Winez Flashcards
What is the name, year and price of the pet-nat?
Uivo Pet Nat Renegado (2022) €5
What is meant by pet-nat?
Pét-nats are sparkling wines made in a manner that predates the so-called “traditional method” used in Champagne (and for most other sparkling wines). Rather than induce a second fermentation in the bottle to create the bubbles, as Champagne producers do, makers of pét-nat simply bottle the wine before the initial fermentation has ended. The result is softly fizzy, sometimes lightly sweet from residual grape sugars, usually hazy with unfiltered yeast particles, and typically sealed with a crown cap instead of a cork.
Compare the method used for pet nat wines to that used for champagne
Pét-Nat is produced in the méthode ancestral, otherwise known as “rurale,” “artisanale,” or “gaillacoise.” Long story short, the wine is bottled prior to fully completing its first fermentation, allowing carbon dioxide to be produced by the natural sugars found in the grapes. The méthode ancestrale was originally used in Limoux in the south of France in the early 16th century by winemaking monks.
This production method is contrary to the méthode champenoise, the way in which Champagne is produced, where the base wine is fully fermented, then undergoes a secondary fermentation in bottle with the addition of yeast and sugar (otherwise known as liqueur de tirage.) Unlike Champagne, Pét-Nat is not disgorged, and may or may not be filtered on completion of fermentation.
What does it mean to say that champagne is disgorged while pet nats are not?
Disgorgement, or dégorgement in French, is a technique used in the méthode traditionnelle (traditional method) of sparkling wine production that involves removing a frozen pellet of dead yeast cells (lees) from the neck of the wine bottle after secondary fermentation. Disgorging allows the winemaker to remove the lees without sacrificing the pristine sparkling wine left behind.
How do wine makers typically disgorge
Wine producers typically disgorge by freezing the bottle’s neck and quickly extracting the solids. (Some old vintages are disgorged by hand by opening the bottle and quickly releasing the sentiment.)
Which two wine making types skip disgorgement?
Two sparkling wine-making methods skip disgorgement: the transfer method (sediment is removed through filtration) and the ancestral method (sediment is left in the bottle).
Why is there sediment in natural wines?
Yeast leaves behind sediment. The yeast metabolizes the sugar and produces carbon dioxide. When the yeast runs out of sugar to eat, it dies, leaving behind sediment known as lees. The amount of time the wine spends bottled with the sediment is called “aging on the lees.”
What gives a sparkling wine its fizz?
The basic job of creating wine—or any alcoholic beverage—is accomplished when yeasts consume sugar and convert it to ethanol and carbon dioxide (as well as some heat). The ethanol is the most valued yeast product, and the carbon dioxide typically floats away. In effervescent wines, though, a portion of the fermentation happens in airtight containers—typically in the bottle. The carbon dioxide gas produced by the yeasts can’t escape, so it dissolves into the liquid and stays there until the bottle’s opened, at which point it forms tiny bubbles in the wine.
Describe the process of disgorgement in stages, giving insight to the processes behind them
Yeast cells and sugar set the groundwork. After the first fermentation, wine producers add sugar and yeast cells (liqueur de tirage) to the still wine, then rack the bottles horizontally to begin the secondary fermentation where disgorgement occurs.
Wine bottles are inverted to settle yeast in the neck. Next, producers turn the bottles upside down to encourage the lees to settle in the neck of the bottle.
Producers mechanically or manually disgorge the lees. Once the lees settle, producers can remove them mechanically or manually. In mechanical disgorgement, the bottle’s neck is dipped in a freezing solution, then the bottle is turned upright, then the cork is removed, and internal pressure ejects the frozen sediment. Disgorgement by hand (à la volée) is typically used for older vintages. It involves tipping the bottle upside down, opening it, and then quickly flipping it over to remove just enough wine to get rid of the sediment.
What do pet-nats usually taste and look like?
Pét-Nats have a light and fizzy mouthfeel and are generally low in alcohol. They are usually slightly sweet, though dry examples do exist. The wines can benefit from a couple of years in bottle, though do not develop with further aging. The bottles are often cloudy, due to remaining lees presence and lack of filtration.
Why do pet-nats require a level of expertise?
Pét-Nat production is extremely variable and can be hard to control and therefore requires a level of expertise on the winemaker’s part.
Where does the pétillant-naturel come from?
Champagne and other common sparkling wines contain about 12 grams of carbon dioxide in each liter of wine, which creates about 6 atmospheres of pressure inside the bottle. Wines with less dissolved carbon dioxide than that—3 atmospheres is common—are called frizzante in Italian, spritzig in German, and pétillant in French. In English, we settle for the term semi-sparkling.
Are wines created by the methode ancestrale or the methode champanoise usually stronger in alcohol? Why?
To make traditional méthode Champenoise wines, the juice first undergoes a complete fermentation into a dry wine with about 10 percent alcohol and little or no residual sugar. The wine is aged, blended, and filtered, and then a second fermentation is begun in bottles sealed with crown caps. Fresh yeast, and sugar syrup sufficient to feed it, is added, and the resulting second fermentation produces carbon dioxide—bringing each bottle to an internal pressure of around 6 atmospheres—and an additional percentage point or two of alcohol.W
What percentage is the Uivo?
11%
What is the process once yeast and sugars are added to champagne for the second fermentation?
Champagne matures in bottles for a minimum of nine months, developing a characteristic array of complex, toasty flavors from the breakdown of proteins in deceased yeast cells. The yeasty sediment is then precipitated and disgorged from the bottle, and at last a dosage of additional sugar is added before the cork is put in, to take the edge off the otherwise intensely dry wine.
To recap, what is the difference between this method of second fermentation in champagne and the methode ancestrale?
The key difference with pét-nats (which are sometimes identified on the label as méthode ancestrale) is that the wine is unfinished when it gets crown-capped into the bottle and remains untouched by human hands until it’s opened up and consumed. The primary fermentation begins as in Champagne, but the process is deliberately paused before it’s completed.
How can you control the fermentation process of the yeast while they are bottled?
The temperature of the wine is commonly brought to below 50°F (10C), at a point when there’s still some residual sugar in it and the alcohol content is approximately 2% ABV below its final potential. The chilling makes the yeasts all but stop fermentation and drift to the bottom of the vat. The wine is racked off and, sometimes, filtered to remove the inactive yeast entirely.
What benefits are there to cooling and not cooling the wine during fermentation? Describe this using two wine-makers
Armstrong Foster keeps her pét-nats at 50°F or below for the entire primary fermentation—“I rein her in, if you will, to give myself more control”—and chills them to 40°F before bottling. The slower, colder process means the yeasts settle out enough that she doesn’t have to filter the wine when she bottles it.
Tracy doesn’t arrest his fermentations with temperature control. He prefers to follow the lead of the wild, ambient yeasts he uses rather than keep a tight rein on them. “We monitor the fermentation until we get to just the sugar level we want,” he says. “It’s slowing down by then, but still I often go over there in the middle of the night because I have just a few-hours window to catch it.” He filters the unfinished wine through a coarse, 10-micron filter, which removes most of the solids and, he says, “knocks the fermentation back so we can bottle it.” But, he adds, it leaves enough active yeast to resume the fermentation in the bottle. Some producers add fresh yeast and nutrients at the bottling stage, but Tracy and Armstrong Foster add nothing.
Describe the processt is orange wine? What gives them their taste?
Orange wine is a type of white wine made by extending contact with grape skins (and seeds) during winemaking. In simple terms, making an orange wine means vinifying white grapes in a similar way to making red wine, so the fermenting juice spends time macerating in contact with the grape skins. This period may be anything from a few days to many months (which is in fact far more extreme than almost any red)
What taste may orange wines have?
Orange wines often taste more like dry red wines because they have tannin. Most orange wines aren’t sweet and have bold, honeyed aromas like jackfruit (a fleshy tropical fruit), hazelnut, brazil nut, bruised apple, wood varnish, linseed oil, juniper, sourdough, and dried orange rind.
On the palate, they’re bold, dry, and have tannin (like unsweetened iced tea) with a sourness similar to fruit beer. Because of their natural acidity and tannin, orange wines pair with a wide diversity of foods.
What kind of foods do orange wines typically pair well with?
Because of their boldness, orange wines pair well with equally bold foods. In fact, some of the best matches with orange wines include foods that are hard to pair with wine.
For example, the tannin in orange wine helps cut through the bold and spicy flavors found in curry dishes and Indian cuisine.
The sourness in orange wine matches well against fermented flavors like kimchi in Korean dishes and nattō in Japanese food.
Unlike red or white wines, orange wines hold up to both beef or fish.
Why is it innacurate to say that orange wines are a modern trend?
Orange winemaking hails from ancient traditions. We can find these techniques used as far back as 5,000 years ago in what is now Georgia.
Since we now know that Georgia and the greater Caucasus region is the original birthplace of wine and winemaking, orange wines offer a unique window into ancient wine.
How were orange wines originally fermented?
Originally, orange wines fermented in large buried earthenware amphorae called Qvevri (“Kev-ree”) which were closed with flagstones and sealed with beeswax. It involves crushing the grapes and pouring the lot (juice, skins, pips and stems) into large egg-shaped clay jars called qvevri (sometimes spelt kvevri), which have been scrubbed and lined with beeswax. These jars are buried in the ground, traditionally in the cellar or ‘marani’ of the house. The idea is that the earth both supports the fragile clay jars and helps keep the vessel naturally cool. The qvevri are sealed with a wood or stone lid and the fermentation is allowed to proceed naturally for several months. There were no additives, not even yeast.
During fermentation, the wine is exposed to lots of oxygen which morphs fresh fruit and flower aromas into aromas like bruised apple and honey. Over time, wines taste nutty. After an aging period, wines emerge from the amphora with a clear, rich amber color. The color comes from lignin in the grape seeds and astringent tannin comes from skin contact during fermentation.
What variables can affect the colour of the wine?
As with red wine making, there are variations on this theme that affect the colour and structure of the final wine. Winemakers have the choice to include stems or not, whether they punch down and stir the fermenting mass, and whether the seeds (which can be bitter) are allowed to settle to the bottom. Maceration time, temperature and exposure to oxygen all have an effect too – longer maceration and more oxygen tend to mean deeper colours, and at the same time, phenolic compounds and tannins may be extracted from the skins giving structure more like red wine than white.
What atypical steps in the wine-making process are frequently employed by orange wine makers?
Frequently winemakers choose to allow spontaneous fermentation, so no added yeast or bacteria. Typically no sulphites will be added, at least until bottling, and there may be no filtration so the wines are often cloudy. Winemakers may opt to chill the fermenting juice, though ambient temperatures are more usual in the spirit of minimizing intervention.
What fermentation vessels are used for orange wines?
Fermentation vessels may be steel, oak, concrete or clay, with vessels that allow some oxygen exposure usually preferred. It’s also very important that grapes are ripe and healthy, because this method will emphasise any unripe stalky tannins or mouldy characters.
What are tannins
Tannins are bitter and astringent compounds found in nature, including in plants like oak, grapes, and tea. In wine, they come from grape skins, seeds, and stems, providing texture, mouthfeel, and structure.
How may skin maceration be carried out elsewhere?
It’s worth noting that there’s a difference between this winemaking approach and the sort of skin maceration used in places like Croatia, usually at a cool temperature and before fermentation, to gain texture and complexity but avoid the colour and structure of an orange wine.
What compounds likely give orange wine its colour
There is relatively little formal science to be found on orange winemaking, though it’s clear that there’s no actual orange pigment present, and unless a winemaker is using pink-skinned grapes like pinot gris, there are no anthocyanins either.
The orange colour seems to come from compounds such as carotenoids, flavonoid-type phenols and catechins (which can be bitter) from the skins.
What did one piece of research in South Africa show about orange wines?
One piece of research in South Africa tested different vinification methods on chenin blanc and showed that with fermentation on skins, levels of volatile aromatics were reduced, especially some terpenes (chemicals that give floral and aromatic notes to certain grapes). There were also higher alcohol levels, fewer fruity esters and lower acidity (possibly due to higher potassium salts in grape skins).
How can the definition of orange wine differ per region?
There are few legal definitions around skin-contact wines or orange wines, though in South Africa such wines require a minimum of 96 hours on skins including fermentation and a maximum of 40 mg/l total sulphites. Ontario in Canada requires 100% of the grapes to be macerated and fermented on skins for a minimum of 10 days.
Where is the Uivo made?
Douro valley, Portugal
Who is the Uivo made by?
Folias de Baco
Wine-maker: Tiago Sampaio
Describe the process carried out for the Uivo
Hand-picked mix of 20 local grape varieties, half white and half red. 3-4 days of skin contact then pressed.
Fermented using the ancestral method – single fermentation that finishes in the bottle without the addition of yeast or sugar, without disgorgement and added sulfites
Describe the sulfites and filtration used in the Uivo
No added sulfites, unfiltered
What are sulfites?
Sulfites are chemical compounds that contain a sulfur ion. Sulfites occur naturally in some foods, but are more commonly utilized as food additives, thanks to their preservative properties that help prevent unwanted bacterial growth. Sulfites also help prevent browning in food products exposed to oxygen (oxidation).
Sulfites are a natural byproduct of fermentation - wine is also a natural source of sulfites, too, as the skins of grapes naturally contain sulfites, and wine is a fermented product. Sulfites are added to wine as preservatives to prevent bacterial spoilage and oxidation. They help maintain the freshness and quality of the wine by inhibiting unwanted microorganisms and preventing the wine from turning into vinegar.
What are the flavour pointers in the Uivo?
Relatively light, acidic and fizzy, refreshing, bubbly, fun! Pure, elegant, lively, summer wine!
