like the addition of Rubired to intensify redness. Red drupe grapes can produce white wine if they are quickly pressed, the color is mainly due to plant pigments, notably phenolic compounds. The color depends on the presence of acids in the wine, the use of a wooden barrel in aging also affects the color of the wine. The color of a wine can be due to co-pigmentation of anthocyanidins with other non-pigmented flavonoids or natural phenols. Rosé wine is made by the practice of saignée or by blending a white wine with a red wine, the presence of a complex mixture of anthocyanins and procyanidins can increase the stability of color in wine. As it ages, the wine undergoes chemical reactions involving acetaldehyde of its pigments molecules. The newly formed molecules are stable to the effect of pH or sulfite bleaching. The new compounds include pyranoanthocyanins like vitisins, pinotins and portosins, malvidin glucoside-ethyl-catechin is a flavanol-anthocyanin adduct. Flavanol-anthocyanin adducts are formed during wine ageing through reactions between anthocyanins and tannins present in grape, with yeast metabolites such as acetaldehyde, acetaldehyde-induced reactions yield ethyl-linked species such as malvidin glucoside-ethyl-catechin. This compound has a better stability at pH5.5 than malvidin-3O-glucoside. When the pH was increased from 2.2 to 5.5, the exposure of wine to oxygen in limited quantities can be beneficial to the wine. Castavinols are another class of colorless molecules derived from colored anthocyanin pigments, in model solutions, colorless compounds, such as catechin, can give rise to new types of pigments. The first step is the formation of colorless dimeric compounds consisting of two units linked by carboxy-methine bridge. This is followed by the formation of xanthylium salt yellowish pigments and their ethylesters, resulting from the dehydration of the colorless dimers, the loss of a water molecule takes place between two A ring hydroxyl groups of the colorless dimers. The main colors of wine are, Gray, as in vin gris, orange, as in orange wine, a white wine that has spent some time in contact with its skin, giving it a slightly darker hue
9.
Red wine
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Red wine is a type of wine made from dark-colored grape varieties. The actual color of the wine can range from violet, typical of young wines, through to brick red for mature wines. Much of the production process therefore involves extraction of color and flavor components from the grape skin. The first step in red wine production, after picking, involves physical processing of the grapes, hand-picked or machine-harvested grapes are usually tipped into a receival bin when they arrive at the winery and conveyed by a screw mechanism to the grape-processing equipment. On arrival at the winery there is usually a mixture of berries, whole bunches, stems. The presence of stems during fermentation can lead to a taste in the wine. Mechanical de-stemmers usually consist of a rotating cage perforated with grape-sized holes, within this cage is a concentric axle with arms radiating towards the inner surface of the cage. Grapes pass through the holes in the cage, while stems, after destemming, the grapes are commonly lightly crushed. Crushers usually consist of a pair of rollers, and the gap between them can usually be regulated to allow for light, hard or no crushing, according to the winemakers preference, the mixture of grapes, skins, juice and seeds is now referred to as must. The must is then pumped to a vessel, often a tank made of steel or concrete, or an oak vat. In common with most modern winemaking equipment, destemmers and crushers are normally made of stainless steel The preservative sulfur dioxide is added when grapes arrive at the winery. The addition rate varies from zero, for perfectly healthy grapes, to up to 70 mg/litre, the purpose is to prevent oxidation and sometimes to delay the onset of fermentation. Macerating enzymes may also be added at this stage, to aid extraction of color and fruit flavours from the skins, tannin may be added now, later in the winemaking process, or not at all. Tannin can be added to help stabilize colour, to prevent oxidation, some winemakers prefer to chill the must to around 10°C, to allow a period of pre-fermentation maceration, of between one and four days. The idea is that color and fruit flavours are extracted into the aqueous solution and this practice is by no means universal and is perhaps more common in New World winemaking countries. Many winemakers, however, prefer to control the process more closely by adding specially selected yeasts usually of the species Saccharomyces ellipsoideous. It is also common to add yeast nutrient at this stage, soon after the must is placed in the fermentation vessel, a separation of solid and liquid phases occurs. Skins float to the surface, forming a cap, in order to encourage efficient extraction of colour and flavour components it is important to maximize contact between the cap of skins and the liquid phase
10.
Maceration (wine)
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Maceration is the winemaking process where the phenolic materials of the grape—tannins, coloring agents and flavor compounds—are leached from the grape skins, seeds and stems into the must. To macerate is to soften by soaking, and maceration is the process by which the red wine receives its red color, since 99% of all grape juice is clear-grayish in color. In the production of wines, maceration is either actively avoided or allowed in very limited manner in the form of a short amount of skin contact with the juice prior to pressing. This is more common in the production of varietals with less natural flavor and body structure like Sauvignon blanc, for Rosé, red wines grapes are allowed some maceration between the skins and must, but not to the extent of red wine production. The process of maceration begins, to varying extent, as soon as the skins are broken. Temperature is the force, with higher temperatures encouraging more breakdown and extraction of phenols from the skins. Maceration continues during the period, and can last well past the point when the yeast has converted all sugars into alcohol. The process itself is a one with compounds such as the anthocyanins needing to pass through the cell membrane of the skins to come into contact with the wine. This process seems to slow once the wine reaches a level of 10%. Throughout the fermentation process, carbon dioxide is released as a byproduct of the conversion of sugar into alcohol, the carbon dioxide seeks to escape from the must by rising to the top of the mixture, pushing the grape skins and other materials to the top as well. This forms what is known as a cap that is visible on top of the fermentation vessel and this process of pumping over or punching down the cap is done often throughout the fermentation process, depending on the extent of maceration the winemaker desires. An efficient and modern method of maceration is the process in which compressed air or gas is sequentially injected into the juice. Depending on the varietal, the process of maceration can help bring out many flavors in the wine that would otherwise be lacking and it can enhance the body and mouthfeel for many wines, as well as strengthen the color. Greater extraction can add to the complexity and life expectancy of the wine by developing more complex tannins that will soften over a period of time. With these benefits does come the risk of developing various wine faults, too much extraction can also increase the harshness of some tannins to where the wine is not very approachable to most wine drinkers. One classical method of maceration is grape stomping or pigeage, where grapes are crushed in vats by barefoot workers. This technique was popular in the production of Burgundy wines in the 1970s & 1980s but there is some debate among oenologists about the overall benefits to. Carbonic maceration is the fermentation of whole clusters of grapes in an atmosphere saturated with carbon dioxide
11.
Onion
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The onion, also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable and is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. This genus also contains several other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion, the onion. The name wild onion is applied to a number of Allium species and its ancestral wild original form is not known, although escapes from cultivation have become established in some regions. The onion is most frequently a biennial or a perennial plant, the onion plant has a fan of hollow, bluish-green leaves and its bulb at the base of the plant begins to swell when a certain day-length is reached. The bulbs are composed of shortened, compressed, underground stems surrounded by fleshy modified scale that envelop a central bud at the tip of the stem, in the autumn, the foliage dies down and the outer layers of the bulb become dry and brittle. The crop is harvested and dried and the onions are ready for use or storage, the crop is prone to attack by a number of pests and diseases, particularly the onion fly, the onion eelworm, and various fungi cause rotting. Some varieties of A. cepa, such as shallots and potato onions, Onions are cultivated and used around the world. As a food item, they are served cooked, as a vegetable or part of a prepared savoury dish. They are pungent when chopped and contain certain chemical substances which irritate the eyes, the onion plant, also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. It was first officially described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1753 work Species Plantarum, a. cepa is known exclusively from cultivation, but related wild species occur in Central Asia. The most closely related species include A. vavilovii and A. asarense from Iran, however, Zohary and Hopf state that there are doubts whether the A. vavilovii collections tested represent genuine wild material or only feral derivatives of the crop. The vast majority of cultivars of A. cepa belong to the common onion group and are referred to simply as onions. The Aggregatum group of cultivars includes both shallots and potato onions, the genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion, Egyptian onion, and Canada onion. The onion plant has grown and selectively bred in cultivation for at least 7,000 years. It is a plant, but is usually grown as an annual. Modern varieties typically grow to a height of 15 to 45 cm, the leaves are yellowish- to bluish green and grow alternately in a flattened, fan-shaped swathe. They are fleshy, hollow, and cylindrical, with one flattened side and they are at their broadest about a quarter of the way up, beyond which they taper towards a blunt tip. The base of leaf is a flattened, usually white sheath that grows out of a basal disc
12.
Winemaking
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Winemaking or vinification, is the production of wine, starting with selection of the grapes or other produce and ending with bottling the finished wine. Although most wine is made from grapes, it may also be made from fruits or plants. Mead is a wine that is made with honey being the primary ingredient after water, Winemaking can be divided into two general categories, still wine production and sparkling wine production. The science of wine and winemaking is known as oenology, a person who makes wine is traditionally called a winemaker or vintner. After the harvest, the grapes are taken into a winery, at this stage red wine making diverges from white wine making. Red wine is made from the must of red or black grapes and fermentation occurs together with the grape skins, white wine is made by fermenting juice which is made by pressing crushed grapes to extract a juice, the skins are removed and play no further role. Occasionally white wine is made from red grapes, this is done by extracting their juice with minimal contact with the grapes skins. Rosé wines are made from red grapes where the juice is allowed to stay in contact with the dark skins long enough to pick up a pinkish color or by blending red wine with white wine. White and rosé wines extract little of the contained in the skins. To start primary fermentation yeast may be added to the must for red wine or may occur naturally as ambient yeast on the grapes or in the air, yeast may be added to the juice for white wine. During this fermentation, which takes between one and two weeks, the yeast converts most of the sugars in the grape juice into ethanol. The carbon dioxide is lost to the atmosphere, after the primary fermentation of red grapes the free run wine is pumped off into tanks and the skins are pressed to extract the remaining juice and wine. The press wine is blended with the free run wine at the winemakers discretion, the wine is kept warm and the remaining sugars are converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The next process in the making of red wine is malo-lactic conversion and this is a bacterial process which converts crisp, green apple malic acid to soft, creamy lactic acid softening the taste of the wine. Red wine is transferred to oak barrels to mature for a period of weeks or months. The wine must be settled or clarified and adjustments made prior to bottling, the time from harvest to drinking can vary from a few months for Beaujolais nouveau wines to over twenty years for wine of good structure with high levels of acid, tannin or sugar. However, only about 10% of all red and 5% of white wine will taste better after five years than it will after just one year. Depending on the quality of grape and the wine style
13.
