A brand new year is here, another year filled with resolutions and expectations. Our sincerest wish is that 2008 will bring you and your loved ones happiness, health and prosperity filled with good times and all good things – including wine. This year, we look forward to welcoming all of you to the Winery.
With the advent of the New Year, we shall take an introductory look into the huge subject of ageing and storing wine. This topic comes up again and again among winemakers, wine merchants, retailers and consumers. We have therefore gathered some information and compiled this newsletter with the aim of offering practical understanding of the main issues regarding storing, maturing and ageing wine. Like most aspects of the complex world of wine, this information is provided only as guidance and not as a gospel. There are so many factors related to the subject, that we cannot investigate all of them here.
The words “maturing”, “storing” and “ageing” are often used interchangeably, but they don’t mean precisely the same thing. Maturation is widely considered to be the process by which a wine reaches a point of readiness for bottling, although maturation can continue in the bottle before leaving the winery. Storing time refers to the period during which a wine maintains a pleasant and relatively harmonious aroma and taste. It is directly related to the storage method, container, and environment, whether this is in the winery, the supermarket or our home. Ageing is a phenomenon that occurs according to a cycle. For a certain time, the taste of the wine becomes more refined, reaching the peak of its taste and then slowly losing quality until the very end of the ageing cycle.
Furthermore, the term maturation is often used for the changes which take place during bulk storage and ageing is used for the changes during bottle storage. This key difference in their definition stems from the fact that during bulk storage, a wine is likely to be exposed to air, whereas when bottled, it is stored in essentially anaerobic conditions. The processes of maturation and ageing involve, among other factors, time, type of storage container, and the conditions of storage e.g. temperature and humidity.
In a modern winery, wine undergoes maturation and subsequently ageing in at least two phases: in bulk storage in a container, and in the bottle. The first is entirely the job of the winemaker, but bottle ageing continues after leaving the winery and becomes the responsibility of the merchant or, increasingly, the final purchaser of the wine.
Wine is created through two naturally occurring living processes – the growth of grapes on the vine, and the conversion of the sugar in those grapes to alcohol by yeast. Wine is a complex liquid with a fragile balance of amino acids, phenols, carbohydrates and other components that could be easily affected by physical conditions or chemical changes. Many types of material have been used for wine storage, such as pottery, stainless steel, concrete, plastic and wood. The size and the material used for the container could have a profound effect on wine character and development during maturation.
For centuries, wine has been laid down to mature in cool, damp cellars. The use of oak barrels to age red and some white wines is also well established. Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, wood was pretty much the main material used for building containers. Wine was vinified in small or in very large oak barrels. These days, we can find many kinds of containers in common usage all over the world. Materials such as stainless steel, wood, cement and fibreglass vats are commonly in use. In the early 20th century, poured concrete made its appearance, and winemakers started using it to build their tanks.
Concrete had several advantages over oak. First, it can be formed into convenient shapes, and so most winemakers made them square so that a row of vats could be created, sharing common walls and taking up less space than round oak vats. Concrete was much less expensive than oak and easy to work with, as opposed to oak barrels which required many hours of highly specialized labour to build. Concrete is a neutral substance, and doesn’t impart any particular taste to the wine. Finally, it is much easier to clean and maintain than oak, which requires sterilization with sulphur and special treatments before use each year. Concrete, therefore, became the material of choice, particularly in bulk wine-producing areas where winemakers needed to minimize expenses.
In the 60’s, the importance of good hygiene in the winery, including the need to keep fermentation tanks spotlessly clean, established the use of stainless steel as the main container for wine fermentation and storage. Its most important attributes are ease of maintenance, hygiene and built-in temperature-control.
Stainless steel vats come in all shapes and sizes, from 100 litres to larger than 50.000 litres. It is preferable to use as big a vat as possible, provided there is adequate wine to fill it to the top in order to minimize the effect of oxygen. The control of the latter is perhaps the most important parameter during maturation and ageing of wine. In order to ensure the minimum effect of oxygen, the winemaker should store bulk wine in a stainless steel tank which is kept entirely full, thus preventing its presence. The winemaker must check the wine level every three to four weeks to ensure that everything is developing as planned according to the desired taste, and top up the tank when required.
Wine spends much of its life sitting in a tank or a barrel or a bottle, waiting for things to happen. During each of these periods, something different occurs to the container it is in. Wine produced a few weeks after fermentation is not ready for consumption because it is cloudy from unwanted substances and yeast cells. However, beneath the cloudiness, a winemaker can easily sense the character and potentials of the new wine. All that is required is a step-by-step removal of all unwanted substances that mask the true nature of the wine. Furthermore, the watchful contribution of the winemaker can expedite the uncovering of the pleasurable flavours of the wine during maturation.
