December 2008

  • Washington Ice Wine

    By lisala on 12/24/08 12:19am
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    Washington is blessed with the rare climate conditions needed to produce ice wines, particularly in the vineyards in the Eastern half of the state. This week's cold snap, with temperatures at night falling in the low teens, has allowed a number of Washington wineries to gather the frozen and very ripe grapes required to make ice wine.

    A German tradition, ice wine (eiswein to the Germans) is made when the frost hits the vines at just the right time to freeze the ripe, fully mature grapes. Because water remains frozen longer than the sweet, intensely flavorful juice of the mature grapes, gentle, careful pressing releases a few drops of concentrated juice. That concentration also means that it takes more grapes to make a single bottle of wine, which means the wine is more expensive— one reason the sweet dessert style wines are traditionally sold in half-size bottles. The harvest usually takes place in the pre-dawn hours, once the very ripe grapes have frozen, but before they have time to thaw. The marble-like grapes are pressed while still frozen.

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  • Wine Sulfites

    By lisala on 12/23/08 2:09am
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    A friend of mine recently mentioned that she can't drink red wine because it has sulfites in it., and they give her headaches. I was a bit startled because pretty much all wine has sulfites, either naturally, as a byproduct of the fermentation process, or as a preservative.

    In 1987 the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began requiring that any food that has more than Wine label with sulfite warning10 parts per million of sulfites needs a warning label that says "contains sulfites." Sulfites are frequently used as a food preservatives because they removes the oxygen that bacteria need to survive. Sulfites are commonly used in the production of wines, sausages, fruit juice and bagged salad products. Dried fruit in particular is preserved with sulfites, so anyone who has a problem with sulfites in wine will likely have a problem with dried fruit.

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  • Dry Wine

    By lisala on 12/20/08 3:08am
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    People often talk about "dry wine" as something markedly special. You'll sometimes hear people use the word "dry" in reference to wine as a synonym for excellent. In an informal survey of academics at a party where all of them were drinking wine, and considered themselves fairly knowledgeable about wine, three people told me that a dry wine was an aged wine; two people told me dry wine was put on the labels of high quality white wines.

    They were wrong, of course. "Dry," for wine, or beer, refers to the fact that the beverage is comparatively low in sugar because fermentation has converted the natural sugar of the grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Sometimes the process is referred to as "fermenting out" the sugar. The naturally occurring yeast that causes fermenting has consumed the sugar and converted it to alcohol, carbon dioxide, and heat. The wine master ordinarily stops the fermentation before the sugar is consumed, but in order to make a dry wine, the yeast is allowed to do what it does best. In Europe the law stipulates that in order to be labeled "dry" the final wine is .4% or less (that's 4 grams per liter).

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  • Kosher Wine

    By lisala on 12/15/08 7:28pm
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    When I was a kid, kosher wine pretty much meant the standard non-Pesach corn syrupy-sweet Manischewitz. In California, friends celebrating Passover (which requires four glasses of wine to be consumed during the course of the seder) introduced me to the wide variety of excellent, and non-sulfide containing, kosher wines. I discovered not only excellent Israeli kosher wines, but California kosher wines from Herzog Cellars and others. California wineries produce a wide variety of white and red wines (traditionally, seders usually involve red wines, but Californians may be less orthodox in that respect).

    I wondered if Washington produced kosher wines, and set about to find out. But, I hear you ask, what does it mean for a wine to be kosher?

    In order for a wine produced outside of Israel (where the rules are much stricter) to be kosher all the production of the wine after the grapes are picked must involve handling only by sabbath-keeping Jews under the direction of a rabbi or Kashrut trained supervisor.

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  • Mulled Wine

    By lisala on 12/11/08 10:38pm
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    We're not really sure where the word "mulled," as in mulled wine (or cider) comes from. The first extant use of it in the context of wine or cider heated with spices and sweetening is from 1607, in G. Wilkins Miseries Inforst Marriage "I can drinke Muscadine and Egges, and Muld-sack." (OED mulled). But we do know that slightly sweetened wine, heated with spices and fruit, goes back to the middle ages.

    Back then, mulled wine was called Ypocras, or Hippocras (after Hippocrates, the legendary physician). It was considered a seasonal tonic, stored after making for a month or so, then heated again and served.

