Behind the Cork™ - Wine of the Week

2017 Beronia Verdejo ($13) 

This Beronia Verdejo (Vehr-DAY-hoh) is imported to the USA from Spain's Rueda region by González Byass (www.gonzalezbyassusa.com).

Rueda, located in Spain's northwest, is home to the largest number of plantings of Verdejo grapes in the entire world. And, if you haven't ever tried a Verdejo, you're missing out.

This varietal is medium-bodied, with balanced acidity and stone-fruit characteristics.

The generic Rueda Denominación de Origen (DO) requires their wines to be at least 50% Verdejo, with the remaining blend made up of Sauvignon Blanc or Viura.

This Verdejo is a bright yet subtle white wine with flavors of grapefruit, stone fruit and fresh-cut grass. It’s a lot like Sauvignon Blanc but isn't. While the nose can fool you into believing it's Sauvignon Blanc, it's a lot more subtle on the pallet, and finishes with just a hint of acidity.  It's a welcome alternative to Sauvignon Blanc.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this one. It's a really nice wine and a great value that is very enjoyable with Spring and Summer warm weather fare. Look for Beronia's Verdejo. You won't be disappointed.

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 Disclosure of Wine Sample Submission: I received this wine at no cost for review. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Sample Provided by Donna White Communications

Wine Flavors from Aging

We've been exploring where wine gets it flavor from starting with the star of show, the juice of the grapes, then learning how the grape skins, seeds and stems can affect the finished flavor and we also looked at how the fermentation process can affect flavor. So, now it's on to the aging process and how it can affect a wine's flavor.

Let's start with the aging process before the wine goes into the bottle (aging in the bottle is an entirely separate subject for another time). 

At the winery, once the wine is fermented, it is typically aged in stainless tanks or oak barrels. With respect to stainless tanks, they don't add anything to the final flavor of wine. So, that was easy. But, oak barrels are an entirely different story.  Barrels can affect a wine's flavor in a couple different ways.

First, barrels can impart wood-like flavors. But, wine makers really don't want to make wine that tastes like trees or tree sap. So, one of the things they do is to 'toast' the inside of the barrel (i.e., subject it to an open flame to provide a char to the wood). And, this is done to varying degrees. A barrel that is lightly toasted will add subtle hints of flavor. A medium toasted barrel will start to add vanilla or caramel flavors to the wine and heavily toasted barrels will impart stronger flavors of smoke, coffee and chocolate. 

Now, these flavors are well suited to some red wines but typically not for white wines. So, most red wines spend some time aging in oak barrels while white wines typically don't.  The exceptions are generally Chardonnays that will, with oak aging, take on those butterscotch, vanilla and toast flavors. Fumé Blanc is another oak-aged white wine. It's simply Sauvignon Blanc that's been oaked aged.

And, finally, an oak barrel can actually become 'neutral' with time and impart no flavor. This typically occurs after a new oak barrel has been used three or four times.  It's still a good vessel for aging, but just doesn't affect its flavor.

The other way that oak barrels affect a wine's flavor comes from their naturally porous nature. But, I'll leave that for next time. Until then, Cheers!

Behind the Cork™ - Wine of the Week

2013 Elevation 1250' Paso Robles Red Wine ($7)

This Elevation 1250' is a nice blend of Syrah and Petite Sirah from Paso Robles.  And, as with all Behind the Cork™ - Wine of the Week features, it's a great value.

I must admit this is a unique find at Trader Joe's, and when I went on-line to learn more about the wine I came up empty handed.  It is produced by Riboli Family Wines, a large conglomerate, but even their website does not include this one in their portfolio. So, it's not a mainstream wine and probably will come and go quickly.

Regardless, this is real nice red wine blend at a great price. I'd definitely suggest giving it a try. I went back for more! Cheers!

Malolactic "Fermentation" of Wine - Not

The flavors in wine come from three things - the grapes, fermentation and aging. We've explored the flavors from the juice of the grape, the flavors from the grape skins, seeds and stems and we've seen that the yeast can affect flavors during fermentation. But, there's another process that affects a wine's flavor and it's often called Malolactic Fermentation.

But, getting right to the point, this is not a fermentation. It's actually a process in which one type of acid in the wine is converted to another type of acid. So, it is more correctly a Malolactic Conversion, not a fermentation.

In this conversion process, a tart acid that naturally forms in wine, malic acid, is converted to lactic acid. While the tart malic acid can yield flavor sensations much like a tart green apple, the lactic acid is much softer and creates a richer mouthfeel that is often called buttery and can make a wine seem velvety smooth.

Most red wines undergo malolactic conversion while only some white wines, notably Chardonnay, undergo malolactic conversion. This process is most often performed shortly after the end of primary fermentation and just prior to the aging process.

And, speaking of the aging process, we'll explore the flavors that are imparted to wines as they age in next week's blog. Until then, Cheers!

Behind the Cork™ - Wine of the Week

2016 Daou Chardonnay Paso Robles ($13)

I was well aware of the excellent red wines being produced by Daou in Paso Robles, but was extremely surprised by their Chardonnay. This wine seems to fall somewhere in between a bright, crisp, fruity Chardonnay that would come from stainless steel tanks and one with oak aging. While this one sees seven months in neutral French oak, it retains flavors of pear and white peach, but adds on some vanilla notes from the oak. Another really nice wine from Daou. And, a great value. Pick this one up. I'm going back for more!