Well, that’s what a top hotel in Rome is offering. Yes. The St Regis Grand hotel. Yes. ₤10,000.

I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t getting the zeros mixed up.

The tour includes a helicopter ride to Bolgheri to explore the vineyards and cellars where Ornellaia wine is produced; a trip to the mansion where Brunello wine is made as well as lunch and exclusive wine-tasting in both areas, some which haven’t been tasted by the public before.

Erm, ok. Does that include hotel accommodation as well? Or is that separate?

I wouldn’t spend ₤10k on a wine tour – no way – no matter how exclusive it was, not even if they served me wine with sediments made out of gold floating at the bottom of the bottle. (though if they threw in a night with George Clooney, thick walls and copious amounts of tiramisu and Sangiovese wine, I might be tempted. Possibly.)

I don’t have the money, anyway …and if I did, I’d hope a good friend would talk some sense into me (or whoop me upside the head) if I ever decided to whip out that amount for a wine tour. Don’t get me wrong, I like Italian wine, I’m interested in its history and the names sound so beautiful to me, but would I spend that much on a tour?

No.

Would you?

My father is an ex-accountant, so maybe it’s that side of my genes talking. Also, mild-to-heavy sarcasm is my way of addressing situations I deem to be utterly frivolous and ridiculous, so pay me no mind. If you can afford the tour, then good for you, go for it. Bring me back a souvenir, like a grape or something.

Ciao!

(img by: luismi1985)

The film is also about relationships as the California-based winemaker struggles with his relationship with his son who doesn’t seem to be pulling his weight. He also has the added pressure of creditors breathing down his neck.

The wine shop owner in Paris, in an attempt to revive his business, decides to hold a competition between French wines and Californian wines (known as ‘The Judgment of Paris tasting’).

Back then (in 1976), Californian wines were just finding their feet and weren’t on the map whilst French wines were a lot more established. There was no comparison. French wines were going to win hands down. You can’t run with the big boys.

Or so they thought.

The Californian wine maker won the competition!

The film, Bottle Shock, portrays the events leading up to this competition.

Unfortunately, it’s only showing in the US which is a real shame. A real shame. A lot of people would have enjoyed watching it. Maybe it’s due for wider distribution in the future or perhaps it’ll go straight to DVD in other countries, but whatever happens, I want a copy!

I do hope the script’s well written and the film’s well directed and produced. There’s no greater sin than a fascinating true story that makes a weak transition into film.

The trailer’s available on the site. I’m gonna go watch it now. Care to join me? You bring the wine, I’ll bring the popcorn!

Ciao!

(img by: shodan)

Thanks to that, you know that:

1. Brunello di Montalcino is a dark red wine made from the Brunello grape (a variety of the Sangiovese grape), and that ‘Brunello’ means ‘little dark one’.

2. It is produced in Montalcino, a small Tuscan village.

3. It was first created by a man named Clement Santi in the mid 19^th century.

4. It’s regarded as one of the most expensive wines (and considered to be the best) in Italy. Oh yes.

5. The wine must be made from 100% unadulterated Brunello grapes. Nothing less.

6. Because it is high in tannins, it has a longer shelf life (and gets even better with age).

7. Though the Blondi-Santi family remained the sole producers of this wine for quite some time, this changed and there are now over 200 winemakers who are allowed to produce it. This is still quite exclusive when compared with other wines.

8. Brunello wine cannot be sold until 50 months (just over 4 years) after the grapes used to make it were harvested. Out of that time, it must have been aged for at least 2 years in oak and at least 4 months in a bottle.

9. A cheaper and lighter alternative to the Brunello di Montalcino is Rosso di Montalcino. The best selection of Brunello grapes are used in the former, and the rest (which are still very good quality) go into producing the latter. Rosso wine can be aged for less time – a year – before it can be sold.

(img by: dags1974)

The city is sometimes referred to as the ‘City of Flowers’ for its amazing spread of flowers across its various promenades.

What Merano is also known for is its yearly grape festival which is celebrated every October to see out the end of the grape harvest.

Celebrated since 1924, the grape festival is indeed an extravagant and all-out gala – houses are decorated, bunches of grapes are hung out in the streets, and plenty of food and, of course, plenty of wine, is to be had – it wouldn’t be a grape festival, would it, if there wasn’t plenty of wine to be had!

The festival is also used to honour the memory of an historical hero, Marcantonio Colonna, who returned triumphant from the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. So in his honour, for a short period (for about an hour), wine is poured into fountains – yes!, wine quite literally flows from the fountains of Merano instead of water! Marcantonio must have been quite a man indeed to foster such a time-honoured gesture.