Sparkling wine
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Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it, making it fizzy. The best known example of a wine is champagne, which is exclusively produced in the Champagne region of France. The sweetness of sparkling wine can range from very dry brut styles to sweeter doux varieties, in most countries the word champagne is reserved only for the specific type of sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France. The French terms Mousseux or Crémant are used to refer to sparkling wine not made in the Champagne region, Sparkling wines are also produced in other regions of France as well as other countries around the world. Sparkling wine have also produced in Central and Eastern Europe since the early 19th-century. Champagne was further popularised in the region, late in the century, Törley has since become one of the largest European producers of sparkling wine. The United States is also a significant producer of sparkling wine today, recently production of sparkling wine have started in the United Kingdom again, after a long hiatus since some of the earliest examples of sparkling wine was produced there. Effervescence has been observed in wine throughout history and has been noted by Ancient Greek and Roman writers, over time it has been attributed to phases of the moon as well as both good and evil spirits. Dom Pérignon was originally charged by his superiors at the Abbey of Hautvillers to get rid of the bubbles since the pressure in the bottles caused many of them to burst in the cellar. The disturbance caused by one bottles disintegration could cause a chain reaction, the mysterious circumstance surrounding the then unknown process of fermentation and carbonic gas caused some critics to call the sparkling creations The Devils Wine. The British were the first to see the tendency of wines from Champagne to sparkle as a desirable trait, Wine was often transported to England in wooden wine barrels where merchant houses would then bottle the wine for sale. During the 17th century, English glass production used coal-fueled ovens and produced stronger, the English also rediscovered the use of cork stoppers, once used by the Romans but forgotten for centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. During the cold winters of the Champagne region, temperatures would drop so low that the process was prematurely halted—leaving some residual sugar. When the wine was shipped to and bottled in England, the process would restart when the weather warmed. When the wine was opened, it would be bubbly, fully sparkling wines, such as Champagne, are generally sold with 5 to 6 atmospheres of pressure in the bottle. This is nearly twice the pressure found in an automobile tire, European Union regulations define a sparkling wine as any wine with an excess of 3 atmospheres in pressure. These include German Sekt, Spanish Espumoso, Italian Spumante and French Crémant or Mousseux wines, semi-sparkling wines are defined as those with between 1 and 2.5 atmospheres of pressures and include German spritzig, Italian frizzante and French pétillant wines. While the majority of sparkling wines are white or rosé, Australia, Italy, of these Italy have the longest tradition of red sparkling wine, such as Brachetto and semi sparkling Lambrusco
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Sweetness of wine
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The subjective sweetness of a wine is determined by the interaction of several factors, including the amount of sugar in the wine, but also the relative levels of alcohol, acids, and tannins. Sugars and alcohol enhance a wines sweetness, acids and bitter tannins counteract it and these principles are outlined in the 1987 work by Émile Peynaud, The Taste of Wine. Vintage, the Story of Wine, by Hugh Johnson, presents several methods that have been used throughout history to sweeten wine, the most common way was to harvest the grapes as late as possible. This method was advocated by Virgil and Martial in Roman times, in contrast, the ancient Greeks would harvest the grapes early, to preserve some of their acidity, and then leave them in the sun for a few days to allow them to shrivel and concentrate the sugar. Stopping the fermentation also enhanced a wines potential sweetness, in ancient times, this was achieved by submerging the amphoras in cold water till winter. Wine can also be sweetened by the addition of sugar in some form, among the components influencing how sweet a wine will taste is residual sugar. It is usually measured in grams of sugar per litre of wine, residual sugar typically refers to the sugar remaining after fermentation stops, or is stopped, but it can also result from the addition of unfermented must or ordinary table sugar. Even among the driest wines, it is rare to find wines with a level of less than 1 g/L, due to the unfermentability of certain types of sugars, such as pentose. By contrast, any wine with over 45 g/L would be considered sweet, for example, the great vintages of Château dYquem contain between 100 and 150 g/L of residual sugar. The sweetest form of the Tokaji, the Eszencia – contains over 450 g/L, such wines are balanced, keeping them from becoming cloyingly sweet, by carefully developed use of acidity. This means that the finest sweet wines are made with grape varieties that keep their acidity even at very high levels, such as Riesling. How sweet a wine will taste is also controlled by such as the acidity and alcohol levels, the amount of tannin present. A sweet wine such as a Vouvray can actually taste dry due to the level of acidity. A dry wine can taste if the alcohol level is elevated. Medium and sweet wines have a perception among consumers of being of lower quality than dry wines. Süssreserve is a term referring to a portion of selected unfermented grape must, free of microorganisms. This technique was developed in Germany and is used with German-style wines such as semi-sweet Riesling or Müller–Thurgau, the technique not only raises the sugar level of the wine, but also lowers the amount of alcohol. Under German law, no more than fifteen percent of the final volume may be the reserved juice
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Provence wine
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Provence wine comes from the French wine-producing region of Provence in southeast France. The Romans called the area provincia nostra, giving the region its name, just south of the Alps, it was the first Roman province outside Italy. Wine has been made in this region for at least 2,600 years and these diverse groups introduced a large variety of grapes to the region, including grape varieties of Greek and Roman origin as well as Spanish, Italian and traditional French wine grapes. Today the region is predominantly for its rosé wine, though wine critics such as Tom Stevenson believe that regions best wines are the spicy. Rosé wine currently accounts for more than half of the production of Provençal wine, white wine is also produced in small quantities throughout the region with the Appellation dorigine contrôlée region of Cassis specializing in white wine production. The Côtes de Provence is the largest AOC followed by the Coteaux dAix-en-Provence, the Bandol region near Toulon is one of the more internationally recognized Provençal wine regions. The exact time when viticulture began in Provence is difficult to calculate, early inhabitants may have used indigenous vines to produce wine before the Phocaean Greeks settled Massalia in 600 BC. Archaeological evidence, in the form of fragments, indicate that the Greeks were producing wine in the region soon after they settled. By the time the Romans reached the area in 125 BC, at the end of the 19th century, the phylloxera epidemic reached Provence and devastated the regions viticulture. Many vineyards were slow to replant and some turned to the high yielding, Provence has a classic Mediterranean climate, with the sea forming its southern border. Mild winters are followed by warm summers with little rainfall. Sunshine is found in abundance in this region with the grapevines receiving more than 3,000 hours per year and this abundance does have the adverse effect of potentially over ripening grapes if vineyard owners are not cautious. The strong mistral wind from the north provides positive and negative influences on the viticulture, in areas where the wind is particularly strong, the ideal vineyard locations are on hillsides facing south towards the sea, with the hill providing some shelter from the mistrals strength. The soil across Provence is varied, lacking uniformity and generalization, in isolated areas, such as the Cassis AOC and near the Mediterranean coastline, are deposits of limestone and shale. These area tend to be planted with wine grapes that perform better in those soil types. Some coastal areas in the region have soils with more schist and quartz in their composition while inland there is more clay, Provence has eight major wine regions with AOC designations. The Côtes de Provence is the largest followed by Coteaux dAix-en-Provence, other significant wine regions include Les Baux-de-Provence, Coteaux Varois en Provence, Coteaux de Pierrevert, Bandol, Cassis, Bellet and Palette. Sub-appellations include the Fréjus, La Londe, Pierrefeu and Montagne Sainte-Victoire regions, the region has several vin de pays designations, with Bouches-du-Rhône, near Aix-en-Provence, being one of the most common designations seen abroad
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White Zinfandel
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White Zinfandel, often abbreviated as White Zin, is a dry to sweet, pink-colored rosé. White Zinfandel is made from the Zinfandel wine grape, which would produce a bold. White Zinfandel is not a grape variety but a method of processing Zinfandel grapes. As of February 2006, White Zinfandel accounted for 10% of all wine sold by volume, making it the third most popular varietal in the United States, Zinfandel was first made into a rosé wine in 1869 by the El Pinal Winery in Lodi, California. The resulting wine was thought of highly enough that California viticultural commissioner Charles Wetmore, in the 1970s Sutter Home Winery was a producer of premium Zinfandel red wine in the Napa Valley. The excess juice was separately fermented into a dry, almost white wine that Sutter Home called White Zinfandel, in 1975, Sutter Homes White Zinfandel experienced a stuck fermentation, a problem that occurs when the yeast dies out before consuming all of the sugar. This problem juice was set aside, some weeks later the winemaker tasted it, and preferred this accidental result, which was a sweet pink wine. This is the style became popular and today is known as White Zinfandel. Sutter Home realized they could sell far more White Zinfandel than anything they had produced to date and they remain one of the biggest producers of the wine, with annual shipments of over 4 million cases. The demand for White Zinfandel resulted in extended commercial viability of old vine Zinfandel vineyards, when the fine wine boom started in the 1980s, demand for red Zinfandel picked up considerably and these vineyards became prized for the low yields from century-old vines. With White Zinfandel outselling red Zinfandel 6,1 by volume, so Sutter Home grow grapes specifically for use in White Zinfandel, in places like the Central Valley of California. Production costs are lower and fruit quality is not as important to the final taste as it would be in a dry table wine. California wine White Merlot Oeil de perdrix, the style of wine that Sutter was making that led to White Zinfandel
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Must