For some wines, maturation takes place in wood barrels, and others – especially those intended to be consumed young – mature in stainless steel tanks. Maturation allows wine to develop complexity of aromas and flavours. It also helps to clarify the wine by allowing deposits to settle at the bottom of the barrel or tank for removal. While this is happening, the aromas of the grape are replaced by the bouquet of the maturing wine.
It is only within the last century that we have begun to understand what transpires in the barrel and the bottle during the maturation and ageing processes. The factors that prolong the ageing cycle of wine are quite complex, but here are a couple of rules of thumb: The wine must have a fairly high level of tannin to age at all. However, all the tannin in the world is no good if the wine has no acidity to keep it fresh tasting. Acidity and tannin are all well and good, but it is fruit that makes wine taste good, and if there is not enough fruit in the wine, then when it ages, it will lack character and taste. Consequently, the fuller a wine in all three of the abovementioned components, the longer and better it will age.
Tannins come from the skins and seeds of the grapes or (especially in the case of white) from being aged in oak wood. Grape tannins are more subtle, but often as strong, and rarely as astringent (mouth drying) as oak tannins. Grape tannins are better than oak when it comes to ageing. Grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon tend to have better ageing potential because of their thicker skins. The acidity primarily comes from the grape itself. Acidity can be balanced during the winemaking process, but the best vintages have a perfect balance of tannin, fruit and acidity during harvesting.
As already stated, wine matures in bulk during the period from the end of the fermentation until bottling. The duration of this period is dependent on a number of factors such as the variety of grape, vineyard location, type, colour, and quality of wine. The conditions under which wine is stored and processed, and the container used during this period, have a significant impact on its maturing, development and life cycle ageing.
Furthermore, wines differ according to the strains of yeast used, the temperature at which they are vinified, the proportion of new oak barrel used for their ageing and the length of time they are kept in barrels. Blending different wines also determines the style of the wine. One purpose of blending is to render wines ready for drinking earlier than they might otherwise be. A blended wine is usually ready earlier than a wine made from a single grape variety. In fact, using a mixture of varieties gives a complex flavour much more rapidly.
Sometimes stainless steel and oak are combined. Initially fermented in a neutral stainless steel vat to keep the fruit aromas pure and fresh, the wine is then placed for several months in an oak barrel for conditioning. Barrel maturation has been intensively researched in the past, but it remains a complex and unpredictable process which is mostly dependent on the relationship between wood, wine and environmental components. The French call this “the kiss of oak”. Here, the toasty, vanilla flavours of the oak are absorbed directly into the wine, without losing its fruitiness or radically altering the texture. Shortly after bottling, the vanilla and toast aromas dominate the wine’s bouquet, but within a few years, they settle in with the fruit and sing a different kind of harmony.
There really is no right or wrong choice of tank type. As a painter chooses to work with oils, watercolours or pastels, the winemaker chooses the type of vat that best suits his way of winemaking process and the type of grapes his vineyard produces. It’s just one of the several decisions in the winegrowing and winemaking field that determine the quality and personality of the wine a winemaker wishes to establish.
Bottle ageing is the final stage of maturation and is characterised by the fact that the wine does not come into direct contact with oxygen. During this period of anaerobic maturation, the wine needs to rest under constant conditions. Sudden environmental changes, such as temperature and light, have a negative influence on the slow development and chemical inter-actions that take place inside the bottle, resulting in rapid decomposition of the wine’s structural components. It is important to remember that smaller bottles will mature more quickly than standard bottles or magnums, as the proportion of air in the bottle neck space to the volume of wine is relatively higher.
Red wine is left to mature in oak barrels for three months to three years to develop the proper amount of flavour. It is then put into bottles, and these bottles are aged even further, both by the winery and also by the consumer, to bring the wine to the perfect point for consumption. Red wine quality is a balance between the grapes inherent aromas, the ageing bouquet and the oak character (especially the vanilla flavour) acquired during storing in oak barrels. The rate at which the maturation occurs depends upon a number of factors such as: type of wood, size of barrel, age of barrel, duration, temperature and conditions of cellar.
White wine is normally mature for less time than a red wine. It might reach a sufficient level of maturity within a few months after fermentation, and it could be bottled immediately or, for some special varieties after a year, in a barrel to extract the correct amount of flavour. White wines are normally drinkable immediately you purchase the bottle, although some whites that have undergone barrel maturation could benefit from a few years of bottle ageing. There are no old white wines.
Generally speaking, today’s wines are ready to be enjoyed while young and fresh upon release. Most white wines, in particular, are intended for drinking within two to three years after the vintage date. However, with proper storage, certain wines tend to improve with age. Improper storage can ruin a good wine in a very short time. Whites are more durable than reds. They travel well, accept light better, will tolerate cold refrigeration, and do not require breathing; however, like reds, they do not tolerate heat. Also, whites don't age well.
In conclusion, whereas ageing normally refers to the period a wine spends between being bottled and consumed, maturation refers to how the wine is handled between fermentation and bottling. Most red wines and some whites are held in tanks or casks for a few months in order to settle prior to bottling. In this way, maturation allows the wines to mellow out first. Red wines have especially high tannin contents, making most new wines undrinkable. If the wine is allowed to settle, however, the bitterness decreases. The character of the wine is fully influenced during this period. The container used in maturation, the length of the process and the temperature all affect the flavour of the wine. For some reds, such as Beaujolais Nouveau, the maturation process is short and bottling occurs almost immediately after fermentation. Many reds develop strong characters from long maturation times in newly constructed wooden barrels that impart their flavours into the juice. Reds are known to mature for up to three or four years. All fortified wines are aged in large barrels from between two to ten years. Whites spend the least amount of time in this maturation process. With less tannin influence, white wines are not required to mellow as much and can be quickly bottled.
Wine News and Information
Plans to reform the European wine industry have been agreed by EU Agriculture Ministers in December. The compromised agreement includes a voluntary three-year grubbing up scheme covering up to 175,000 hectares of vineyards instead of the 400,000 hectares originally proposed by Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel after the plans came under fire from France and Italy in particular. Also, plans to ban chaptalisation (adding of sugar) were abandoned after running into opposition from Northern European wine-producing countries such as
The measures also promise simplified labelling rules, most significantly allowing wines without geographical indication to mention vintage and grape variety on their labels. The EU will also take over responsibility for changes to winemaking practices. Now,
China and Hong Kong will be the eighth biggest wine consumer in the world by 2012, according to research commissioned by Vinexpo (Asia-Pacific takes place in Hong Kong from 27-29 May 2008)..
Taking an even bigger slice of the US$100 billion world wine industry,
The latest forecasts, carried out by researchers IWSC commissioned by Vinexpo, has
Vinexpo has commissioned market research and forecasts for 11 years and has used IWSR to produce them since 2002. Beynat said yesterday that over five years they reckoned on being accurate to within 0.2%. There have been mistakes, he said. “We were wrong about the Chinese market in 2005 when we predicted a 36% growth. We have changed our minds since then and now predict a 70% rise.”
Of the Asian countries,
Growth rates for these countries between 2002 and 2006 are radically different, with Australia, Chile, and the US showing the most dramatic acceleration (128.4%, 45.1% and 40.9% respectively), and Italy the only country to lose market share, dropping -3.7%.
Monolithos Monthly News
Winter is the normal dormancy – or sleep – period for vines. Dormancy will end with bud break in the spring. This year’s January started off dry and warm. Pruning commenced in January and will be completed in the middle of February. How we prune our vines has a direct impact on the coming vintage, so we take it very seriously. With precision pruning, we not only affect how many grapes will grow, but also how they will develop on the vine. This is also the time of year for land preparation and weed control. Weeds are commonly controlled either chemically or mechanically. In
January is always the quiet after the storm of the holiday season in the wine business, however at the Winery, everything becomes “vigorous” with activity. The grapes harvested in autumn are now being racked and filtered.
Red wines are being cleaned up, whilst white wines that will be bottled quickly are being stabilized by mixing it with bentonite. The latter removes some of the protein which will form a haze in the wine during warm weather. There are a number of other materials that may be added now to correct any deficiencies in the wine. Generally, at Monolithos, as little as possible is added to wine. Filtering and pumping the wine from tank to tank is also kept to a minimum. Our winemaking policy is to make the best possible product with the least amount of processing.
The wine is cooled to just above freezing in order to remove excess tartrate in a process called “cold stabilization”. Tartaric acid is the main acid in grapes. Some of it is present in the wine in the form of potassium tartrate. This material becomes insoluble and forms crystals when the wine is cooled. By cooling white wine and filtering it in the winery, the wine will not form crystals when the consumer puts the bottle in the refrigerator for a week or two. This is less of a problem in red wines as red wines are not usually chilled before serving.
We thank you for your continued support. Take care and remember:
“Who loves not women, WINE and song, remains a fool his whole life long.”
Martin Luther
If at any time you are passing near the
Wishing you a happy New Year from all of us here at Monolithos
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