Wine Appreciation from Grapes
to Glass: an Introduction
Instructors: Karin Limburg, Dennis Swaney
Vineyard outside of St Emilion, France, Fall, 2006
Overview
• Basic Ground rules
• Glasses
• Course requirements
• Suggested references and websites
• The course outline
• Alcohol, How to open a bottle of wine, etc
• Tasting
Basic Ground Rules
• Certification of legal drinking age – required
• Required course fee:
$65
-please bring along a check to the Cashier’s Office (made
out to SUNY-ESF) or cash, and ask that it be deposited in
Account #
900010-05
. Bring your receipt to class to show
us!!
• The aim of the class is to be an informal introduction to wine –
we encourage questions, but may not know all the answers!
• Most classes will involve wine tasting: be judicious, and use
the spit bucket, as needed
• The standard tasting volume – “the pour” – is 5 cl (about 1.69
ounces)
• Glasses will be provided: remember to bring them, or you will
be tasting from a paper cup…
Basic Ground Rules
Glasses
• Each student is provided with 3 wine glasses for
tasting: please bring them all each week!
• The glasses for the course: Potash crystal,
made in Germany by Stölzle
• Good characteristics of tasting glasses:
- the clearer the better; no tinted glasses!
- sufficient volume to swirl and develop aroma
Course requirements
• The course is graded
• Attendance
counts
• There will be a final exam:
anything covered in
class or assigned readings is fair game
• Grade breakdown:
60% attendance/participation,
20% quizzes, 20% final exam
• Special projects for extra credit can be
conducted at the discretion of the instructors
• Class lecture notes will be posted online on the
class website following each class
Some Recommended References
• Kevin Zraly’s “Windows on the World
Complete Wine Course”
a great introduction
to wine, and pretty comprehensive - <$20.00 online
• Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book
currently, : 34th Edition - $10-$15 online - issued
every year, and an essential resource
• “The World Atlas of Wine”, Hugh
Johnson & Jancis Robinson
beautiful book
by two extremely knowledgeable people - $30-$50
online
Some Recommended Websites
• The course website:
http://www.esf.edu/efb/limburg/wine/
-navigate here for lecture notes, announcements, etc
•
www.deckerswineandspirits.biz
,
www.pascaleswines.com
http://www.liquorcitywineandspirits.com/
–some good local
wine shops with websites
•
www.wineloverspage.com
,
www.cellarnotes.net
,
www.wine-pages.com
,
www.diwinetaste.com
– good,
independent resources of information for those interested in learning
about wine – there are many others (google the topic of interest). We
will draw on such internet resources for this course.
•
www.wine.com
,
www.internetwines.com
,
www.zachys.com
,
http://www.calvertwoodley.com/
- online merchants with newsletters
and other interesting info. While they do ship, it may be more
interesting to look at them to compare prices to local stores…There are
many more.
Top 5 questions you have about
wine
• Write ’em down and pass ’em in by end of
class today.
• Optional question 6: name your 2 favorite
wines
Tim Martinson, Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station Why do we grow 42 varieties
of wine grapes in the Finger Lakes?
-9
Feb-Chris Gerling, Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station
How wine is made -2
Feb-DS, KL Sensory aspects of wine and winetasting
-26 Jan-Part I: From Grapes…
KL, DS Overview of the course
-19
Jan-Instructor Topics
Date
Course Outline (tentative!)
Guest lecture: Tim Ahart, Decker’s Wine & Spirits The Southern Hemisphere II:
Argentina & Chile -6
Apr-DS, KL The Southern Hemisphere I:
Australia, NZ & South Africa -30
Mar-Guest lecture: Dana Decker, Decker’s Wine & Spirits Italy -23 Mar-DS, KL Spain/Portugal -9 Mar-Go practice!
No class – Spring Break -16 Mar-DS, KL Germany -2 Mar-Guest lecture: Mark Whitmore France II: Burgundy, Rhone and Loire -23 Feb-DS, KL France I: Bordeaux -16 Feb-Instructor Topics Date
Part II: …To the Glass…an International Tour
Course Outline (continued)
Guest lecture: Paul Hai California/West Coast
-13
Apr-Final exam
xx-May-DS, KL Bubblies: Champagne and
other sparkling wine -27
Apr-Guest lecture: Paul King, Six Mile Creek Vineyards Climate Change Effects on
Viticulture -20
Apr-Part III: …To the Glass…some domestic wines and wrapup
Instructor Topics
Date
Today
• Alcohol
• Wine temperature
• How to open a bottle of wine
• A little wine paraphernalia
• How to hold a wineglass
• Tasting wine!
Alcohol
Ethanol
, also known as
EtOH, C
2H
6O or CH
3–CH
2–OH
Measurement of Alcohol Strength
ABW
- Alcohol by Weight - Similar to ABV but instead of the volume occupied by
ethanol, its mass is used instead. Beer brewers often used this measurement in states
that require limits on strength of beer sold in food markets, i.e., 3.2 beer. The ABW is
roughly 80% of the numerical value of ABV. Beer that is 4% ABV can be sold and still
meet the 3.2 ABW limit.
Proof
– used to characterize strong spirits. To compute a liquor's proof you simply
multiply the ABV by 2. The theoretic highest possible strength of any drink is
therefore 200-proof. In reality though the maximum for distilled spirits is 191-proof
because not all of the water can be distilled from ethanol.
ABV
- Alcohol by Volume - the volume of ethanol in the drink compared to the entire
volume of the drink. It is expressed as a percentage.
There are several methods of measuring the alcohol contents of various
beverages
:
Source: http://www.alcoholcontents.com/default.htm
Alcohol content of some wine categories
100 grams (g) of wine is ~equivalent to 100 milliliters (mL) or 3.4 fluid ounces (fl oz.) of wine. 10.6 g of alcohol in 3.4 fl ounces is 13% alcohol by volume Source: http://www.alcoholcontents.com/wine/wine.htm 20% varies Port Wine 17-23% varies Syrahs 17-22% varies Vermouth 17-22% varies Zinfandels 14-20% varies Dessert Wine 10–15% 10.2 Barley Wine 12.4 10. White, sweet 12 9.8 White, sparkling 11.5 9.4 Red, medium 11 9 White, dry 10.7 8.7 White, medium 10.5 8.6 Rose 8-14% varies
Table Wine general
4–7% varies
Wine Coolers
< 0.1% trace
Sparkling Grape Juice
% Alc by Vol Grams/100 ml