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Must is freshly pressed fruit juice that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The solid portion of the must is called pomace, it makes up 7–23% of the total weight of the must. Making must is the first step in winemaking, because of its high glucose content, typically between 10 and 15%, must is also used as a sweetener in a variety of cuisines. Unlike commercially sold grape juice, which is filtered and pasteurized, must is thick with particulate matter, opaque, the length of time that the pomace stays in the juice is critical for the final character of the wine. When the winemaker judges the time to be right, the juice is drained off the pomace, yeast is added to the juice to begin the fermentation, while the pomace is often returned to the vineyard or orchard to be used as fertilizer. A portion of selected unfermented must may be kept as Süssreserve, some winemakers create a second batch of wine from the used pomace by adding a quantity of water equivalent to the juice removed, letting the mixture sit for 24 hours, and draining off the liquid. This wine may be used as a drink for the employees of the winemaker or as a basis for some pomace brandies, grappa, however, by law, must be produced only from the pomace solids, with no water added. Both the acetification and maturation take place in precious sessile oak, chestnut, oak, mulberry, the minimum maturation time is 60 days and after this period a group of expert technicians test analytic and organoleptic resulting product. This term is used by meadmakers for the unfermented honey-water mixture that becomes mead. The analogous term in beer brewing is wort, in ancient Greece, condensed must by boiling, was called siraios and was used as a sweeteners in the kitchen, in various recipes, and also as a syrup over tiganitai. From the Greeks, the Romans in ancient Rome also used the condensed must in cooking, must was boiled in lead or bronze kettles into a milder concentrate called defrutum or a stronger concentrate called sapa. It was often used as an agent and preservative, especially in fruit dishes. The Moustokoúloura, or must cookies are also popular Greek cookies, which are based on a dough made by kneading flour, olive oil, spice. They are made in shapes and sizes, and they are dark brown in color because of the must. The term petimezi is a Hellenized word of the Armenian/Trebizond term petmez and this theory has been thoroughly criticized by, among others, pharmacologist John Scarborough. Aquinas himself declared that it is forbidden to offer fresh must in the chalice, because this is unbecoming owing to the impurity of the must, but he added that in case of necessity it may be done. Aquinas himself declared, Must has already the species of wine, for its sweetness indicates fermentation and it is forbidden to offer must in the chalice, as soon as it has been squeezed from the grape, since this is unbecoming owing to the impurity of the must. But in case of necessity it may be done, for it is said by the same Pope Julius, in the passage quoted in the argument, If necessary, permission can be granted habitually, for as long as the situation that occasioned the granting of permission continues
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Pressing (wine)
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Pressing in winemaking is the process where juice is extracted from grapes. This can be done with the aid of a press, by hand, or even by the weight of the own grape berries. In white wine production, pressing usually takes place immediately after crushing or/and before primary fermentation, approximately 60-70% of the available juice within the grape berry, the free-run juice, can be released by the crushing process and doesnt require the use of the press. In practice the volume of many wines are made from 85-90% of free-run juice, the timing of pressing and the methods used will influence other decisions in the winemaking process. In white wine making, pressing usually happens immediately after harvest, here, the biggest decision will be how much pressure to apply and how much pressed juice the winemakers wants in addition to the free-run juice. Some grape varieties, such as Sémillon and Aurore have very liquidy pulps that releases juice easily without needing much pressure that could risk tearing the skins, other varieties, such as Catawba, have much tougher pulps that will require more pressing. In red wine production the timing of when to press is one of the most important decisions in the making process since that will be the moment that maceration. Some winemakers use the sugar level scale and press once the wine has reached complete dryness. Often winemakers will use taste to determine if the wine has extracted enough tannins to produce a balanced wine, in these years winemakers might press early, a process that the Australians call short vatting. Grape pulp contains a lot of pectins that create colloid coagulation with these solids that will make the difficult to stabilize. Some winemakers will use pectolytic enzymes during the process to help break down the cell walls to allow the release of more juice freely. These enzymes are used with white wines to assist in clarification. The type of pressing used and the amount of suspended solids plays a role in filtering decisions as a high amount of suspended solids can clog. The earliest wine press was likely the human foot or hand, the pressure applied by these manual means was limited and these early wines were likely pale in color and body. Eventually humans discovered that more juice could be extracted and potentially a better wine could be produced if they developed ways of pressing and it begin with the ancient Egyptians who developed a sack press made of cloth that was squeezed with the aid of a giant tourniquet. The ancient Greeks and Romans developed large wooden wine presses that utilized large beams, capstans and that style of wine press would eventually evolve into the basket press used in the Middle Ages by wine estates of the nobility and Catholic Church. There are many records that showed feudal land tenants were willing to pay a portion of their crop to use a landlords wine press if it was available. This was likely because added volume of wine that pressing could produce versus manual treading was substantial enough to justify the cost, winemaking text began recommending the use of mechanical pressings over feet treading in lagars
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Fermentation in winemaking
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The process of fermentation in winemaking turns grape juice into an alcoholic beverage. During fermentation, yeasts transform sugars present in the juice into ethanol, in winemaking, the temperature and speed of fermentation are important considerations as well as the levels of oxygen present in the must at the start of the fermentation. The natural occurrence of fermentation means it was probably first observed long ago by humans, the Latin fervere means, literally, to boil. The most common genera of yeasts found in winemaking include Candida, Klöckera/Hanseniaspora, Metschnikowiaceae, Pichia. Wild yeasts can produce high-quality, unique-flavored wines, however, they are unpredictable and may introduce less desirable traits to the wine. The cultured yeasts most commonly used in winemaking belong to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae species, the use of different strains of yeasts is a major contributor to the diversity of wine, even among the same grape variety. Alternative, non-Saccharomyces cerevisiae, yeasts are being used more prevalently in the industry to add complexity to wine. After a winery has been in operation for a number of years, the use of active dry yeasts reduces the variety of strains that appear in spontaneous fermentation by outcompeting those strains that are naturally present. The addition of cultured yeast normally occurs with the yeast first in a dried or inactive state and is reactivated in warm water or diluted grape juice prior to being added to the must. To thrive and be active in fermentation, the yeast needs access to a supply of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus as well as access to various vitamins. These components are present in the grape must but their amount may be corrected by adding nutrients to the wine. Newly formulated time-release nutrients, specifically manufactured for wine fermentations, offer the most advantageous conditions for yeast. Oxygen is needed as well, but in making, the risk of oxidation. During this process, the carbon atom is released in the form of carbon dioxide with the remaining components becoming acetaldehyde. The absence of oxygen in this process allows the acetaldehyde to be eventually converted, by reduction. During the conversion of acetaldehyde, an amount is converted, by oxidation, to acetic acid which, in excess. After the yeast has exhausted its life cycle, they fall to the bottom of the tank as sediment known as lees. The metabolism of amino acids and breakdown of sugars by yeasts has the effect of creating other biochemical compounds that can contribute to the flavor and aroma of wine
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Phenolic content in wine
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These compounds include phenolic acids, stilbenoids, flavonols, dihydroflavonols, anthocyanins, flavanol monomers and flavanol polymers. This large group of natural phenols can be separated into two categories, flavonoids and non-flavonoids. Flavonoids include the anthocyanins and tannins which contribute to the color, the non-flavonoids include the stilbenoids such as resveratrol and phenolic acids such as benzoic, caffeic and cinnamic acids. The natural phenols are not evenly distributed within the fruit, phenolic acids are largely present in the pulp, anthocyanins and stilbenoids in the skin, and other phenols in the skin and the seeds. During the growth cycle of the grapevine, sunlight will increase the concentration of phenolics in the grape berries, the proportion of the different phenols in any one wine will therefore vary according to the type of vinification. Red wines will also have the phenols found in white wines, anthocyanins react with catechins, proanthocyanidins and other wine components during wine aging to form new polymeric pigments resulting in a modification of the wine color and a lower astringency. Average total polyphenol content measured by the Folin method is 216 mg/100 ml for red wine and 32 mg/100 ml for white wine, the content of phenols in rosé wine is intermediate between that in red and white wines. In winemaking, the process of maceration or skin contact is used to increase the concentration of phenols in wine, phenolic acids are found in the pulp or juice of the wine and can be commonly found in white wines which usually do not go through a maceration period. The process of oak aging can also introduce phenolic compounds into wine, most wine phenols are classified as secondary metabolites and were not thought to be active in the primary metabolism and function of the grapevine. However, there is evidence that in some plants flavonoids play a role as regulators of auxin transport. They are water-soluble and are secreted into the vacuole of the grapevine as glycosides. Vitis vinifera produces many phenolic compounds, there is a varietal effect on the relative composition. In red wine, up to 90% of the phenolic content falls under the classification of flavonoids. These phenols, mainly derived from the stems, seeds and skins are often leached out of the grape during the period of winemaking. The amount of phenols leached is known as extraction and these compounds contribute to the astringency, color and mouthfeel of the wine. In white wines the number of flavonoids is reduced due to the contact with the skins that they receive during winemaking. There is on-going study into the benefits of wine derived from the antioxidant. Within the flavonoid category is a known as flavonols, which includes the yellow pigment - quercetin
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White wine
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White wine is a wine whose colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the fermentation of the non-coloured pulp of grapes. White wine has existed for at least 2500 years, the wide variety of white wines comes from the large number of varieties, methods of winemaking, and ratios of residual sugar. White wine is mainly from white grapes, which are green or yellow in colour, such as the Chardonnay, Sauvignon, some white wine is also made from grapes with coloured skin, provided that the obtained wort is not stained. The Pinot noir, for example, is used to produce champagne. Among the many types of wine, dry white wine is the most common. More or less aromatic and tangy, it is derived from the fermentation of the wort. Sweet wines, on the hand, are produced by interrupting the fermentation before all the grape sugars are converted into alcohol. The methods of enriching wort with sugar are multiple, on-ripening on the vine, passerillage, Sparkling wines, which are mostly white, are wines where the carbon dioxide from the fermentation is kept dissolved in the wine and becomes gas when the bottle is opened. White wines are used as an Apéritif during the meal, with dessert. They are often considered more refreshing, and lighter in style and taste than the majority of their red wine counterparts. In addition, due to their acidity, aroma, and ability to soften meat and deglaze cooking juices, epigraphy tells us about the presence of wine in the Middle East, it was produced in the High Country and then imported into Mesopotamia especially from the 3rd millennium BC. The tablets of Hattusa describes wine with the term wiyana in the Hittite language, GEŠTIN in Sumerian and it could be red, light, good wine, honeyed new, or sour. In Ancient Greece wine had already developed and used since Hippocrates. Vinous white wine and bitter white wine were used among his remedies - a sign of diversity in production at that time, in Roman times the type of viticulture practiced by the Greeks was their model for a long time and production included white wine. Rich Roman patricians organized banquets where the cost of the food was a sign of prestige, in the range of expensive products wine played a predominant role. The richest citizens built sumptuous villas in the Bay of Naples where the vine had been cultivated since its introduction by the Greeks, the aminum or ancient grape produced a sweet white wine produced as mulled wine resembling modern-day Madeira. The conquering of regions more and more to the north encouraged the Romans to cultivate the vine and to produce lighter and it also encouraged them to seek new wild varieties adaptable to these distant areas where the Mediterranean varieties showed their limits