Now imagine this: lots of music floating in the air and plenty of dancing; people and marching bands parading through the city, dressed in traditional costumes, some parading on moving decorated floats or carriages drawn by Haflinger horses (small elegant chestnut-coated horses).

Well, you don’t have to (imagine). You could actually be there – make it part of your Italian wine tour, perhaps?

And here’s an added incentive, you might be pleased to know that Merano also holds a Doughnut Festival every October. Yes! You’re that lucky! Enjoy!

(img by: Jaci Berkopec)

(How wines are made can vary. This is just one example.)

Harvesting
The Italian grape harvest season is usually every September/October (depending on the weather). From the time the grapes ripen, they are picked fairly quickly in order to get the best out of them.

Destemming/ Crushing
The stems are then removed from the grapes and the grapes are crushed to free the juice, while leaving the bitter pips untouched. These two processes are usually done using machinery (a destemmer and a crusher).

Difference in Processing
It is at this point that the process starts to differ between red and white winemaking. ‘Skin contact’ means when grapes are left to sit for a while to draw out the aroma and flavour from the skin. This is rarely important for white grapes – once white grapes are crushed, their skins are removed almost immediately (i.e., pressed).

However, with red grapes, skin contact is very important. Why? – because much of the colour of red wine is derived from the skin of the red grape, not from its flesh. The juice from red grapes is just as clear as the juice from white grapes. It’s the skin of the red grape that gives red wine its colour. Therefore, once crushed, the skin is left to sit in the juice.

Fermentation/ Aging
Yeast is then added to the grape juice to ferment it (to convert the juice to alcohol).

With red grapes, the fermentation process would have already begun from the time the skin is left to ‘stew’ in the juice (especially as some of the skin already contains natural yeast). They are left to ferment in large stainless steel tanks. Once fermentation is over, the skin & pulp is separated from the juice (pressed), then the juice is poured into oak barrels or a tank to age.

White grapes follow the same process (except that they would have already been pressed at a much earlier stage).

Filtering
Upon aging, and before it’s bottled, the wine is filtered to remove any particles and sediments (especially if it’s been aged in a barrel).

And there you have it.

Ciao!

(img by: rdesai)

Anyway, ahem, the event in question – The Wine Show – is coming up in October (23^rd-26^th, to be precise). I know we’re in June, but October really isn’t that far away especially if you live in a fast-paced environment.

It looks like it’s gonna be fab AND EVERYONE’S INVITED so I won’t have the same problem I had with the other wine event at the Excel Centre that I later discovered was only open to people in the wine-trade business. Grrrr. (again, it wasn’t really their fault, but still…)

At The Wine Show, there’ll be wine walks, tasting sessions, a wine market, and other things going on. One I’m really really looking forward to in particular is a part wine-education, part-theatre event called ‘Around the Wine World’ involving a host of wine experts. I’m curious as I’ve never seen wine & education mixed together before.

The site hasn’t published the list of exhibitors yet, but I’m sure Italian wine makers will be there (and if not, I will complain profusely. Watch me!).

Tickets
The show has a bit of an initially-confusing ticketing system (well, it was to me). Thursday is straight-forward as it’s a preview evening in which you pay £25. However, if you go on a Friday, it’s £10 for entry before 5pm and £16 thereafter. On Saturday or Sunday, it’s £10 before 2pm and £16 after 2pm. They’re currently running a special offer if you buy more than one ticket in advance (not for Thursday, though).

Ciao!

(img by: Lil Erna)

Italy wears the crown for producing the widest range of Spumante wines in the world. What a title to carry. And deservedly so, I might add! You can sample a range of Spumante wines – red, white, dry, sweet, semi-sweet, you name it! – from the light Lambrusco to the red Bracchetto, from the white Prosecco to the slightly dry Asti (formerly known as Asti Spumante).

AND THE MOST POPULAR SPUMANTE IN ITALY IS…

Well, that title goes to the already-mentioned Asti (produced in the Piedmont wine region bearing the same name), made from the Muscat grape. Asti is light and slightly dry on the palate with a slight peachy undertone. The same Muscat grape is used to make the less sparkling but still pleasant Moscato d’Asti. However, Asti is better known.

THE PROCESS…

The sparkling effect in Spumante is achieved by encouraging the production of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the wine. If the CO₂ isn’t released, then pressure builds up causing bubbles to form. The CO₂ is produced by either:

a) adding yeast and sugar to still wine and allowing it to ferment in the closed bottle

or

b) adding yeast and sugar to still wine in a steel tank, allowing it to ferment, then pressure-filling it into a bottle

or

c) manually injecting CO₂ into the finished product

ALAS, SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME…

Now, you have yet another thing to add to your list when you go wine touring in Italy, apart from the truffles, the chocolate, the wonderful food and the breathtaking view! And that’s Spumante wine tasting!

