The Importance of Wine Reviews

Wine reviews are not like any other reviews, the reader often listens and respects the differences of opinion presented by the critic. This is usually because the person doing the wine reviews has some type of expertise in wine tasting and can distinguish the highest quality wines from the rest. If someone happens to agree with the author of several wine reviews, the wine reviewer will build their reputation and be trusted with future purchases.



Like anyone offering an opinion, there is no guarantee that it will match the opinion of the reader. In some circumstances a person may read wine reviews about a specific brand and based on the review and go ahead and buy a bottle of that wine.



Once the wine is uncorked they may find themselves at odds with the opinion expressed in the wine review. However, buying based on the opinion expressed by one person in wine reviews is going to be a dangerous experience because everyone has slightly different tastes when it comes to drinking wine.



When considering buying a rather expensive bottle of wine, you shouldn't take one person's word as being the absolute truth. Reading wine reviews by several different tasters may provide a better overall picture of what the wine bottle holds. Once you have experienced a positive outcome based on the review by one taster, there is a good chance your taste will be in agreement in the future.



Becoming Wine Expert Is An Acquired Taste



Most people may enjoy the taste of a good wine and can tell the difference between good and bad wines. A few others will have no idea what they are drinking and believe that all the wine reviews are unrealistic expectations furthered by the wineries to sell more wine. The reality is there are more types of wine than just red and white.



Red wines, stored in woof barrels have a heavier flavor while white wine, left out of the wood, usually have a lighter, more drier taste. The types of grapes used, the source of the grapes and the fermentation process can create dozens of varieties of wines. Wine reviews help potential wine drinkers learn about the new blends of wines that mix the juice from different grapes.



While blended wines are just beginning to be mass marketed, the push for most wineries to remain consistent in their production so that the wine in every bottle has a consistent taste, texture and aroma. One of the key aspects found in wine reviews is how well the winery maintains the consistency of their product from year-to-year as well as through annual crop changes.



Try reading a couple of different wine reviews and see if you find a wine reviewer that has similar tastes in wine as you do. Try to follow up on their articles because most wine reviewers keep putting out material on new wines. You may find some interesting kinds of wine you wouldn't have found otherwise.

I Love French Wine and Food - A Maconnais (Burgundy) Chardonnay

If you are looking for fine French wine and food, consider the Maconnais area of the Burgundy region in eastern France. You may find a bargain, and I hope that you'll have fun on this fact-filled wine education tour in which we review a local white Chardonnay.



Among France's eleven wine-growing regions Burgundy ranks fourth in acreage if you include the Beaujolais region, which most people do in spite of their considerable differences. Partisans, and they are many, claim that Burgundy is really the number one or number two wine-producing region in France, if not in the world. The reviewed wine hails from the Maconnais area of southern Burgundy. This area is devoted to white wine, (about 90%), almost exclusively Chardonnay. While this area produces three times as much white wine as the other areas of Burgundy, is not very well known.



If you are visiting the Maconnais area, and you really should, make sure to stop by the village of Cluny and its medieval abbey, once the largest church in all Europe. Today the site lies in ruins, as it has been since the French Revolution, but what ruins. The site contains a horse-breeding center founded by Napoleon using stone from the abbey. You'll also want to see the Musee Ochier, a Romanesque lapidary museum. Don't forget to tour the town of Autun once called Augustodonum, city of Augustus. The original name refers to Augustus Caesar who modestly described it as "the sister and rival of Rome itself." Avoid disappointment, don't expect Rome II. But do visit Autun's Portes (Archways) and the Theatre Romain, once the largest arena in Gaul (Roman France) with room for 15,000 spectators. Every August (could that be a coincidence?) traditionally costumed locals put on a period piece. Talking about Napoleon, he and his brother studied at the local military academy, where at age nine the future Emperor first learnt French.



Before reviewing the Burgundy wine and imported cheeses that we were lucky enough to purchase at a local wine store and a local Italian food store, here are a few suggestions of what to eat with indigenous wines when touring this beautiful region. Start with Pate en Croute de Grenouilles au Bleu de Bresse (Frog and Bresse Blue-Cheese Pie). For your second course savor Poulet de Bresse à la Creme-Trompettes de la Mort (Free-Range Bresse Chicken in Creamy Sauce with Horns of Plenty Mushrooms). Read more about Bresse chickens in our article I Love French Wine and Food - A Red Beaujolais. And as dessert indulge yourself with Ile Flottante (Floating Island, a Meringue Island in a Custard Sea.)



OUR WINE REVIEW POLICY All wines that we taste and review are purchased at the full retail price.