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French wine
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French wine is produced all throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France is one of the largest wine producers in the world, French wine traces its history to the 6th century BC, with many of Frances regions dating their wine-making history to Roman times. The wines produced range from expensive high-end wines sold internationally to more modest wines usually only seen within France such as the Margnat wines were during the post war period. France is the source of grape varieties that are now planted throughout the world. French wine originated in the 6th century BC, with the colonization of Southern Gaul by Greek settlers, viticulture soon flourished with the founding of the Greek colony of Marseille. Not only did the Gauls know how to cultivate the vine, pruning creates an important distinction in the difference between wild vines and wine producing grapes. Before long, the wines produced in Gaul were exceptionally famous all around the world, the Roman Empire licensed regions in the south to produce wines. St. Martin of Tours was actively engaged in both spreading Christianity and planting vineyards, during the Middle Ages, monks maintained vineyards and, more importantly, conserved wine-making knowledge and skills during that often turbulent period. Monasteries had the resources, security, and motivation to produce a supply of wine both for celebrating mass and generating income. During this time, the best vineyards were owned by the monasteries, over time the nobility developed extensive vineyards. However, the French Revolution led to the confiscation of many of the owned by the Church. The advance of the French wine industry stopped abruptly as first Mildew and then Phylloxera spread throughout the country, indeed all of Europe. Then came an economic downturn in Europe followed by two wars, and the French wine industry didnt fully recover for decades. Meanwhile, competition had arrived and threatened the treasured French brands such as Champagne and this resulted in the establishment in 1935 of the Appellation dorigine contrôlée to protect French interests. Large investments, the economic upturn following World War II and a new generation of Vignerons yielded results in the 1970s, in 1935, numerous laws were passed to control the quality of French wine. They established the Appellation dorigine contrôlée system, which is governed by an oversight board. Consequently, France has one of the oldest systems for protected designation of origin for wine in the world, many other European systems are modelled after it. The word appellation has been put to use by countries, sometimes in a much looser meaning
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Champagne (wine region)
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The Champagne wine region is a wine region within the historical province of Champagne in the northeast of France. The area is best known for the production of the white wine that bears the regions name. EU law and the laws of most countries reserve the term Champagne exclusively for wines that come from this region located about 100 miles east of Paris, the towns of Reims and Épernay are the commercial centers of the area. Located at the edges of France, the history of the Champagne wine region has had a significant role in the development of this unique terroir. The areas proximity to Paris promoted the economic success in its wine trade but also put the villages. The principal grapes grown in the region include Chardonnay, Pinot noir, Pinot noir is the most widely planted grape in the Aube region and grows very well in Montagne de Reims. Pinot Meunier is the dominant grape in the Vallée de la Marne region, the Côte des Blancs is dedicated almost exclusively to Chardonnay. The Champagne province is located near the limits of the wine world along the 49th parallel. The high altitude and mean temperature of 10 °C creates a difficult environment for wine grapes to fully ripen. Ripening is aided by the presence of forests which helps to stabilize temperatures, the cool temperatures serve to produce high levels of acidity in the resulting grape which is ideal for sparkling wine. During the growing season, the mean July temperature is 18 °C, the average annual rainfall is 630 mm, with 45 mm falling during the harvest month of September. Throughout the year, growers must be mindful of the hazards of fungal disease, ancient oceans left behind chalk subsoil deposits when they receded 70 million years ago. Earthquakes that rocked the region over 10 million years ago pushed the marine sediments of belemnite fossils up to the surface to create the belemnite chalk terrain. The belemnite in the soil allows it to heat from the sun. This soil contributes to the lightness and finesse that is characteristic of Champagne wine, the Aube area is an exception with predominately clay based soil. The chalk is used in the construction of underground cellars that can keep the wines cool through the bottle maturation process. The tradition of crowning kings at Reims contributed to the reputation of the wines that came from this area, the Counts of Champagne ruled the area as an independent county from 950 to 1316. In 1314, the last Count of Champagne assumed the throne as King Louis X of France, the location of Champagne played a large role in its historical prominence as it served as a crossroads for both military and trade routes
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History of wine
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The earliest archaeological evidence of wine consumption yet found has been at sites in China, Georgia, Iran, and Greece. The oldest evidence of production has been found in Armenia. The altered consciousness produced by wine has been considered religious since its origin, the Greeks worshiped Dionysus or Bacchus and the Romans carried on his cult. Consumption of ritual wine was part of Jewish practice since Biblical times and, as part of the eucharist commemorating Jesuss Last Supper, Wine production and consumption increased, burgeoning from the 15th century onwards as part of European expansion. Despite the devastating 1887 phylloxera louse infestation, modern science and technology adapted and industrial wine production, the origins of wine predate written records, and modern archaeology is still uncertain about the details of the first cultivation of wild grapevines. It has been hypothesized that early humans climbed trees to pick berries, liked their sugary flavor, after a few days with fermentation setting in, juice at the bottom of any container would begin producing low-alcohol wine. According to this theory, things changed around 10. 000-8000 BC with the transition from a nomadic to a style of living. Wild grapes grow in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the northern Levant, coastal and southeastern Turkey, the fermenting of strains of this wild Vitis vinifera subsp. Sylvestris would have become easier following the development of pottery during the later Neolithic, however, the earliest evidence so far discovered dates from millennia afterwards. The earliest archaeological evidence of wine production yet found has been at sites in China, Georgia, Iran, Greece, the Iranian jars contained a form of retsina, using turpentine pine resin to more effectively seal and preserve the wine. Production spread to sites in Greater Iran and Grecian Macedonia by c. 4500 BC. The Greek site is notable for the recovery at the site of the remnants of crushed grapes, the oldest-known winery was discovered in the Areni-1 cave in Vayots Dzor, Armenia. Dated to c. 4100 BC, the site contained a press, fermentation vats, jars. Archaeologists also found V. vinifera seeds and vines, commenting on the importance of the find, McGovern said, The fact that winemaking was already so well developed in 4000 BC suggests that the technology probably goes back much earlier. The seeds were from Vitis vinifera vinifera, a still used to make wine. The cave remains date to about 4000 BC -900 years before the earliest comparable wine remains and this is what CNN wrote, Forget France. It turns out, the birthplace of wine may be in a cave in Armenia. Wine found in Armenia is considered to be at least 6100 years old, the fame of Persian wine has been well known in Ancient times
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Harvest (wine)
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The harvesting of wine grapes is one of the most crucial steps in the process of wine-making. The weather can also shape the timetable of harvesting with the threat of heat, rain, hail, in addition to determining the time of the harvest, winemakers and vineyard owners must also determine whether to use hand pickers or mechanical harvesters. The harvest season typically falls between August & October in the Northern Hemisphere and February & April in the Southern Hemisphere, with various climate conditions, grape varieties, and wine styles the harvesting of grapes could happen in every month of the calendar year somewhere in the world. In the New World it is referred to as the crush. In the Northern Hemisphere, vineyards in Cyprus begin harvesting as early as July, in California some sparkling wine grapes are harvested in late July to early August at a slightly unripe point to help maintain acidity in the wine. The majority of Northern Hemisphere harvesting occurs in late August to early October with some late harvest wine grapes being harvested throughout the autumn, in Germany, the United States and Canada, ice wine grapes can be harvested as late as January. In the Southern Hemisphere harvest can begin as early as January 1 in some of the warmer climate sites in New South Wales, Australia. The majority of Southern Hemisphere harvesting occurs between the months of February and April with some cool climate sites like Central Otago, New Zealand picking late harvest wine grapes in June. Throughout the history of wine, winemakers would use the sugar, early winemakers tasted the grapes to gauge ripeness. Modern winemakers use a refractometer to measure hi sugar levels and °Brix or titration tests to determine the acidity within the grape. In recent times there has been more of an emphasis on the ripeness of the grape, usually in the form of tannins. Currently, tasting is the way to measure tannin ripeness. The question of using mechanical harvesting versus traditional hand picking is a source of contention in the wine industry, mechanical harvesting of grapes has been one of the major changes in many vineyards in the last third of a century. First introduced commercially in the 1960s, it has adopted in different wine regions for various economic, labor. In Australia, the work force in the wine industry has made the use of mechanized labor almost a necessity. A mechanical vine harvester works by beating the vine with rubber sticks to get the vine to drop its fruit onto a belt that brings the fruit to a holding bin. As technology improves mechanical harvesters have become more sophisticated in distinguishing grape clusters from mud, leaves, despite the improvement many harvesters still have difficulties in distinguishing between ripe, healthy grapes and unripe or rotted bunches which must then be sorted out at the winemaking facility. Another disadvantage is the potential of damaging the grape skins which can cause maceration and coloring of the juice that is undesirable in the production of white, the broken skins also bring the risk of oxidation and a loss of some of the aromatic qualities in the wine
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History of the wine press
