Intermediate
Understanding Amontillado Sherry
Amontillado is a Spanish word that originally described sherry in the Montilla style. Today, it has two connotations in the sherry-making process…
Q & A
Understanding wine’s ‘amelioration’
Wine amelioration is a euphemism for artificial intervention in winemaking to compensate for nature’s shortcomings…
Q & A
Understanding the role of Vine’s Amino Acids
Amino acids are the fundamental building components of proteins, which are required by all living systems. Twenty amino acids are important in the formation of thousands of proteins in living materials. Enzymes are proteins that function as catalysts for particular biological reactions…
Q & A
The effects of Altitude on Viticulture
The height of a vineyard can have a significant impact on its climate and thus its viticultural potential. Temperature falls by around 0.6° (1.1 °F) per 100 meters (330 ft) of increasing elevation, all else being equal…
Intermediate
Alternative Viticulture vs. Sustainable Viticulture: what is the difference?
Nowadays, more and more wineries are turning to responsible viticulture. The two notions mainly discussed are Alternative Viticulture and Sustainable Viticulture. Confusingly, they are very often used as synonyms. While they share many common traits and realities, at their heart, these viticultural approaches are different…
Q & A
What is a Bodega de Crianza y Expedicion?
The Bodegas de Crianza y Expedicion are Jerez wine companies in charge of ageing and shipping wines. These bodegas are usually called ‘Shippers’. The ‘Bodegas de Crianza y Expedicion’ is the only of the 3 Jerez registers (the other two being Bodega de la Zona de Produccion and Bodega de Crianza y Almacenado’) in charge of exporting wines from D.O. Jerez-Xeres-Sherry or D.O. Manzanilla…
Q & A
What is a Bodega de la Zona de Produccion?
Bodegas de la Zona de Produccion, are wine producers in the Jerez region of Spain in charge of pressing grapes and fermenting the must into base wine. They must be located in the Sherry production zone and are usually under the form of large cooperatives…
Q & A
What is an Almacenista?
Almacenista comes from the Spanish word Almacén which means ‘store’. Almacenista is the term for a Jerez (also called Sherry in English or Xeres in French) stockkeeper who sells wine to shippers. In fact, it is a contraction of the legal term ‘Bodega de Crianza y Almacenado’ that designates the companies dedicated to aging wines in the Marco de Jerez (the triangle of Jerez wine production)…
Q & A
What is an Alluvium? What impact on viticulture?
Alluvium is a type of sediment which is usually described as alluvial. It is in fact the debris from alluvial soils that tend to accumulate in valley floors, at the bases of hills and around river valleys. It gives rise to soils which are often fine grained and typically fertile consisting of mud, silt, sand and sometomes gravel or stones…
Wine History
A brief history of Algerian wine
In the late 1950s, France depended heavily on Algerian wine to provide its blended reds with strength, colour, and concentration. Algerian wines were also an ideal blending partner to the Aramon (lacking colour and concentration, but providing high yields) grape variety grown abundantly in the Languedoc region…