Fruit, Acid, Alochol and Tannin.

Paddy O Flynn

Montagne St Emilion

Bordeaux, France

Dear Reader

Welcome back; for those of you who practiced what we recommended in the last article, what did your friends and family think of all that chewing, slurping and drooling? Remember though, practice makes perfect, so, even if you are ridiculed, continue. In this issue we will discuss the essential elements present in wine.

White wines contain Fruit, Acid and Alcohol.

Red wines contain Fruit, Acid, Alcohol and Tannin.

A “well balanced” wine simply means that all these elements are present in equal, or harmonious, amounts.

A “well rounded” wine means the elements present are tasted harmoniously all round the palate in a velvety smooth manner.

Tannin is found in the skin of the RED grape, and is as essential to good red wine.

Tannins give red wine its colour, structure and complexity, and also its ability to mature and evolve. Tannins however are not always the most pleasant of experiences for the novice wine drinker as I discovered when moving to St. Emilion in 1988. My father-in-law, Rene Baylet, was voted the top wine maker in France that year quality/price. To me, his wines tasted sharp and bitter, and I thought, if this is the best then please don’t give me the worst! It took two years to mature my palate because I refrained from drinking for most of that period. Then, one day, my brother-in-law, Jean-Marie, used an analogy to explain wines that was very simple and extremely effective; because of its sexual overtones we will omit it from this article! Basically, he explained that the more complex a wine is, the better it is. To educate my palate I began by drinking older wines as the tannin breaks down with age and the fruit becomes a lot more expressive.

Tannin is one of the most beneficial elements when wine is recommended for health reasons. The drinker in this case should be certain as to the origin of the tannins present. If the tannins are not extracted directly from the skin of the grapes used to make the wine, then not only do they not serve their purpose, but, they can also have an adverse effect. Have you ever noticed that when you drink clean wines you do not suffer from those unwelcome hangover effects the next day? If a young red wine does not leave a little dryness on the palate then question its authenticity. When you chew on a red grape, even the ripest of red grapes, you will notice dryness on your palate. When good red wines are made naturally this dryness has to be present, if not, then either the skins were not macerated for a long period in which case the colour of the wines are extremely light, or, an alternative chemical means has been used to colour the wines.

When red grapes are pressed the juice is either white or rose, but never red. Some Champagnes are made from a red wine grape, the “Pinot Noir”. To give red wine its colour the skins are macerated (soaked) in the juice of the grapes; the maceration period, which can last for up to a month, depends on the results required. The tannin acts as a dye, for this reason salt poured on a red wine spill absorbs the colour.

Acidity is also very important in a wine as it creates the sensations of freshness and crispness on the palate. It is essential when aging wines. As with tannins, the acid present in the wine should come directly from the grapes used in the winemaking to eliminate those nasty side-effects the following day.

In our last article mentioned my impending trip to Sancerre in the Loire valley. Towards the end of the trip, Gerard Morin, one of our suppliers, invited me for breakfast one morning. At 8 am there were three of us in his underground cave, eating homemade Pate, four homemade black and white puddings that were grilled by his son over old vines in his backyard, two baguettes and a selection of local cheeses that were all washed down with a host of wines dating back to 1985. How this job just gets tougher and tougher!

Bye for now

Paddy

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