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The earliest wine press was probably the human foot or hand, crushing and squeezing grapes into a bag or container where the contents would ferment. By at least the 18th dynasty, the ancient Egyptians were employing a sack made of cloth that was squeezed with the aid of a giant tourniquet. The wines produced by these presses were usually darker, with more color extracted from the skins, in the 17th century, French traveller Sir Jean Chardin would describe a similar practice still in use thousands of years later in Georgia. The earliest evidence of deliberate winemaking is from excavation at sites like Areni-1 winery in what is now the Vayots Dzor Province of Armenia. This site, dating back to around 4000 BC included a trough that measured about 3 by 3 1/2 feet, a modified version of this sack press had the sack hung between two large poles with workers holding each pole. After the grapes were loaded into the sack, the workers would walk in opposite directions, squeezing the grapes in the bag and capturing the juice in a vat underneath the bag. This early wine press not only had the benefit of exerting pressure on the skins and extracting more juice than treading. One of the earliest known Greek wine presses was discovered in Palekastro in Crete, like most of the earlier presses, it was mainly a stone basin for treading the grapes by feet with a run off drain for the juice to flow. However, there is evidence that some of the later Cretan winemakers would use a pressing method similar to how olive oil was extracted from olives. This press would entail laying the grapes out underneath several planks of wood, the wine made from these rudimentary pressing wasnt held in high esteem by the Greeks, often tainted with impurities and having a short shelf life. Much more prized was the produced from free run juice that was released by the grapes under their own weight before any treading or pressing. This wine was believed to be the most pure and was used for medicinal purposes. In the 2nd century BC, Cato the Elder wrote a vivid and detailed account of the workings of early Roman wine presses, the press would consist of a large horizontal beam held up by two upright fixtures in the front and on upright fixture in the front. The grapes were placed under the beam with pressure was applied by a windlass that was affixed by rope to the front of the beam, rope would also be used wound around the cake of the pressed grape skins to help keep it in place. Marcus Terentius Varro, Columella and Virgil would also include descriptions of the workings of wine presses in their agricultural treatises, yet despite their frequent mentions in ancient writings and archaeological evidence showing the presence of wine presses throughout the Roman empire, their use was actually relatively rare. This was because having a press was a very expensive and large piece of equipment that most Roman farmers, outside the estate holding patricians. Instead, it was more common for Roman estates to have large tanks or trough where grapes were tread upon by feet or paddles. Varro also described in his work De re rustica a type of pressed wine known as lorca that was produced by the left over grape skins being soaked in water that was served to slaves and farm workers
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Ancient Greece and wine
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The influence of wine in ancient Greece helped Ancient Greece trade with neighboring countries and regions. Many mannerisms and cultural aspects were associated with wine and it led to great change in Ancient Greece as well. Along the way, they influenced the ancient European winemaking cultures of the Celts, Etruscans, Scythians. Viticulture has existed in Greece since the late Neolithic period, with domestic cultivation becoming widespread by the early Bronze Age, through trade with ancient Egypt, the Minoan civilization on Crete was introduced to Egyptian winemaking methods, an influence most likely imparted to Mycenaean Greece. Along with olives and grain, grapes were an important agricultural crop vital to sustenance and community development, in the Mycenaean period, wine took on greater cultural, religious and economic importance. Records inscribed on tablets in Linear B include details of wine, vineyards and wine merchants, as well as an allusion to Dionysus. Greeks embedded the arrival of winemaking culture in the mythologies of Dionysus, early remnants of amphoras show that the Mycenaeans actively traded wine throughout the ancient world in places such as Cyprus, Egypt, Palestine, Sicily and southern Italy. As the Greek city-states established colonies throughout the Mediterranean, the settlers brought grapevines with them and were active in cultivating the wild vines they encountered, Sicily and southern Italy formed some of the earliest colonies, as they were areas already home to an abundance of grapevines. The Greeks called the part of the Italian Peninsula Oenotria. Athens itself provided a large and lucrative market for wine, with significant vineyard estates forming in the Attican region and on the island of Thasos to help satisfy demand. Wine historians have theorized that the Greeks may have introduced viticulture to Spain and Portugal, the grape clusters, vines and wine cups that adorn Greek coins from classical times bear witness to the importance of wine to the ancient Greek economy. With every major trading partner, from the Crimea, Egypt, Scythia, Etruria and beyond, millions of amphora pieces bearing the unique seals of various city-states and Aegean islands have been uncovered by archaeologists, demonstrating the scope of Greek influence. It is estimated that the Greeks shipped nearly 10 million liters of wine into Gaul each year through Massalia, in 1929, the discovery of the Vix Grave in Burgundy included several artifacts demonstrating the strong ties between Greek wine traders and local Celtic villagers. The most notable of these was a large Greek-made krater, designed to hold over 1,000 litres of wine, Ancient Greeks called the cultivated vine hemeris, after their adjective for tame, differentiating it from its wild form. A massive rootstock was carved into an image of the Great Goddess. He also wrote that Laertes, father of Odysseus, had over 50 grape varieties planted in different parts of his vineyard, another innovation was the minimization of yields for more intense concentration of flavors and quality, rather than increased quantity. The economics of the time favored high yields for most crops, theophrastus also detailed the practice of using suckering and plant cuttings for new vineyard plantings. The Greeks also employed vine training with stacked plants for cultivation and harvesting
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Ancient Rome and wine
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Ancient Rome played a pivotal role in the history of wine. The earliest influences on the viticulture of the Italian peninsula can be traced to ancient Greeks, the rise of the Roman Empire saw both technological advances in and burgeoning awareness of winemaking, which spread to all parts of the empire. Romes influence has had an effect on the histories of todays major winemaking regions in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal. The Roman belief that wine was a daily necessity made the democratic and ubiquitous, in various forms, it was available to slaves, peasants, women. To ensure the supply of wine to Roman soldiers and colonists, viticulture. Many of the techniques and principles first developed in ancient Roman times can be found in modern winemaking, though wild grapevines have grown on the Italian peninsula since prehistory, historians are unable to determine precisely when domestic viticulture and winemaking first occurred. It is possible that the Mycenaean Greeks had some influences through early settlements in southern Italy, viticulture was widely entrenched in Etruscan civilization, which was centered around the modern winemaking region of Tuscany. Southern Italys abundance of indigenous vines provided an opportunity for wine production, giving rise to the Greek name for the region. The Greek settlements of southern Italy were completely under Roman control by 270 BC, the Etruscans, who had already established trade routes into Gaul, were completely conquered by the 1st century BC. The Punic Wars with Carthage had a marked effect on Roman viticulture. In addition to broadening the horizons of the Roman citizenry, Carthaginians also introduced them to advanced viticultural techniques. Although his work did not survive to the era, it has been extensively quoted in the influential writings of Romans Pliny, Columella, Varro. For most of Romes winemaking history, Greek wine was the most highly prized, the 2nd century BC saw the dawn the golden age of Roman winemaking and the development of grand cru vineyards. The famous vintage of 121 BC became known as the Opimian vintage, remarkable for its abundant harvest and the unusually high quality of wine produced, some of the vintages best examples were being enjoyed over a century later. Pliny the Elder wrote extensively about the first growths of Rome—most notably Falernian, Alban and Caecuban wines, around Rome itself were the estates of Alban, Sabinum, Tiburtinum, Setinum and Signinum. Southward to Naples were the estates of Caecuban, Falernian, Caulinum, Trebellicanum, Massicum, Gauranium, in Sicily was the first-growth estate of Mamertinum. At this high point in the history of wine, it was estimated that Rome was consuming over 180 million litres of wine annually. One of the most important wine centres of the Roman world was the city of Pompeii, the area was home to a vast expanse of vineyards, serving as an important trading city with Roman provinces abroad and the principal source of wine for the city of Rome
29.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Bordeaux wine
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Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world. The vast majority of wine produced in Bordeaux is red, with white wines, dry whites. Bordeaux wine is made by more than 8,500 producers or châteaux, there are 54 appellations of Bordeaux wine. The wine was introduced to the Bordeaux region by the Romans, probably in the mid-1st century, to wine for local consumption. In the 12th century, the popularity of Bordeaux wines in England increased dramatically following the marriage of Henry Plantagenet, the marriage made the province of Aquitaine part of the Angevin Empire, and thenceforth the wine of Bordeaux was exported to England. At this time, Graves was the wine region of Bordeaux. This accounts for the ubiquity of claret in England, the export of Bordeaux was interrupted by the outbreak of the Hundred Years War between France and England in 1337. By the end of the conflict in 1453 France had repossessed the province, Malbec was the dominant grape here, until the early 19th century, when it was replaced by Cabernet Sauvignon. In 1855, the châteaux of Bordeaux were classified, this classification remains widely used today, from 1875–1892 almost all Bordeaux vineyards were ruined by Phylloxera infestations. The regions wine industry was rescued by grafting native vines on to pest-resistant American rootstock, the major reason for the success of winemaking in the Bordeaux region is an excellent environment for growing vines. The geological foundation of the region is limestone, leading to a structure that is heavy in calcium. These rivers define the geographical subdivisions of the region, The right bank, situated on the right bank of Dordogne, in the northern parts of the region. Entre-Deux-Mers, French for between two seas, the area between the rivers Dordogne and Garonne, both of which are tidal, in the centre of the region. The left bank, situated on the bank of Garonne, in the west and south of the region. The left bank is further subdivided into, Graves, the upstream of the city Bordeaux. Médoc, the downstream of the city Bordeaux, situated on a peninsula between Gironde and the Atlantic. The soil of Bordeaux is composed of gravel, sandy stone, the regions best vineyards are located on the well-drained gravel soils that are frequently found near the Gironde river. An old adage in Bordeaux is the best estates can see the river from their vineyards, the majority of land facing riverward is occupied by classified estates
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Hugh Johnson (wine writer)
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Hugh Johnson OBE is a British author and expert on wine. He is considered the worlds best-selling wine writer and his 1964 tasting of a bottle of 1540 Steinwein from the German vineyard Würzburger Stein is considered to potentially be one of the oldest wines to have ever been tasted. Johnson became a member of the Cambridge University Wine and Food Society while an undergraduate at Kings College, Cambridge in the 1950s, both were, I am sure, red Burgundy, but one was magic and one was ordinary. From 1968 to 1970 he edited Queen magazine in succession to Jocelyn Stevens and he has published a wide array of books, starting with the publication of Wine in 1966. The publication of The World Atlas of Wine in 1971, was considered the first serious attempt to map the worlds wine regions, since its launch in 1973 Johnson has been President of The Sunday Times Wine Club, part of Laithwaites, now the worlds largest mail-order wine merchant. In 1986 he started The Hugh Johnson Collection, which sold wine glasses and other related to wine, mainly in the Far East, with a shop in St Jamess Street. His vintage – The Story of Wine – an authoritative 500-page compendium was first published in 1989 by Octopus and it also was made into a 13-part TV series for Channel 4 and Boston P. B. S. Since 1977 he has compiled his annual Pocket Wine Book, selling many copies in up to 14 languages. In a parallel career, in 1973 Johnson wrote The International Book of Trees, in 1975 became Editorial Director of The Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society and its columnist, trads Diary, now in its 37th year, appears online and in Hortus magazine. In 1979 he published The Principles of Gardening and in 2010 a new edition of Trees. Trads Diary has twice been anthologised as Hugh Johnson on Gardening, Johnson is known as one of the wine worlds most vocal opponents to awarding numerical scores to wine. In 2005 Johnson stated, Imperial hegemony lives in Washington and the dictator of taste in Baltimore
