The Good Stuff

Mull this over...

12/11/2013

'Tis the time of year in which people are attending a lot of festive parties, wearing ugly sweaters, and trying to make all sorts of warming beverages. I've started getting calls at the shop from people looking for pre-made mulled wines. Usually (since Chicago is a multi-cultural city,) I get requests for gluhwein or glogg, specifically. Now, you can certainly buy this stuff pre-made, but my real question is, "why would you want to?" Not because it isn't tasty and festive, (it is!) but because it is very easy and satisfying to make at home! There are lots of recipes out there, but as with much of my own cooking, I recommend you get creative. Start with a bold, fruity wine- maybe a cheap (hah!) Zinfandel or even a Merlot, some brandy, a little sugar, some cloves, cinnamon, orange peel, apple chunks, whatever you wanna throw in there, go for it! (Candied ginger, anyone? Mmmm.) Add the ingredients to taste, warm it up on the stove for a while and let your home fill with its delicious and delightful aroma, ladle it up, and enjoy with people you love (I'm feeling sappy, can you tell?) My one word of warning- beware the fumes directly over the pot (or don't if you want an extra kicky celebration.)
Cheers and Happy (secular with some Christian and Pagan roots) Holidays from me to you!

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Sherry, Niles?

9/11/2013

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So, this post is a wee bit of a cheat, since I had to research Sherry for work this week, and am re-working what I wrote there for this purpose.
Ok, confession over- onward.

My friends most likely know that I'm a fan of Frasier. It's a funny show. I'm not ashamed. And, what do the finicky brothers Niles and Frasier drink ALL the time? Sherry (incidentally, their dad also dates a woman named Sherry for a while... coincidence?) But after all those years of watching, do you suppose people were wondering what Sherry is? Really? And what does it taste like? I'd tried it before in the past, but it never really left a huge impression- so I decided to do some more research.

Apparently, Sherry is seeing a rise in popularity- it is becoming a hip drink and mixologists are using it in cocktails a lot- who knew? So, to keep myself looking and feeling hip and trendy, here's my best attempt to explain and demystify Sherry-in a nutshell.

Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes grown near Jerez (if you wanna be snobby, you should pronounce it "hair-eth") in Andalusia in Southern Spain. It is impossible to universally classify Sherry because it is produced in a variety of styles made primarily from Palomino grapes. It ranges anywhere from light, acidic, dry versions (similar to white table wines,) such as Manzanilla and Fino, to darker and heavier versions that have been allowed to oxidize during barrel aging, such as Amontillado and Oloroso. Sweet dessert style Sherries are also made, usually from Pedro Ximenez or Moscatel grapes. Cream Sherries are often quite sweet and syrupy- and subsequently, pretty popular.

Its winemaking process starts out pretty much like any other wine, but after it ferments, Sherry's alcohol content is increased by fortifying it with varying amounts of a grape-based spirit. It is then aged for specific amounts of time, depending on style. As the lower-alcohol sherries age in barrel, they develop a layer of yeast referred to as “flor” that imparts unique flavors and also keeps the wine from becoming totally oxidized. Sherries that are intended to be aged for a long, long time have more alcohol added initially, to stave off unwanted infections in the wine. As a consequence, most long aged Sherries don’t develop a layer of flor and will oxidize slightly over time, giving them a darker color and flavor complexity. Most Sherries are initially fermented to dryness, meaning that that the sweet versions have had sugar added back into them after fermentation is complete.

Now, here comes the really cool part- blending. Wines from different vintages are blended in such a way as to age the wine optimally, while keeping a level of uniformity from bottle to bottle. The blending and aging system used is called the Solera system and it goes pretty much like this: Let’s say we have 8 barrels, and over the course of 8 years, each barrel is filled with one year’s sherry. After the last barrel is filled, then the 1st barrel (the oldest) is tapped and a portion of it is removed and bottled (this would be the rare case of a Sherry being labeled with a vintage.) Then, the empty part of the 1st barrel is filled with sherry from the 2nd barrel (the second oldest,) and then 2 is topped up with sherry from 3, 3 from 4, etc, all the way down to barrel 8, which is then filled with new product. This step is repeated every year (or whatever aging interval is deemed ideal.) No barrel is ever totally emptied. This process can mean that barrel 1 could have traces of the very first sherry every made at the winery! This could go on for 50-100 years. As a consequence of this system, most sherries don’t have a vintage listed on the bottle. Pretty neat and complex, eh?

I think you should totally give Sherry a chance. It's so diverse, there's bound to be a style to suit everyone. Pick up a bottle of dry fino or oloroso to have with appetizers. They'll be surprisingly light and food-friendly. Then, top the night off with a sweeter dessert version like a cream- they're popular and easy to find!

Cheers

Did you know?
Yeast is a fungus! Mmm. Fungus makes tasty treats!

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Berry to Bottle... in a nutshell.

1/16/2013

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For this first post, let’s talk a little bit about how wine is made. This is possibly review for some of you, but who knows? It could be mind blowing new info!
This will likely be wordier than most of my entries, but it’s laying out some (bare bones) fundamentals, so bear with me.

At its most basic level, wine exists because of fermentation: yeast + grape juice = alcohol, carbon dioxide, and a little bit of heat.

Wine stops fermenting on its own eventually because alcohol is toxic to yeast (kinda sad that the little guys produce the very material that winds up killing them…) The yeast gobble up most of the sugars and nutrients in the grape juice, until they've made enough alcohol to kill them off. (As a rule, white wines are less alcoholic than reds and alcohol by volume in finished wines tend to range between 11%-this is really low- and 15%-this is really high and usually only happens in fortified wines- more on those later.)

Alcohol content can be controlled by the winemaker by stopping fermentation before the yeast eat up all of the sugar and nutrients, leaving a lower ABV (alcohol by volume) but the wine will contain residual sugar. If a wine is allowed to ferment till it finishes on its own (called fermenting to dryness because it means it has used up all the sugar, and dry = not sweet) and still has a really high alcohol content, this is likely because the grapes were really sugary to begin with and probably involved the use of a yeast strain that is more resistant to alcohol.

Most winemakers harvest their grapes once they know they contain a sugar level that will give them the eventual alcohol concentration (and residual sugar content) that they want for the type of wine they’re making.

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Mull this over...

Sherry, Niles?

Berry to Bottle... in a nutshell.

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