Best Selling Wines: Vintage and Style
- Wines may be classified by year of harvest (vintage).
Vintage wines are generally made from grapes of a
single year's harvest of a single variety, and so
are dated.
Many wines improve in flavor as they age and so wine
enthusiasts often save bottles of a favorite vintage
wine to enjoy in a few years' time.
For most types of wine, the best-quality grapes and
the most care in winemaking are employed on vintage
wines - thus, they are generally more expensive than
non-vintage varieties.
Whilst a vintage wine is generally made in a single
batch and thus each bottle from a particular vintage
will taste the same, climactic factors tend to change
the character of vintage wines grown from the same
vines somewhat from year to year.
Good vintages, particularly of premium grapes, therefore
often sell for much more than average years. Some
vintage wines are only made in better-than-average
years.
Conversely, wines such as White Zinfandels, which
don't age well, are made to be drunk immediately and
are not labeled with a vintage year.
Wines may also be classified by vinification methods:
sparkling, still, fortified, rosé, etc. The colour
of wine is determined by the presence or absence of
the grape skin during fermentation, since most wine
grapes have clear juice.
Grapes with colored juice are known as teinturiers.
Red wine is made from red (or black) grapes, but its
red colour is bestowed by the skin being left in during
fermentation. White wine can be made from any colour
of grape, but the skin is not left in during fermentation.
A white wine made from a very dark grape may appear
pink or "blush" (Blush Wine). Rosé is a compromise
between red and white - the skin of red grapes is
left in for a short time during fermentation.
Fortified wines are often sweeter, always more alcoholic
wines that have had their fermentation process stopped
by the addition of a spirit such as Brandy: Marsala,
Madeira, Sherry and Port.
Wines may also classified by their primary impression
on the drinker's palate. Wines may be described as
dry, off-dry, fruity, or sweet, for example.
Specific flavors such as cherry, vanilla (usually
from vinification in new oak barrels), new-mown grass,
brine, raisin and dozens of others may also be sensed,
at least by an experienced taster, due to the highly
complex mix of organic molecules such as esters that
a fully vinted wine contains |