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  • About those Rieslings

    By lisala on 12/9/08 1:21am
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    I've been particularly enjoying Rieslings from Oregon and Washington, of late; most notably the Hogue 2007, the Ste. Michelle 2007, and Columbia Winery's 2007 Cellarmaster's Reserve. ripe Riesling grapes imageRiesling, as you probably know, is a very sweet grape, and tends to make sweet wines. Many Rieslings are largely served as dessert wines. The Pacific Northwest climate, with its cool nights, and the soil conditions of eastern Washington, and the Columbia valley, grow particularly fine Riesling grapes. I started looking at Rieslings in particular because my mom, after seven years in Germany, developed a fondness for them, and the same climate conditions that make Rieslings flourish in Germany's Rhine and the Alsace apply to Oregon and Washington, especially the Columbia valley.

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  • Highlighting Female Winemakers of Washington

    By mous on 12/8/08 3:41pm
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    Most of us know (and are quite proud) of Washington's booming wine industry; last time I checked the Washington Wine Commission, the number of wineries had increased to an impressive 580! While we refill our wine glasses and raise them in celebration, let's throw in one more celebratory fact; how many of these Washington wineries boast a female winemaker?

    This idea crept into my head when I read Suzi Beerman's article about female winemakers. Aptly called From Grape to Glass, Women Make Washington Wine, the writer provides interesting background information about the people behind some of the popular Washington wines, stressing on gender mainly because in the traditionally winemaking has been hyped as a best-done-with-muscular-arms-on-a-man sort of profession.

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  • Storing your Wine

    By lisala on 12/8/08 1:30pm
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    When you start buying specific wines because you like them, you start buying wine by the case, because, well, you're going to drink it, eventually, and it's cheaper by the case. Now, me, for instance, I found a Washington Shiraz I liked very much indeed, and then I found a Riesling, and a Gewürztraminer . . .

    Before you know it, instead of a couple of bottles in a cupboard, and an opened bottle in the 'fridge, you've got 36 bottles of wine.

    They won't all fit in the cupboard, and there's no sense in putting a Shiraz in the fridge, and so you start thinking about what to do with all your lovely wine. Now, oenophiles will buy wines with the intent of keeping it until it "ages," and "develops," for several years—but they're also buying wines that are upwards of $25.00 a bottle.

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  • Washington Wine Regions

    By lisala on 12/5/08 3:43pm
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    There are hundreds of wineries in Washington state, though many of them are tiny artisanal wineries producing limited quantities of hand crafted wines. Here's a list of the major wine producing areas of the state, with a sampling of wineries from each. Keep in mind that some wineries are not open to the public, or have limited tour and tasting schedules, so check the Web site before beginning your private tour— or take a list to your local wine shop.

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  • St. Nick's Open House Woodinville Wine Country

    By mous on 12/5/08 1:38pm
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    This weekend (Dec 6-7) over 30 wineries in Woodinville will participate in the St. Nick's Open House! For a $50 ticket (or $35 for Sunday only, tickets available only online at the Woodinville Wine homepage), patrons will be invited to taste and of course purchase wine at any of the open wineries. Many of the wineries involved are not generally open to the public, so this is a special opportunity indeed.

    List of the participating wineries can be found here.

    Several new wines will be introduced at this event, including Sommelier David LeClaire's (founder of Seattle Uncorked) "Big Smooth," a blend of Syrah and cabernet Sauvignon.

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  • O Wines Horse Heaven Hills Chardonnay

    By lisala on 12/1/08 4:21pm
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    I've only recently moved to Washington after years of living in California—and drinking California wines. One of the things I've enjoyed the most about living in Washington is discovering Washington wines (and Washington microbrews, but that's another story). Right now I'm looking for a particular wine;—O Wines Horse Hills Heavens' 2006 Chardonnay. I'm particularly interested in this specific wine for a number of reasons.

    First, Chardonnay is one of those wines that are intimately associated with California, even in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I'd really like to see what this climate produces. Secondly, Horse Hill Heavens is a new vintage from a very young winery in Woodinville. O Wines was founded by Stacy Lill and Kathy Johanson, and the 2006 Chardonnay is their first release. They've just recently released the 2007 Chardonnay, and yes, I'm hoping to find a bottle of that to try as well. I note that both vintages are retailing for about $15.00. That's pretty unusual, by California standards.

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