Five Cognac Curiosities

March 30, 2015 2 Comments

Cognac CuriositiesAll good wine and spirits students know that Cognac is a high-quality French Brandy, made from grapes grown in the delineated Cognac region, located just north of Bordeaux. There are several grape varieties allowed, of which Ugni Blanc (aka Trebbiano) is the preferred; the ferment goes through a double distillation in an Alembic still, followed by a minimum of two years’ aging in oak. Good! We’ve covered the basics. But did you know…

#1: The product of a third distillation is known as “Espirit de Cognac.” Espirit de Cognac was awarded an AOC in 1936, and is an unaged product that—after hours and hours of distillation—comes off the still at 80% to 85% abv. Brandy lovers of the world, don’t feel bad if you think you’ve never had Espirit de Cognac—it is not allowed to be sold as a spirit. Instead, it is used in the production of sparkling wines, and may comprises a portion of the liqueur d’expedition used in your favorite Champagne.

#2: Don’t confuse the unaged, bound-for-bubbly Espirit de Cognac AOC with a product labeled as L’Espirit de Cognac. Many Cognac producers use the term L’Espirit to designate their top-tier bottles. For instance, L’Espirit de Courvoisier is an assemblage of old cognacs – the oldest is rumored to be from the 1802 vintage (“the few precious drops that escaped Napoleon’s lips”), and the youngest from 1930.  Bottled in a numbered, hand-crafted Lalique crystal decanter, L’Espirit de Courvoisier sells for upwards of $5,000 per bottle – if you can find one.

Cognac grapes#3: Cognac is distilled from a white wine base, which is typically based on Ugni Blanc with some Colombard, Folle Blanche, Montils, and Sémillon sprinkled in. In practice, Ugni Blanc is by far the dominant grape, accounting for up to 90% of the total vineyards. Folignan, a Folle Blanche X Ugni Blanc cross may be used up to a maximum of 10%.

#4: Three other grapes are currently allowed to be used in the base wine as well. These are Jurançon Blanc, Meslier-St-François, and Sélect. Most of these grapes fall into the “uninteresting” category; however Meslier-St-François is (according to Jancis Robinson, et al, in Wine Grapes) a historic French variety that once grew in Champagne, the Yonne department of Burgundy, and the Loire Valley. As a matter of fact, in 1990, Charles Jumert of Cave de la Berthelotière “saved” the last surviving Meslier-St-François grapes of the Loire Valley by taking cuttings off of a vineyard as it was bulldozed under. He planted the grapes in Villiers-sur-Loir (north of Tours) and has been making a varietal Vin de France from them since 2003.

Cognac curiosities 2#5: 97% of all Cognac produced each year is exported. That’s right—only 3% of the Cognac produced, on average, is consumed at home. As a matter of fact, the French consume as much Scotch whisky as they do Cognac. This means that an average of 130 million bottles of Cognac are exported each year, which is enough to make grape brandy one of France’s most valuable exports. (As for France’s other valuable exports, #1 is airplanes [as in Airbus], #2 is medications, #6 is wine, #9 is make-up and sun-tan preparations, and #13 is perfume. Number 18 is brandy, Cognac included – not bad. You can see the rest of the data on French exports here.

The Bubbly Professor is “Miss Jane” Nickles of Austin, Texas… missjane@prodigy.net

Filed under Context is queen, Five Fast Facts, For CSS Candidates, Happy Hour

In Praise of the Juniper Berry

March 19, 2015 2 Comments

Fig 4-2 Juniper BerriesThe hero of gin lovers everywhere, the juniper berry is not really a berry at all but the seed cone of the juniper plant. Juniperus communis—the common juniper—is a shrub or small evergreen tree with needle-like leaves that grow in whorls of three. Juniper often grows as a low-spreading shrub, but juniper trees can grow to over 32 feet (10m) tall. The juniper plant has over 50 varieties and the largest range of any woody plant in the Northern Hemisphere, thriving throughout the temperate zone across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Many cultures consider the leaves of the juniper to be a symbol of protection against disease and evil spirits. In Tuscany, a sprig of juniper is often placed in front of the door to offer spiritual protection to the house and its inhabitants. Juniper can also ward off snakes—according to the ancient Greek pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides—who claimed that the smoke from a fire of burning juniper could keep the slithering reptiles far, far away.

The “berries” of the juniper plant begin life a grey-green color. They ripen in 18 months to a deep purple-black hue with a blue waxy coating. Juniper berries are also revered for their medicinal purposes, particularly as a diuretic and for conditions of the kidney, bladder, and stomach.

Of course, to students of wine and spirits, the juniper berry is known primarily as the predominant flavoring in gin and other spirits such as Genever, Steinhäger, and Wacholder. The flavor profile of juniper berries is often described a pine-like, resin-like, intensely herbal and with bitter citrus notes. Noted author Harold McGee, in his book On Food and Cooking defines the flavor of juniper as “green-fresh.”

The Juniper Forest ("The Valley of Juniper) in Ziarat, Pakistan

The Juniper Forest (“The Valley of Juniper”) in Ziarat, Pakistan

Juniper berries also play a role in culinary arts, particularly throughout Scandinavia and Central Europe. As such, juniper berries are often used to impart a sharp, clean flavor to meat dishes—particularly game, with its often distinct and robust flavor profile—as well as cabbage and sauerkraut dishes. Juniper has a natural affinity for pork and is found in many recipes for roast or braised pork, as seen in the recipe for choucroute garnie, a classic Alsatian dish of sauerkraut braised with mixed meats and sausages.

One more thing: on Easter Monday, according to tradition, the young men in Kashubia (Northern Poland) chase the young ladies around the town square, brushing (sometimes referred to as “gently whipping”) their legs with juniper sprigs. This custom is believed to ensure good fortune in love to the participants. I can only assume that after watching this annual tradition unfold, the parents would need a shot (or two) of gin.

The Bubbly Professor is “Miss Jane” Nickles of Austin, Texas: missjane@prodigy.net

Filed under Context is queen, For CSS Candidates, Happy Hour

Five Fast Facts about Brouilly

March 6, 2015 4 Comments

Photo of Louis Jadot Brouilly by Rob Ireton, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo of Louis Jadot Brouilly by Rob Ireton, via Wikimedia Commons

Five Fast Facts about Brouilly

#1 – Brouilly is one of the ten Crus of Beaujolais. It is the largest and most southerly of the ten Beaujolais Crus,  Although this large area contains a wide range of microclimates and soil types, most of the vineyards face roughly east and capture the bright morning sunshine as it rises over the Saone River Valley. The hills to the west shelter the region from some of the colder influences coming in from western France, while warm sunshine throughout the growing season means that the vines of Brouilly are among the first to be harvest in Beaujolais every year.

#2 – Brouilly is one of the few AOCs of Beaujolais not to be named after a local village; instead, it is named for Mount Brouilly. The vineyard area of Brouilly surrounds the mountain, and covers land in the following six communes: Cercié, Charentay, Odenas, Quincié-en-Beaujolais, Saint-Etienne-la-Varenne, and Saint-Lager.

#3 – The mountain itself, set somewhat apart from the hills to the west of Beaujolais, was named after a Roman soldier named Brulius, who is credited with planting the first vines here over 2,000 years ago. There is a small chapel at the top of the hill, built in 1857 in order to place the vineyards under the protection of the Virgin Mary.  A smaller, separate AOC, Côte de Brouilly, covers vineyards on the higher slopes of the mountain, and is completely surrounded by the larger Brouilly AOC.

#4 – The Brouilly AOC is approved only for dry, red  wines based on the Gamay grape variety. Interestingly enough, the décret for the appellation also allows for white grapes to be grown in the region, and up to 15% of the wine may be based on Chardonnay, Aligoté, or Melon de Bourgogne.

Mount Brouilly

Mount Brouilly

#5 – There’s a legend for that: Brouilly is home to a Lieu-dit (small vineyard area bearing a traditional name) named Pisse-Vielle. Pisse-Vielle which pretty much sounds like what it means, which is for lack of a better way of saying it, “Piss, old woman.’

The  legend behind the name goes like this: A pious old woman, who regularly goes to confession, had her first meeting with the town’s new priest. The woman had very little to actually confess, so at the end of their meeting, the priest gave her his typical salutation of “Go, and sin no more!” Unfortunately, in the local dialect of the town, the word for to sin (pécher) and (for lack of a gentler way of saying it) to pee (pisser) sounded quite the same – and she thought the priest had commanded her to “Go and pee no more.” (Poor thing!) She tried her best to comply, but her husband didn’t quite understand the command, and went to see to Priest. The husband and the priest quickly cleared up the confusion, and in his rush to convey the news, the husband yelled down the street towards his wife – “Pisse Vielle!” (“Piss, Old Woman!”) – “the priest said it’s alright!”  As these things usually go, the neighbors heard his cry, and have not since forgotten!

Filed under Context is queen, Five Fast Facts, Tales of the Vine

Jean-Antoine Claude Chaptal, Comte de Chanteloup

December 23, 2014 3 Comments

Portrait of Jean-Antoine Chaptal (1815) by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier

Portrait of Jean-Antoine Chaptal (1815) by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier

Winemakers all over the world consider him a friend, but in public, they might pretend they don’t know him. No, he isn’t a fuzzy underworld-figure selling steroids; nor is he an embarrassing relative, nor a wine writer with a price. He is Jean-Antoine Claude Chaptal, Comte de de Chanteloup!

Perhaps we should refer to him by the name and moniker by which he is best-known (to wine lovers, that is), simply Jean-Antoine Chaptal. Jean-Antoine, a scientist, professor, and industrialist, perfected the process of adding sugar to grape must before fermentation in order to increase the final level of alcohol in the wine. That process, now known as chaptalization, is still in use today.

Jean-Antoine was actually a fascinating man. Born on June 4, 1756, he died in 1832, having lived until age 76. He was a both a chemist and a medical doctor. He chaired the chemistry department of the medical school at the University of Montpellier, and is credited with coining the term “nitrogen” (fr. nitrogène) for a gas produced via nitric acid, previously referred to as “mephitic air.”

A learned, confident, and outspoken man, Chaptal was arrested and imprisoned during the French Revolution. Despite this, after the revolution Dr. Chaptal became a statesman, succeeding Lucien Bonaparte as Minister of the Interior of the First French Empire. During his time as Minister of the Interior, Dr. Chaptal established the Paris Hospital, built a chemical manufactory near Paris, founded a school of arts, and instituted the metric system in France.

Dr. Chaptal, a decorated man of science, was conferred the title of Comte de Chanteloup by Napoleon himself.  In 1816, he was nominated a member of the French Academy of Sciences by Louis XVIII. He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the cordon of the Ordre de Saint-Michel, and his name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Rue Chaptal in Paris’ Montmarte neighborhood is named after him.

Perhaps, however, his greatest legacy is that silky Pinot Noir, that bracing Riesling, or that lighter-than-air Champagne that you are enjoying right now. As we know, it just might have been produced with a little help from chemistry, as seen by the mind of Jean-Antoine Claude Chaptal, Comte de Chanteloup.

The Bubbly Professor is “Miss Jane” Nickles of Austin, Texas – missjane@prodigy.net

Filed under Context is queen

It’s all about that CLORPT

December 11, 2014 5 Comments

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It happened again. All I really wanted to do was to get a quick, google-assisted definition of the word “colluvial.” I had read somewhere (the particular book, magazine, or webpage long since totally forgotten) that many of the soils in Alsace were colluvial.

Colluvial soils, it turns out,  are made up of materials that tend to accumulate at the bottom of steep slopes and cliffs, mainly via the action of gravity – as opposed to alluvial soils, which accumulate due to the action of rivers and streams.

But here’s what I also found out…we are living in the pedosphere! The pedosphere, which rests above the lithosphere (basically the earth’s crust and mantle) but below the atmosphere, is the outermost layer of the earth. It is where soil lives, and where soil is formed, via the weathering (breaking down) of minerals, the decomposition of organic matter, and everything moving around (as in living things moving around, as well as -ahem – colluvial and alluvial actions). The pedosphere is the foundation of all plant life (and therefore animal life) on the planet. And here we thought it was all about the specific flavor of Riesling from the Haut-Rhin!

Soil has Texture

Here’s something else I learned: soil has texture. Good students of wine most likely know that the particles that make up soil are categorized by size, with clay being the smallest, silt the intermediate, and sand the largest. The blend, so to speak, of the particles is what makes up a soil’s “texture.” There are actually 12 major soil classifications, as defined by the USDA. Some of these, such as “sandy clay” or “silty clay” are self-explanatory; while “loam” is made up of somewhat equal parts of sand, silt, and clay.

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Soil has Color

We know about bright-red terra rosa and glistening gray llicorella, so it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the color of soil varies according to mineral content, organic material, and water. That lovely orange/brown color signals high iron content. Dark brown or black soils are high in organic material. A well-drained soil is brightly colored, while a poorly drained soil will show an uneven pattern of red, yellow, and gray.

Soil has Structure.

Is this beginning to sound a bit like wine? Color, texture, structure? Perhaps that’s a stretch – but you have to admit all things are connected. The structure of soil relates to how the soil particles arrange themselves into small clumps, called “peds.” Peds vary due to the nature of the particles themselves and the conditions under which they were formed. For instance, getting wet and drying out, freezing and thawing, being walked on, having things grown in it, and/or being moved around can all influence the nature of the peds.

There are six basic ways to describe soil’s structure, based on how these peds interplay. They are: platy, prismatic, columnar, blocky, granular, and single-grained. Platy soil is thin and flat; sometimes the result of being walked on or otherwise compacted. