Vine to Wine: The Fundamentals | Week 7

“I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity.”   -- Sideways

This week we discussed Italian wines and for the entire class the above quote came to mind. As we make our way through more and more curriculum each week and move through the various heavy-hitting wine regions across the world, I am constantly reminded of how wine and history are intertwined.

In the case of Italy, Piedmont (a Northeastern Italian region) was crippled by Austria’s decision to double the tariffs of Piemontese wines, the region’s major export, during the war. This was one of several events that convinced the city-states to join forces and led to the unification of the Italian states. The takeaway from this factoid? Don’t mess with an Italian’s wine!

If you weren’t ravaged by war, you were at the mercy of unpredictable weather. In Italy’s case, vineyards of the Tuscan region were essentially decimated by the Oidium mildew in the 1850s, causing many winemakers to pack up their families and emigrate to other parts of Italy or America. Obviously the New World benefited from these experienced winemakers heading across the ocean, but the landscape in Italy was dramatically changed by nature’s volatility.

Before taking this class, it was difficult for me to look at a bottle of wine as anything other than something you drink. But the deeper I dig into the material, the more I realize that every wine has a story. And with more than 4,000 years of winemaking history under its belt, Italy has some great stories!

Vine to Wine: The Fundamentals | Week 6

It’s one thing to sit in a classroom and take notes, but it’s a whole other experience when you get to put that knowledge into practice. Of course, we’ve been sampling about 12 wines per week as part or study of various grape varietals, but today in class we were sent on a scavenger hunt of sorts.

Divided up into three groups, our instructor Heath Hiudt gave us a list of four bottles to find in Total Wine – the location of our classroom. On my group’s list were a Riesling and Pinot Gris from Alsace and a Sancerre and Vouvray from Loire Valley. Once we had our list, we had to determine how to best comb through the wine racks to find our bottles.

One great thing about the Vine to Wine class is the practical nature of the course material. For example, we learned there are 148 million bottles produced out of the Alsace region each year, and while that is certainly a fun factoid, we also realized in our scavenger hunt that there were only two shelves of this region’s wine at the store. In addition to wine history tastings notes, we’re also learning about which wines are in demand – whether that’s a result of simple supply and demand or a more unquantifiable “prestige factor.”

We’ve also shifted our focus from grape varietals to prominent regions. I have to say that as a casual wine drinker, I find French labeling laws to be some of the most convoluted and Byzantine rules I’ve ever seen! You can look at a label on a bottle, and it will tell you virtually nothing about the wine inside – that is a knowledge honed through study and familiarity with the wines the regions are known for.

The good news is that we’ve checked France off the list, which is the hardest and most intimidating. Now that it’s behind us, I’m excited to move on to Italy, Spain, Argentina, Australia and my personal favorite – U.S. wines!

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Editor's note:
You can join Heath for the The Napa Experience!, a two-day California wine excursion August 22-23.

American Wine in the 21st Century

American Wine in the 21st Century infographic by amccartney.

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