San Rafael, Calif. -- Building upon an idea launched at the Riesling Rendezvous event held this July in Washington state, the International Riesling Foundation (IRF) this week published a scale for members to differentiate the various sweetness levels of the popular varietal.

The taste scale, spearheaded by Dan Berger, a long-time wine writer based in Sonoma County, is meant to help educate consumers about Riesling and its different levels of sweetness. According to the IRF, many consumers assume that all Rieslings are sweet, dessert wines and are unaware of its many styles.

"I teach about wine, and I constantly am surprised by people's reactions to Rieslings. They're really across the board," said Patrick W. Fegan, who is an IRF director and director of the Chicago Wine School. "People's knowledge about Riesling is confusing to winemakers," he told Wines & Vines, in explaining the reason behind creating a "clean, not terribly intrusive kind of a logo."

 

Sebastopol, Calif. -- A newly launched website, VinoEnology.com, is helping professional winemakers during their hectic crush. It was founded by Peter Kirilov, an industry consultant and winemaker for reverse osmosis and de-alc specialist Vinovation. Visitors to the website can instantly access winemaking calculators for:

• Fermentation (Brix, yeast, nutrients);
• Chaptalization and water dilution (sugar and water additions);
• SO₂ (addition of potassium metabisulfite and liquid SO₂ solution);
• Acid addition (tartaric, malic and citric acid addition);
• Fining and oak addition (clarification and oak wood chips addition);
• Fortification (alcohol addition);
• Blending and cost calculator (wine blending and cost).

Although we found that some of these formulas are online at other sites, (e.g., winemaker.com, fermsoft.com), nowhere did we locate a more complete and user-friendly selection.

 

Paging Vintage 2005 Radio frequency identification monitors wines during distribution READ »

In the world of software development, where I spent many years, programmers confronted by an apparent bug in their code have been known to respond, "No, that's not a bug, it's a feature." This defense rarely works. But in the world of winemaking, there really are gray areas in which rules are made to be broken, where one winemaker's faults are another's complexities, and where "a little bit pregnant" isn't an oxymoron.

Winemakers often take pride in the simplicity of their craft, and they should. How many times have you told your consumers or a journalist that to make the best wine, you simply take the best grapes and try not to screw them up? That's a truism, but you know better than your customers that it's not as simple as it sounds.

We are entering a very exciting time in the wine industry. Consumer interest seems to be growing rapidly for wines made from grapes grown with organic, Biodynamic or sustainable methods. Growers and winemakers are attending educational meetings addressing these farming paradigms, and many articles are being written about them. The first green wine competition was convened last May (greenwinecomp.info). The Green Wine Summit will be held Dec. 1-2 at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek in Santa Rosa, Calif. (winesymposium.com).

A long time ago, an inquisitive drinker was experimenting with sturgeon swim bladder and said to himself, "I wonder what this would do to my alcoholic beverage." He found out it clarified his drink, and he went back to his village shouting, "Eureka!"

PAST ISSUES »

Current Issue   

 

September 2008 Technology Issue VIEW CONTENT » SUBSCRIBE »

Back Issues  

 

August 2008 Closures Issue VIEW CONTENT »

 

July 2008 Grower Issue VIEW CONTENT »

SUBSCRIBE TO WINES & VINES PRINT EDITION »