Wine Making and Climate Influences

Question 1

What are the 3 major types of climate

Answer 1

Continental
Maritime
Meridian

Question 2

What is a feuillette?

Answer 2

A Feuillette is a barrel that is 132 litres. Quite traditional in Chablis

Question 3

What is a pièce?

Answer 3

A traditional Burgundian barrel size with a capacity of 228 L

Question 4

What is Chaptalization?

Answer 4

The addition of calcium carbonate to neutralise acid or of sugar to increase alcoholic strength

Question 5

What is must weight?

Answer 5

Must weight is the amount of sugar in grape juice therefore determines the amount of alcohol that can be produced

Question 6

What is a Courtier?

Answer 6

A broker of wine. Offering financial backing to wine exploits. Massive in Bordeaux

Question 7

What is a barrique?

Answer 7

À barrique is a traditional French barrel with a 225L capacity. Often used in Bordeaux

Question 8

What is Pigéage?

Answer 8

Pigéage is a French word that translates to punch down. It is the act of punching down the cap in red wine fermentation

Question 9

What is Elevage?

Answer 9

Elevage (el-e-vasge) is the French term similar to raising in English that refers to the time between fermentation and bottling. During this step barrel aging, filtering and fining are all steps that can be taken to influence the final flavour

Question 10

What does Garagistes mean outside of Bordeaux?

Answer 10

Garagistes refers to small scale winemakers making wine outside of their own wineries. They don’t own wines or often even their own cellars.

Question 11

What is a Demi Muid?

Answer 11

600L barrel traditional in the Rhône valley

Question 12

What is Vin de Paille and what kind of wine does it produce?

Answer 12

Vin de Paille is French for straw wine. It refers to the technique of leaving grapes after harvest on straw mats for up to 3 months to let sugars concentrate as the grapes dry. The final wines have 10-20% residual sugar.

Famous examples
•Cote du Jura(Arbois and sometimes L’Etoile) blend of Chardonnay, Savagnin, Pousard
•Hermitage from Marsanne
•Alsace from Riesling

Question 13

What is Mousseux?

Answer 13

Mousseux is the French word for frothy or sparkling and is used as method traditonal mousseux as a term for sparkling wine.

Question 14

What is the Methode Ancestrale?

Answer 14

Methode Ancestrale is a very old method of making sparkling wine in France predating champagne. The technique requires stoping the primary fermentation before completion then bottling the wine. The remaining yeast and sugar will reactivate in the bottle and create a sparkling dry wine. The method is cheep but difficult to control and the lack of disgorgement to remove any sediment and lees leaves a cloudy wine.

Question 15

What is Charmat and what kind of wine does it produce?

Answer 15

Charmat or the tank method is a less expensive method of producing sparkling wine. The secondary fermentation of the wine takes place in large pressurised tanks rather than in bottle. The decreased lees contact and production of larger fatter bubbles makes wines of lesser quality and complexity.

Question 16

What is Méthode Champenoise and what kind of wine does it produce?

Answer 16

Methode Champenoise (cham-pen-was) or Methode traditionnelle is the classic champagne method of high quality champagne production.

Steps-
•Make base wine 
•add Liqueur de tirage (sugar and yeast) 
•secondary fermentation
•age
•riddle
•disgorge
•dosage to adjust final wine(wine+sugar)
•cap and seal

Question 17

What are 4 days of the lunar calendar? When are they used?

Answer 17

Used in biodynamic growing. The days line up with which type of constellation the moon is currently in.

Flower- air signs (good for floral and aromatic varietals)
Fruit - fire signs (optimal wine tasting days)
Root - earth signs (not good wine days)
Leaf - water signs (not good wine days)

Question 18

What is mutage?

Answer 18

Mutage is the act of adding a pure grape spirit to a wine to stop fermentation and retain natural sugars. Normally between 5-10% of the liquid volume is made up of the spirt. This process is used in Vin doux naturel production (a sweet fortified wine from southern France and Rhône Valley)

Question 19

What is Maderisation?

Answer 19

Maderisation is the process that involves heating and oxidising of wine. Named after the process used in Madeira wine making where it occurs in the cask.

Question 20

What is Saignage and what kind of wine does it produce?

Answer 20

Saignage or “to bleed” is the traditional way of making rose where the grapes are crushed and the juice is left in contact with the skins for a short amount of time before being “bleed off” to continue fermentation as you would with a traditional white wine.

Question 21

What is the only EU region allowed to make rose by mixing red and white wine?

Answer 21

Champagne

Question 22

What is Passerillage?

Answer 22

The French term for allowing grapes to dry naturally on the vine to concentrate sugars. Does not require botrytis

Question 23

What is the difference between saignée and vin Gris rose wine making?

Answer 23

Saignée (to bleed) involves bleeding off some of the juice from the must during skin contact to allow the remaining wine to become more concentrated in colour and flavour.

Vin Gris is the immediate running of juice from lightly tinted red grapes off the skins. Creating the thinnest lightest style of rose