Wine Reviewed Pouilly-Vinzelles AOC 'En Paradis' 2003 Louis Latour 12.6% about $18.50



Let's start by quoting the marketing materials. This pretty wine from the Maconnais is pale yellow in color and has a beautiful nose of lemon, honey, apple, and tropical fruit. It is elegant and pleasing revealing hazelnut and fruit flavors on tasting. This wine is perfect for drinking now.



This Chardonnay was fermented in stainless steel tanks and never saw the inside of an oak barrel. The Pouilly-Vinzelles is a not very well-known neighbor of the more expensive Pouilly-Fuisse. And now for the review.



My first meal was a Poulet Chasseur (Chicken Cacciatore) that I was particularly proud of. The wine was very delicate and yet not weak. Its apple flavor expressed itself well. I really liked how the wine's acid handled the meat's grease, which was relatively absent as I removed most of the skin before cooking the chicken.



The next meal was more pedestrian. It consisted of chicken legs in a soy, onion, and garlic sauce. The wine was refreshing and pleasant but fairly short.



Continuing to work my way down the food scale, the next pairing involved a baked noodle dish, a cheese-less lasagna with tomatoes, onions, peas, and chicken hamburger. The wine was appley and floral and went very well with the meal, but seemed a bit wasted.



The final meal was disappointing. It consisted of an omelet with brown mushrooms, local provolone cheese, and the fixings. The wine was pleasant but not at all special, in fact it was not particularly present.



The wine and cheese tastings were more successful than usual. The first pairing was with a soft, buttery northern Italian Bel Paese cow's milk cheese. This cheese seemed to intensify the wine's flavor. Then I tried the wine with a French Saint-Aubin, also a soft cow's milk cheese. In its presence the wine became softer.



Final verdict. I'm not sure. This wine was sometimes quite good, but I think it was too expensive. What do you expect from a Burgundy? By the way, the label's term En Paradis was not the least bit justified.

Making Wine From Grapes

In the ordinary way, recipes for wines made entirely from grapes are not a practicable proposition. This is because grapes are merely crushed and fermented without either sugar or water being added. Provided you have enough grapes, making wines from them is the simplest winemaking of all-that is, of course, provided they are fully ripe. Small unpruned bunches often contain a lot of small undeveloped fruits between the large juicy ones and these must be removed before the bunches are crushed. The whole bunches, stalk as well, are used as these add something to the wine. The yeast forming the bloom on your grapes may be the kind that will make excellent wine, but we cannot be sure of this owing to the near-certainty that wild yeast and bacteria are present with it. As we have seen in previous chapters, we must destroy these yeasts and bacteria and add yeasts of our choice to make the wine for us.

You will need at least twenty pounds of grapes to be assured of a gallon of wine-and this amount may not make one gallon of wine, though it make one gallon of strained 'must'. Therefore the more grapes you have the better.

If enough grapes are available, the process is as follows:

METHOD: Put all grapes in a suitable vessel and crush them, making sure each grape is crushed. Measure as near as you can or judge as accurately as possible the amount of pulp you have and to each gallon allow one Campden tablet or four grains of sodium metabisulphite. Dissolve this in an egg cupful of warm water and stir into the pulp and leave for twenty-four hours.

After this, give the mixture a thorough mixing and churning and then add the yeast. The mixture should then be left to ferment for five days.

Following this, the pulp should be strained through a strong coarse cloth to prevent bursting and wrung out as dry as you can. The liquor should then be put into jars and fermented the same ways as other wines.

A good plan when doing this is to mix a quart of water with grape pulp and to crush this well to get as much from the skins as you can. If you do this, you must add one pound of sugar and dissolve it by warming the juice just enough for this purpose. This thinner juice may be mixed with the rest but before the better quality juice is put into jars.

Where grapes only are used with water (as suggested above) it must be borne in mind that to get enough alcohol for a stable wine we must have between two and two and a half pounds of sugar to the gallon. Juice crushed from grapes rarely contains this much, therefore it would be wise to add one pound when the fruit is crushed and before the juice is put into jars. If the wine turns out dry, it may be sweetened.

We may use a hydrometer to find the sugar content so that we know how much to add to give the amount of alcohol we need, but this is not for beginners without previous experiences in this sort of thing. The better plan is to follow my suggestions above, and if the wine is dry to sweeten it and then preserve it with Campden tablets or metabisulphite.

Since the color comes from the skins, if we want a red wine from black grapes we ferment the skins as directed earlier in this chapter. A white wine from black grapes is made by crushing the grapes and pressing out the juice and fermenting the juice only. The difference in the process already described is that instead of fermenting the skin for five days, the juice is pressed out after it has been allowed to soak for twenty-four hours.
If you happen to be making some of the fruit wine such as elderberry, plum, blackberry or damson, at the same time as making grape wine, it would be a good idea to put the strained fruit pulp which would otherwise be discarded into the 'must' of the other fruit and let it ferment there.

Reference: Cooking Games