My cork drawer overfloweth

Which I suppose might mean that my cup doth overflow as well... But are too many corks translating into too few posts?

It may be time to do an audit on the corks I keep in my kitchen drawer. Have I been keeping up with all that I have been uncorking and enjoying?

I don't keep every cork, just the ones that stopper really great wines or are exceptional corks in and of themselves.

Corks with cork taint, thought they might be "exceptional," are not included. I prefer to keep the nice exceptions -- corks with intricate designs and memorable vintages etched into their sides or corks with deeply pigmented colour leeched into their ends.

Sometimes I keep plastic and Diam corks, but I tend to separate tehm because, for the most part, they make for useful household implements rather than souvenirs. One of these stabilizes my clothesline, for instance.

Oh, and I love the reusability of those corks that have those black plastic twist tops that often come out of Pineau des Charentes or LBV Port bottles. They earn a special place.

But no, I won't be starting a screwcap drawer any time soon.

The skinny on skin colour (cont'd)

A final word for pink to complete the triangle...

In case you were wondering, rosés are produced through a winemaking process in which contact with the grape skins is restricted. This is as it is with white wine production methods, however the key here is that red grapes are used instead of white ones. Typically this means the must of red grape varieties is removed from the skins earlier in the winemaking process and thus the resulting wine has a lighter hue. The idea that rosés (also called pink or blush wines) are simply a blend of red and white wines is generally incorrect though some white grapes are occasionally vinified along with the red as part of the process. New fangled bottles I've seen for White Merlot may not help to keep this idea straight with the consumer but whatever the White Zinfandel or Cabernet Blanc that you may happen upon, you should know that there is no white grape blended into that rosé wine.

The following useful resource indicates that while rosé wines are not blends of white and red wines, white grapes are increasingly brought into the red wine mix. Read more on the topic of rosé winemaking.

The skinny on skin colour

This is the flipside of my previous entry on the role of the grape skin, in which we learned that leaving the skins in contact with the must will allow them to impart characteristics like flavour (in addition to colour). Part of the reason that I got so motivated to start this topic was that I felt the need to expand the simple refrain I repeatedly hear -- that "red wine is only red because of its skin" -- and delve into what gives white wine its different shades. Last time I mentioned that sparkling wines are mostly produced from free run juice, meaning that skins have very little influence on the finished product. Whites, as well as reds, can be free run too but for the most part skin plays a larger role in white wine than in sparkling wines. But exactly what?

Routinely, white wine production processes do not enlist the skins as much as red wine's would. Why? Skins on all grapes have tannins which is a useful ingredient in some cases and one you opt to leave out in others. Tannins are beneficial components of red wine because they promote ageability while adding structure; they are detrimental to white wine where their astringency can frequently mask gentle aromatic nuances naturally occurring in white grapes. Temper that basic idea with the knowledge that white wines can achieve some extra zing when skins are exposed to the must. This exposure can be quite desirable as long as it happens before fermentation. Should you ferment the skins, you won't get any of the winning benefits that the skin-in red wine enjoys. So the skin isn't particularly the thing when it comes to white wine.

That said, I still am left to wonder. If we can say that red wine is red in colour because skin pigments seep through the must during winemaking, how do we tell whether a white wine exhibits a hue that is due to its grape skin? Maybe there is no way to say for sure. Maybe one has to ask. Does a white wine's light colour result from its skins' light pigment? Or rather does it simply mean the light colour you see is the absence of colour -- that the skin has had less time to mingle with the must and therefore has not offered much in the way of pigment? And what shade-shaping container was the wine stored in prior to bottling? And also, how has age affected the colour? I guess it's hard to make a general statement just by looking at the colour of the finished product. In many cases, it could be a little of everything -- that is, some colour extracted from the skins, some colour leached from oak barrels, and even some colour produced just from the light colour of the grape's flesh. In an extreme example, Pinot Gris (or Tokay) often creates a white wine varietal that possesses a light blush tone due to prolonged exposure to its pinkish skins during vinification. Then to this distinctive shade additional pigment from its greyish-pink flesh and potential colouring from barrel storage as well as the passage of time. In the end it can look nearly like a a rosé, but it is not since no red grapes are added (but I'll have to save rosé wines for an upcoming post).

Backwash
This is a Backwash backwash. I implied a connotation of noble rot that was misleading when I wrote about Sauternes. I may have suggested that the fungus-spawning vine disease called noble rot was noble because of its Bordeaux provenance. While noble rot is indeed essential in Bordeaux's production of Sauternes -- the world's finest sweet wines -- the use of the term "noble" really serves more of a reference to the Botrytis Bunch Rot than Bordeaux in general. Botrytis Bunch Rot is a non-benevolent form of the same disease that sets noble rot into motion. Noble rot was coined more to distinguish it from the bunch rot to lay praise on the Bordelais areas that champion their Sauternes.

Skin colour prejudice

This is about as political as this site gets.

I'm uneasy with conceptions of colour within the wine world. There exists too much of divide between red wine and white wine. It's all a bit too visual, I suppose: Some people I know only drink red; some only drink white. What a black-and-white view! What about the shades of grey? What about the in-between wines that some people I know cast off as unworthy? What about the Gamays, the White Zinfandels? And oh that rosé wine, what a bizarre animal it is. The way I see it, a simple precursory aspect of wine -- namely its colour -- is preventing folks from indulging in the full experience that wine has to offer.

Here's what we know. What seems to be universally acknowledged is the fact that red wine is red because of the pigment found in the skins of the grapes that are vinified. Red grapes have a different pigment than white grapes, hence red wine looks red while white is a much lighter, neutral shade. To make a long story short, red wine comes from a group of grapes classified as "red" while white wine comes from a group of grapes classified as "white". Labels. It's not rocket science. Except the grape's skin has a greater role in vinification than just occupying a certain corner on the colourwheel. It's more complex than just colouring. The wine you drink hinges on other things like how much skins are integrated into the winemaking process as well as what flavour components the skin uniquely possesses. So why generalize? What's worse: Why base your drinking decisions on such a vast generalization? I do not understand why the outside surface of a grape has become so influential when the basis of a wine's structure (as well as many other of its individual characteristics) are also derived from its skin. Colour is just the most obvious and easy-to-identify attribute.

I was guilty of skin colour prejudice myself until I understood the full story of what makes a red wine, well, red. At first I found it hard to believe that the flesh of the grape is merely water and sugar. Those things are important since they are the building blocks of fermentation and vinification. But in the end, they are the most generic part of the grape. They are not nearly as dynamic to our tastebuds as the skin is. So don't relegate the role of grape skins to that of hue. For the skin is thing! If there were no skin, there would be no wine. Only sparkling wines minimize the role of skin by separating the grape juice from the skin at the earliest possible moment.