Grapes and styles Flashcards
1
Q
Merlot Taste Bordeaux
A
medium to pronounced intensity fruit (strawberry and red plum with herbaceous flavours in cooler years;
cooked blackberry, black plum in hot years),
medium tannins
medium to high alcohol
1
Q
Merlot Vine Characteristics
A
- Early budding and mid ripening,
- It is susceptible to coulure, drought and botrytis bunch rot, making sorting necessary to maintain quality.
- All these hazards can reduce yields.
2
Q
Cabernet Sauvignon Vine Characteristics
A
- late budding variety, giving it some protection from spring frosts.
- It is a small-berried thick-skinned variety with high tannin content, resulting in wines with high tannins.
- It is prone to fungal diseases, especially powdery mildew and the trunk diseases, Eutypa and Esca.
- It ripens late (and hence needs to be grown on warmer soils), making it vulnerable to early autumn rains.
- It produces the highest quality fruit on warm, well-drained soils, such as the gravel beds of the Médoc
3
Q
Cabernet Sauvignon Taste (bordeaux)
A
- Pronounced violet, blackcurrant, black cherry and menthol or herbaceous flavours,
- Medium alcohol,
- High acidity and tannins
- In cooler seasons in Bordeaux, especially in the past with a cooler climate, growers could struggle to ripen Cabernet Sauvignon fully, resulting in wines with high acidity, unripe tannins and little fruit. As a result, and due to Cabernet Franc and Merlot’s earlier ripening, it was and still is regularly blended with these two varieties.
4
Q
Petit Verdot Vine Characteristics
A
- This variety buds early and ripens even later than Cabernet Sauvignon, making it unpopular with growers in the past in Bordeaux. It is also prone to spring frosts, a failure to ripen in cool years and to rain around harvest.
5
Q
Petit Verdot Taste Bordeaux
A
- When used, often as less than five per cent of the blend in Bordeaux, it contributes powerful, deeply coloured wines with spice notes and high tannins. While there are still very few plantings, it is increasingly valued, especially as a warmer climate means it is more likely to ripen in most years.
6
Q
Cabernet Franc Taste Bordeaux
A
it contributes red fruit, high acidity and medium tannins to the Bordeaux blend.
7
Q
Semillon Vine Characteristics
A
- This is a mid-ripening variety, susceptible to botrytis bunch rot and to noble rot in the right conditions. It can carry high yields.
8
Q
Semillon Taste Dry Bordeaux
A
- Sémillon has low intensity apple, lemon and, if under ripe, grassy, flavours, a medium body, medium alcohol and medium to medium (+) acidity.
- In high quality dry white Bordeaux blends, it contributes low to medium intensity aromas, weight and body, and medium acidity. As such, it softens Sauvignon Blanc’s more intense flavours and high acidity. It has a strong affinity with vanilla and sweet spice flavours from new French oak.
9
Q
Semillon Taste Sweet Bordeaux
A
- In botrytis-affected sweet Bordeaux wines, it contributes pronounced honey and dried fruit (lemon, peach) character and a waxy texture. As it is more susceptible to botrytis than Sauvignon Blanc, top Sauternes wines tend to have a high proportion of Sémillon in the blend, for example as in Ch. Climens or Ch. d’Yquem. Sémillon is also prized for its ageability, developing toast and honeyed notes with age in contrast to Sauvignon Blanc that can hold but whose flavours do not evolve.
10
Q
Sauvignon Blanc Taste Bordeaux
A
- It contributes its grassy and gooseberry fruit and high acidity to dry white blends and to sweet botrytis-affected wines.
- Because of the worldwide popularity of the variety, increasing amounts of dominantly or single-variety dry Sauvignon Blanc white wines are being made.
11
Q
Muscadelle Vine Characterisitcs
A
This white variety needs to be planted on a well-exposed site, as it is very prone to botrytis bunch rot.
12
Q
Muscadelle Taste Bordeaux
A
The vast majority is used in sweet white wines where it contributes flowery and grapey notes. It is not related to Muscat.
13
Q
Chardonnay Vine Characterisitcs
A
- It buds early and so can be susceptible to spring frosts. It also ripens early making it suitable to grow in a cool region.
It can produce relatively high yields without loss of quality. It is, however, prone to grey rot, powdery mildew, millerandage and grapevine yellows. It can be grown in a wide range of soils and climates, resulting in a range of styles.
14
Q
Chardonnay Taste Burgundy
A
- In cool climates, for example in Burgundy, the resulting wines have apple, pear, lemon and lime fruit with wet stone notes, light to medium body and high acidity (Chablis). In more moderate climates, the wines have ripe citrus, melon and stone fruit, medium to medium (+) body, with medium (+) to high acidity (Côte d’Or).
- In good growing seasons in Burgundy, the main challenge in making high quality wine can be vigour management to avoid excessive yield and shading, which would reduce the quality of the fruit.
15
Q
Pinot Noir Vine Characteristics
A
- buds early (frost) and also ripens early making it suitable to grow in cool regions. However, unlike Chardonnay yields must be limited to produce quality wines.
- It is a delicate variety and prone to millerandage,downy and powdery mildew, botrytis bunch rot, and fan leaf and leaf roll viruses.
- In warm climates, it tends to ripen too fast (reducing the intensity of aromas), and the berries can shrivel and suffer from sunburn. In Burgundy, the concerns are more typically whether the fruit will ripen sufficiently to achieve the desired ripeness (tannins, colour and flavour).
16
Q
Pinot Noir Taste Burgundy
A
- Strawberry, raspberry and red cherry flavours with village wines and above having light, oak- derived flavours (smoke, clove),
- Low to medium tannins (grand cru wines can have medium (+) tannins),
- medium alcohol
- High acidity.
- The wines can develop earth, game and mushroom notes with time in bottle.
17
Q
Gamay Noir Vine Characteristics
A
- Gamay Noir is early budding, making it susceptible to spring frost. As stated, it is vulnerable to millerandage in cold, damp and windy conditions, which can reduce yields. Its thin delicate skin is vulnerable to rot and, as stated, to wind. It is early ripening, and can usually be picked before autumn rains arrive.
- Grapes grown on slopes with very good drainage, sites with very good sunlight interception and warm granite soils can create intense fruit character compared to the green leafy character often seen in less-ripe examples.
Gamay is a productive grape and yields need to be controlled for it to produce concentrated, ripe grapes. Reducing the number of buds helps to restrain the high fertility of the Gamay variety.
Traditionally vines were trained as bushes (giving some protection from the wind) and this is still the case on the steeper slopes. However, increasingly and where possible, vines are trained on trellises to aid mechanisation, especially where the aim is to make inexpensive wines.
Most Gamay grapes are picked by hand because whole bunches are required for the
most common form of winemaking in the region.