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History of Champagne
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The history of Champagne has seen the wine evolve from being a pale, pinkish still wine to the sparkling wine now associated with the region. The Romans were the first to plant vineyards in this area of northeast France, with the region being cultivated by at least the 5th century, the early wine of the Champagne region was a pale, pinkish wine made from Pinot noir. The Champenois were envious of the reputation of the wines made from their Burgundian neighbours to the south, however the northerly climate of the region gave the Champenois a unique set of challenges in making red wine. At the far extremes of sustainable viticulture, the grapes would struggle to fully and often would have bracing levels of acidity. The wines were lighter bodied and thinner than the Burgundies, furthermore, the cold winter temperatures prematurely halted fermentation in the cellars, leaving dormant yeast cells that would awaken in the warmth of spring and start fermenting again. One of the byproducts of fermentation is the release of carbon dioxide gas, the pressure inside the weak, early French wine bottles often caused the bottles to explode, creating havoc in the cellars. If the bottle survived, the wine was found to contain bubbles, something that the early Champenois were horrified to see, considering it a fault. As late as the 17th century, Champenois wine makers, most notably the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon, were trying to rid their wines of the bubbles. While the Champenois and their French clients preferred their Champagne to be pale and still, the sparkling version of Champagne continued to grow in popularity, especially among the wealthy and royal. Following the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715, the court of Philippe II, in the 19th century these obstacles were overcome, and the modern Champagne wine industry took form. The fortunes of the Champenois and the popularity of Champagne grew until a series of setbacks in the early 20th century. The modern era, however, has seen a resurgence of the popularity of Champagne, the Romans were the first known inhabitants to plant vineyards in the Champagne region. The name Champagne comes from the Latin campania and referred to the similarities between the hills of the province and the Italian countryside of Campania located south of Rome. While vineyards were planted earlier, the first recorded vineyard belonged to St. Remi in the 5th century. For most of the early history, the wines from Champagne were not known as Champagne or even vin de Champagne. Rather they were known as vins de Reims and vins de la rivère in reference to the Marne river which provided a trade route via the Seine with Paris. In 987, Hugh Capet was crowned King of France at the cathedral Reims, at the coronation banquet, the local wines of the regions were served. The city became known as the capital of France and for the next eight centuries, monarchs would follow the tradition of Capet
33.
Sambucus
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Sambucus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae. The various species are commonly called elder or elderberry, the genus was formerly placed in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, but was reclassified due to genetic and morphological comparisons to Adoxa. In Sambucus, there are between 5 and 30 species of shrubs, small trees and herbaceous perennial plants. The genus occurs in temperate to subtropical regions of the world, more widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, its Southern Hemisphere occurrence is restricted to parts of Australasia and South America. Many species are cultivated for their ornamental leaves, flowers. The leaves are pinnate with 5–9 leaflets, each leaf is 5–30 cm long, and the leaflets have serrated margins. They bear large clusters of white or cream-colored flowers in late spring. Sambucus australis Sambucus canadensis Sambucus cerulea, western North America, dark blue-black berries with glaucous bloom on surface, Sambucus javanica Sambucus nigra This is the species most often used medicinally. The flowers are in rounded panicles, but the berries are black, it is a small shrub, some botanists include it in the red-berried elder group. The flowers are in rounded panicles, and the berries are red, they are smaller shrubs. The flowers are in rounded panicles, and the white or yellow. Sambucus adnata Sambucus ebulus Other species, Sambucus melanocarpa Gray Sambucus neomexicana Wooton Sambucus velutina Dur, ornamental varieties of Sambucus are grown in gardens for their showy flowers, fruits and lacy foliage. Native species of elderberry are often planted by people wishing to support native butterfly, elderberry fruit or flowers are used as dietary supplements for minor diseases such as flu, colds, constipation, and other conditions, often served as a tea, extract, or in a capsule. There is insufficient research to know its effectiveness for such uses or its safety profile, raw elderberries are 80% water, 18% carbohydrates, and less than 1% each of protein and fat. In a 100 gram amount, elderberries supply 73 calories and are a source of vitamin C. Elderberries also have moderate contents of vitamin B6 and iron, with no other nutrients in significant content, the French, Austrians and Central Europeans produce elderflower syrup, commonly made from an extract of elderflower blossoms, which is added to Palatschinken filling instead of blueberries. People throughout much of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe use a method to make a syrup which is diluted with water. In Germany, yoghurt desserts are made both the berries and the flowers
34.
Burgundy (wine)
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Burgundy wine is wine made in the Burgundy region in eastern France, in the valleys and slopes west of the Saône, a tributary of the Rhône. The most famous wines produced here—those commonly referred to as Burgundies—are dry red wines made from Pinot noir grapes, red and white wines are also made from other grape varieties, such as Gamay and Aligoté, respectively. Small amounts of rosé and sparkling wines are produced in the region. Burgundy has a number of appellations dorigine contrôlée than any other French region. The various Burgundy AOCs are classified from carefully delineated Grand Cru vineyards down to more non-specific regional appellations, the practice of delineating vineyards by their terroir in Burgundy goes back to medieval times, when various monasteries played a key role in developing the Burgundy wine industry. The Burgundy region runs from Auxerre in the north to Mâcon in the south, Chablis, a white wine made from Chardonnay grapes, is produced in the area around Auxerre. Other smaller appellations near to Chablis include Irancy, which produces red wines and Saint-Bris, eighty-five miles southeast of Chablis is the Côte dOr, where Burgundys most famous and most expensive wines originate, and where all Grand Cru vineyards of Burgundy are situated. The wine-growing part of area in the heart of Burgundy is just 40 kilometres long. The relatively ordinary Village wines are produced from the flat territory nearer the villages, the Côte de Nuits contains 24 out of the 25 red Grand Cru appellations in Burgundy, while all but one of the regions white Grand Cru wines are in the Côte de Beaune. This is explained by the presence of different soils, which favour Pinot noir and Chardonnay, below the Côte Chalonnaise is the Mâconnais region, known for producing large quantities of easy-drinking and more affordable white wine. Further south again is the Beaujolais region, famous for fruity red wines made from Gamay grapes, Burgundy experiences a continental climate characterized by cold winters and hot summers. The weather is unpredictable, with rains, hail. Because of this climate, vintages from Burgundy vary considerably, the earliest recorded praise of the wines of Burgundy was written in 591 by Gregory of Tours, who compared it to the Roman wine Falernian. Monks and monasteries of the Roman Catholic Church have had an important influence on the history of Burgundy wine, the first known donation of a vineyard to the church was by king Guntram in 587, but the influence of the church became important in Charlemagnes era. The Benedictines, through their Abbey of Cluny founded in 910, another order which exerted influence was the Cistercians, founded in 1098 and named after Cîteaux, their first monastery, situated in Burgundy. The Cistercians created Burgundys largest wall-surrounded vineyard, the Clos de Vougeot, more importantly, the Cistercians, extensive vineyard owners as they were, were the first to notice that different vineyard plots gave consistently different wines. They therefore laid the earliest foundation for the naming of Burgundy crus, the only part of Burgundy which could reach Paris in a practical way was the area around Auxerre by means of the Yonne. This area includes Chablis, but had more extensive vineyards until the 19th century
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Flemish
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The term Flemish is used in at least five ways. These are, in order of increasing order, as an informal term meaning Dutch language in Belgium. Linguists tend to avoid the use of the term Flemish in this context, as a synonym for the so-called intermediate speech known as tussentaal. to denote any of the local Dutch dialects anywhere in the Flanders region. There are four principal Dutch dialects in the Flemish region, Brabantian, East Flemish, the latter two are sometimes considered separate languages. Despite its name, Brabantian is the dominant contributor to the Flemish Dutch tussentaal, the combined region, culture, and people of Dutch-speaking Belgium has come to be known as Flemish. Flemish is also used to refer to one of the languages spoken in the former County of Flanders. Linguistically and formally, Flemish refers to the region, culture, Flemish people speak Dutch in Flanders, the Flemish part of Belgium. Belgian Dutch is slightly different from Dutch spoken in The Netherlands, mainly in pronunciation, lexicon, similar differences exist within other languages, such as English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The differences are not significant enough to constitute an individual language, Dutch is the majority language in northern Belgium, being spoken natively by three-fifths of the population. It is one of the three languages of Belgium, together with French and German, and is the only official language of the Flemish Region. The various Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium contain a number of lexical, as in the Netherlands, the pronunciation of Standard Dutch is affected by the native dialect of the speaker. All Dutch dialect groups spoken in Belgium are spoken in adjacent areas of the Netherlands as well, East Flemish forms a continuum with both Brabantic and West Flemish. Standard Dutch is primarily based on the Hollandic dialect and to an extent on Brabantian. Among vowels is the diphthong ou / au, ou as in bout and au as in fauna is realized as in formal situations. In informal situations, the sound tends to be pronounced as or as a monophthong, depending on the dialect, in contrast, these are generally pronounced as in the north and middle parts of the Netherlands. Among consonants, the northern Dutch pronunciation of w is, in some southern Dutch dialects it is or, probably the most obvious difference between northern and southern Dutch is in the sounds spelled ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨g⟩. The sound spelled ⟨ch⟩ is a velar fricative in northern Dutch. ⟨w⟩ realised as ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨g⟩ pronounced as front-velars, not as palatals, Belgian Dutch includes different French loanwords in its vocabulary compared to Netherlands Dutch
36.
Partridge
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Partridges are medium-sized non-migratory gamebirds, with a wide native distribution throughout the Old World, including Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa. They are sometimes grouped in the Perdicinae subfamily of the Phasianidae and these are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to the steppes of Europe, Asia, Africa. Nowadays they are found nesting on agricultural land. They nest on the ground and have a diet consisting of seeds, species such as the grey partridge and the red-legged partridge are popular as game birds, and are often reared in captivity and released for the purpose of hunting. For the same reason, they have been introduced into areas of North America. According to Greek legend, the first partridge appeared when Daedalus threw his nephew, Perdix, supposedly mindful of his fall, the bird does not build its nest in the trees, nor take lofty flights and avoids high places. The most famous reference to the partridge is in the Christmas carol, the first gift listed is a partridge in a pear tree, and these words end each verse. Since partridges are unlikely to be seen in pear-trees it has suggested that the text in a pear tree is a corruption of the French une perdrix. The partridge has also used as a symbol that represents Kurdish nationalism. Sherko Kurmanj discusses the paradox of symbols in Iraq as an attempt to make a distinction between the Kurds and the Arabs. He says that while Iraqis generally regards the palm tree, falcon, and sword as their symbols, the Kurds consider the Oak, Partridge
37.
Oeil de perdrix
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Oeil de Perdrix is a rosé wine produced in Switzerland. The name Œil de perdrix means eye of partridge in French, until about a century ago, it was common for vineyards to have the red and white grapes unseparated unlike today where each vineyard has a unique grape. This gave white wine, red wine and what was called grey wine because the wine was neither white nor red, with the modernization of viticulture and separation of grapes the term Oeil de Perdrix disappeared in France but remained in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The Canton of Neuchâtel would export the Oeil de Perdix primarily to the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland but also to other cantons, namely to the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, after the Second World War, the latter decided to start producing their own Oeil de Perdrix. The early origins of the American wine White Zinfandel can be traced to a California winemakers attempt at making an Oeil de Perdrix style wine, during this period the Champenois were in competition with the Burgundy wine region for the favor of the Royal court and the lucrative Paris market. Red wine was popular during this period and the northern location of the Champagne region had difficulties competing with the more fuller bodied wines of Burgundy. Winemakers in Aÿ, Marne began experimenting with creating a fuller bodied white wine from red grapes that the Champenois could uniquely market. Oeil de Perdrix is a speciality of the area around Neuchâtel in Switzerland. It has a presence in Swiss wine as a dry rose style made from the free run juices of Pinot noir. The wine is meant to be chilled and consumed young, vin gris is a more general term to describe white wine made from the black Pinot noir grapes. Currently, Oeil de Perdrix is an AOC wine and can only be produced in the designated AOC region Perhaps the most successful Oeil de Perdrix wine was made from Zinfandel at Sutter Home Winery. In 1975, this wine experienced a stuck fermentation, and the pink, sweet style of White Zinfandel, that would go on to enjoy massive commercial success, was thus accidentally born
38.
Swiss wine
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White grapes varieties are grown on 42% of the countrys vineyard surface, and red grape varieties on 58%. Nearly all the production is drunk within the national boundaries. Switzerland ranks in the top 10 of per capita consumption of wine, the tradition of wine and viticulture in Switzerland is very old, at minimum from the Roman era. The first bottle, made in ceramic, was found near Sembrancher, an inscription on the bottle indicates that it contained wine. Around the 150s BC, in the Celtic era, the people in Valais offered wine to the dead, after a century, the Roman amphorae also appeared. Swiss wines must be labeled to show their geographic origin, the regions include, the Vaud, Valais, Neuchatel, Ticino and Thurgau. The two most common varieties in Switzerland are the red Pinot noir at around 30% and the white Chasselas at around 27%. A large number of varieties are cultivated in Switzerland, many of them indigenous or regional specialties. Some 90 grape varieties are cultivated on an area of 1 ha or more, other grapes grown in Switzerland include hybrid varieties like Muscat bleu which had 3 hectares in cultivation for commercial winemaking 2009. Wines were usually labelled by their village of origin, by grape variety, from the early 1990s, though, a French-style Appellation dOrigine Contrôlée system has started to be implemented, starting in some of the French-speaking cantons. These regulations are implemented by the cantons themselves. Over the years, the Swiss have developed a number of unique specialty wines from grapes rarely found outside Switzerland, the wines are primarily made from the Swiss wine grape Rèze in Valais canton. Category, Wine regions of Switzerland Oeil de Perdrix, Swiss wine style Old World wine Documentary about Heroic Viticulture in Valais
39.
Zinfandel
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Zinfandel is a variety of black-skinned wine grape. The variety is grown in over 10 percent of California vineyards, the grape found its way to the United States in the mid-19th century, where it became known by variations of the name Zinfandel, a name which is probably of Austrian origin. The grapes typically produce a robust red wine, although in the United States a semi-sweet rosé wine called White Zinfandel has six times as many sales as the red wine, the grapes high sugar content can be fermented into levels of alcohol exceeding 15 percent. The taste of the red wine depends on the ripeness of the grapes from which it is made, archaeological evidence indicates that domestication of Vitis vinifera occurred in the Caucasus region around 6000 BCE, and winemaking was discovered shortly after that. Cultivation of the vine spread to the Mediterranean and surrounding regions. Croatia once had several indigenous varieties related to Zinfandel, which formed the basis of its industry in the 19th century. This diversity suggests that the grapes have grown in Croatia longer than anywhere else. The first documented use of the term Primitivo appears in Italian governmental publications of the 1870s, the name derives from the terms primativus or primaticcio, which refer to the grapes tendency to ripen earlier than other varieties. Primitivo is now thought to have been introduced as a distinct clone into the Apulia region of Italy in the 18th century. Don Francesco Filippo Indellicati, the priest of the church at Gioia del Colle near Bari, selected an early ripening plant of the Zagarese variety and this clone ripened at the end of August and became widespread throughout northern Apulia. Cuttings came to the other great Primitivo DOC as part of the dowry of the Countess Sabini of Altamura when she married Don Tommaso Schiavoni-Tafuri of Manduria in the late 19th century. George Gibbs, a horticulturist on Long Island, received shipments of grapes from Schönbrunn, sullivan suggests that the Black Zinfardel of Hungary mentioned by William Robert Prince in A Treatise on the Vine may have referred to one of Gibbss 1829 acquisitions. Webster suggests that the name is a modification of the Hungarian tzinifándli, which derives from the German Zierfandler, Gibbs visited Boston in 1830, and Samuel Perkins of that city began selling Zenfendal soon afterward. In 1830, Gibbs also supplied Prince with Black St. Peters, a variety that may have come from England. Little is known about this vine, except that the Black St. Peters that arrived in California in the 1850s was the same as what became known as Zinfandel by the 1870s. The first reference to making wine from Zinfindal appears in John Fisk Allens Practical Treatise in the Culture, meanwhile, the fad of hothouse cultivation faded in the 1850s as attention turned to the Concord and other grape varieties that could be grown outdoors in Boston. Prince and other such as Frederick W. Macondray joined the California Gold Rush in the 1850s. Princes notebook records that the grape dried perfectly to Raisin and that he believed his Zinfandel was the same as the Black Sonora he found in California
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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Portuguese wine
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Portuguese wine is the result of traditions introduced to the region by ancient civilizations, such as the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and mostly the Romans. Portugal started to export its wines to Rome during the Roman Empire, modern exports developed with trade to England after the Methuen Treaty in 1703. From this commerce a wide variety of wines started to be grown in Portugal, and, in 1758, one of the first wine-producing region of the world, the Região Demarcada do Douro was created under the orientation of Marquis of Pombal, in the Douro Valley. Portugal has two wine producing regions protected by UNESCO as World Heritage, the Douro Valley Wine Region, Portugal has a big variety of local kinds, producing a very wide variety of different wines with distinctive personality. Romans did much to expand and promote viticulture in their settlements in the province of Lusitania, Wines were produced across the territory for both local consumption as well as export to Rome. During the Reconquista in the 12th and 13th centuries, with the populating of the conquered territories, during this period, some new varieties were added to the ancient ones, from Burgundy came the French varieties. And during the period of discoveries, Henry the Navigator brought to the newly discovered island of Madeira the Moscatel, in the Reign of King Carlos, the Região Demarcada do Vinho Verde and the Região Demarcada do Dão among Colares, Carcavelos, Setúbal, and Madeira were created. In 1979, Bairrada was added and in 1980 the Algarve region was finally demarcated, in 1998, the Alentejo region was demarked by the gathering several smaller demarked regions created in 1995. Portugal has an array of native varietals, producing an abundant variety of different wines. Dão - Red castas Touriga Nacional, Alfrocheiro, Aragonez, Jaen e Rufete, White castas Encruzado, Bical, Cercial, Malvasia Fina, Verdelho. Bairrada - Red casts Baga, Alfrocheiro, Camarate, Castelão, Jaen, Touriga Nacional, Aragonez, white castas Maria Gomes, Arinto, Bical, Cercial, Rabo de Ovelha, bucelas - White castas Arinto, Sercial e Rabo de Ovelha. Colares - Red casta Ramisco, White casta Malvasia Carcavelos - Red castas Castelão and Preto Martinho, White castas Galego Dourado, Ratinho, Setúbal - Red casta Moscatel Roxo, white casta Moscatel de Setúbal. Madeira - Red castas Bastardo, Tinta, Malvasia Cândida Roxa, Verdelho Tinto e Tinta Negra, white castas Sercial, Malvasia Fina, Malvasia Cândida, Folgasão, Verdelho. The appellation system of the Douro region was created two hundred years before that of France, in order to protect its superior wines from inferior ones. The quality and great variety of wines in Portugal are due to noble castas, microclimates, soils and these wines are labeled D. O. C. which secures a superior quality. Table Wines - Vinho de Mesa carries with it only the producer, Vinho Verde, This region is mainly in the Minho province and is in the extreme north-west of Portugal. There are six areas, Monção Lima Braga Penafiel Basto Amarante Vinho Verde derived its name from the fact that the grapes used are green meaning slightly under-ripe, Vinho Verde wines are now largely exported, and are the most exported Portuguese wines after the Port Wine. The most popular variety in Portugal and abroad are the white wines and it has more alcohol than the other varieties
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Mateus (wine)
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Mateus is a brand of medium-sweet frizzante rosé wine produced in Portugal. The brand was created in 1942 and production began at the end of World War II, the wine was especially styled to appeal to the rapidly developing North American and northern European markets. Production grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s and by the late 1980s, supplemented by a white version, at that time, worldwide sales were 3.25 million cases per year. The wine continues to be sold, however, in its distinctive narrow-necked, flask-shaped bottle, with unique baroque historic mansion label and real cork stopper. In 2014 the company launched its Expressions range comprises three rosé wines – Baga and Shiraz, Baga and Muscat and Aragonez and Zinfandel – and one white wine – a Maria Gomes, Mateus Rose was among the alcoholic beverages which were stockpiled in the cellars of Saddam Husseins palaces. The wine is mentioned in the lyrics of the 1973 Elton John song Social Disease, I get juiced on Mateus, a bottle of Mateus can be seen in the cover photograph of Graham Nashs 1973 album Wild Tales, positioned on the mantelpiece just behind Nashs head. In Mike Sagers May 1989 Los Angeles Times article The Devil and John Holmes, the porn stars ex-wife Sharon confides, On their first date, hed brought a bottle of Mateus. Sharon had watched through the window as he picked them from a front yard. In the 1978 film Animal House, at the home of English professor Professor Dave Jennings, where some grass is to be consumed, the original Frontier Airlines featured complimentary Mateus wine as part of its meal service on selected flights and advertised this fact. In season 6 episode 20 of Frasier, Dr. Nora Piper Laurie has the line you thought you could leave me to rot in that dump with barely enough cash for a bottle of Mateus, lancers Robinson, Jancis The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford, Oxford University Press, second edition,1999
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Stuck fermentation
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A stuck fermentation occurs in brewing beer or winemaking when the yeast become dormant before the fermentation has completed. Once the fermentation is stuck, it is difficult to restart due to a chemical compound released by dying yeast cells that inhibit the future growth of yeast cells in the batch. These steps that winemakers may take to prevent a stuck fermentation will each have their own subtle or dramatic effect on the resulting flavors, a team of researchers including UC Davis yeast geneticist Linda Bisson has discovered a biochemical communication system behind this problem. The discovery of this really gives us a clue to how stuck fermentations can be avoided, said Bisson. Our goal now is to find yeast strains that essentially ignore the signal initiated by the bacteria and do not form the prion and this type of prion-based inheritance is useful to organisms when they need to adapt to environmental conditions but not necessarily permanently, Bisson said. In this case, the changes triggered by the prions enable the yeast to also change back to their initial mode of operation if environmental conditions should change again. The researchers demonstrated in this study that the leading to a stuck fermentation benefits both the bacteria and the yeast. Solutions for winemakers Now that this communication mechanism between the bacteria and yeast is more understood, winemakers should be better able to avoid stuck fermentations. They also can be careful about blending grapes from vineyards known to have certain bacterial strains or they could add yeast strains that have the ability to overpower these vineyard bacteria, there are several potential instigators of a stuck fermentation. One of the most common found in winemaking is a nitrogen deficient must, nitrogen is a vital nutrient in the growth and development of yeasts and is usually provided from the wine grapes themselves. Another cause rooted in the vineyard is from overripe grapes, grapes that are overripe will have high levels of sugars that translates into higher alcohol content. Yeast are unable to reproduce in an environment with 16-18% ABV, a byproduct of the energy created during fermentation is heat which raises the temperature of the fermenting must as the yeast work. When temperatures near 104°F, activity slows and yeast start to die, if temperatures stay high and the yeast stop reproducing then the fermentation is at grave risk of getting stuck. Modern winemaking equipment includes temperature control mechanisms such as stainless steel fermenting tanks with a jacket to help regulate temperatures. Another potential cause is a combination of lack of oxygen and yeast nutrients found in the lipids suspended in grape solids, in the absence of oxygen, yeast will seek out the lipids in grape solid as a source of nutrients to sustain its activity. If the wine is lacking grape solids then the yeast are at risk of starving and causing the fermentation to get stuck. This risk is lower for red wines which are fermented with their skins in open air containers or oak wine barrels which provide plenty of oxygen. There are various techniques that a winemaker can employ to minimize the chances of a stuck fermentation happening, the most common is to use a cultured yeast strain with a high alcohol and high temperature tolerance coupled by diligent control of the fermentation temperature
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Yeast in winemaking
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The role of yeast in winemaking is the most important element that distinguishes wine from grape juice. In the absence of oxygen, yeast converts the sugars of wine grapes into alcohol, the more sugars in the grapes, the higher the potential alcohol level of the wine if the yeast are allowed to carry out fermentation to dryness. Sometimes winemakers will stop fermentation early in order to some residual sugars. If fermentation is stopped, such as when the yeasts become exhausted of available nutrients. Despite its widespread use which often includes deliberate inoculation from cultured stock, grapes brought in from harvest are usually teeming with a variety of wild yeast from the Kloeckera and Candida genera. These yeasts often begin the process almost as soon as the grapes are picked when the weight of the clusters in the harvest bins begin to crush the grapes. For most of the history of wine, winemakers did not know the mechanism that somehow converted sugary grape juice into alcoholic wine and this history is preserved in the etymology of the word yeast itself which essentially means to boil. In the mid-19th century, the French scientist Louis Pasteur was tasked by the French government to study what made some wines spoil. His work, which would lead to Pasteur being considered one of the Fathers of Microbiology. The yeast species commonly known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae was first identified in late 19th century enology text as Saccharomyces ellipsoideus due to the shape of the cells. Throughout the 20th century, more than 700 different strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were identified, some of these difference include the vigor or speed of fermentation, temperature tolerance, the production of volatile sulfur compounds and other compounds that may influence the aroma of the wine. The primary role of yeast is to convert the present in the grape must into alcohol. It is through this process of fermentation that ethanol is released by the yeast cells as a waste product and this includes glycerol which is produced when an intermediate of the glycolysis cycle is reduced to recharge the NADH enzyme needed to continue other metabolic activities. This is usually produced early in the process before the mechanisms to reduce acetaldehyde into ethanol to recharge NADH becomes the cells primary means of maintaining redox balance. This includes selecting yeast strains that favor glycerol production, increased oxygen exposure, other by-products of yeast include, Methanol – Caused by the demethylation of pectins in the must by enzymes of the yeast. More commonly found in red wines than white but only in small amounts between 20–200 mg/L. Fusel oils – Formed by the decomposition of amino acids by the yeast, succinic acid – Like glycerol, this is often formed early in fermentation. Usually found in concentrations of 500–1200 mg/L, it is an acid in the overall acidity of wine
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