Enjoy!

Until next time, Alla prossima!

(img by: conanil)

1) Contaminated cheap wine…

70 million litres of cheap Italian wines (sold for under 2 euros per litre) were discovered to be contaminated with traces of horse manure, acid, fertiliser, hydrochloric acid and lots of water. The bootleg production has been placed firmly on the shoulders of the Italian Mafia.

(In a similar case back in the 80s, it was alleged that at least 22 people had died from drinking tainted wine and 90 people had been hospitalised).

2) Less-than-authentic Brunello di Montalcino…

Some wine producers (some of them quite big on the market) are apparently adding more than the legally required 100% Sangiovese grapes to their Brunello di Montalcino.

Brunello cannot be sold until about 4 years from the time its grapes have been harvested. Out of that, a minimum of 2 years (in oak) and 4 months (in a bottle) must be spent aging it. However, some of these winemakers have apparently been adding one or two other grape varieties in order to speed up the aging process and therefore send it to market quicker.

People pay good money for the authenticity of Brunello, and this scandal, whether proven to be true or not, is bound to cause the Italian-wine industry some harm. I really don’t think they’ll come out of this completely unscathed. Doubts will have been planted regardless of innocence or guilt. To some extent, it will be down to what people believe and some people will inevitably believe it to be true.

Meanwhile, you might get some Italian-wine producers who’ll be rather reluctant to defend the Brunello producers in question – preferring to distance themselves as far as possible from the scandal for fear of tainting their own reputation (and therefore sales).

It’s yet to be seen how the industry will recover from this. I hope it will. It has to.

(img by: Greencolander)

…the more unripe a grape is, the more tannic (bitter, sour) it is. The riper it is, the less tannin it produces, the sweeter the berry gets. However, to some degree, the seeds, the skin, and the stalk maintain some level of tannins – the skin (less tannin- edible, very mild level of tanginess), the seeds (more tannin – edible but bitter) and the stalk (most tannin content – very bitter and obviously not edible!)

So why is the use of tannin encouraged in wine making???

Well:

- because tannin is a great natural preservative – it ensures a wine’s longevity and quality – helps it adopt a more distinct/richer flavour as it ages.

- because tannin can give your palate that ever-so-slight ‘oomph’ (so to speak!)  Not too much though as highly-tannic wine can have a very unpleasant drying effect on your tongue and cheeks!

- because its use can be a way of balancing out a wine’s sweetness (that is if the wine is indeed sweet and the winemaker does wish to control it).

Winemakers are able to manipulate how much tannin is excreted from grapes during the wine making process – the gentler the juice-extraction process, the less tannin is produced.

There generally tends to be more tannin in red wine than in white wine? This is because, in the process of fermenting red grapes, winemakers try to extract as much of the colour as they can from the skin (as most of its colour can be derived from its skin, not its flesh). In doing so, they not only extract tannins from the skin but some of the tannins from the seeds also seep in.

Wines that are low in tannin are drunk while they are young while higher-tannin wines are allowed to mature for years (it’s a bit like certain varieties of cheese – the longer it’s left to age, the better it tastes).

Tannin is a word that’s thrown around quite a bit, but can you say you really know what it means? Hand on heart?

If you do know, then good, it means you can explain it to the rest of us!

What is tannin, anyway? What is it made from? And why is it mentioned so much in the wine world? Is wine that’s high, low or without tannin a good or bad thing? Can tannin be found in red and white wines or just in one type of wine?

So what’s tannin? Well, tannin is a bitter sharp-tasting compound naturally found in grapes (the seeds, stalk, and just under the skin). It can also be found in such things as tea, other unripe fruit and oak.

Grapes are no different from animals in terms of ensuring the survival of their species. Some animals might emit odours to deter their predators. Others, snakes for instance, might produce venom to protect themselves. Similarly, a grape produces tannin as a deterrent. It produces the bitter substance to protect its seeds from being picked on by birds or mammals before they’ve had a chance to ripen.

When their seeds do start to ripen, grapes produce less tannin and instead sweeten to attract birds. The birds then feed themselves senseless on the sweet fruit, and in flying away, they spread and drop the ripened seeds further afield, which is exactly what the grapes wanted all along! – the chance for their seeds to disperse and pollinate. Survival of the grape species reaffirmed!

Ok, the above might make for an interesting story…

…but why, if tannin tastes so sharp and bitter, is it so important in wines?

To be continued…in Part 2.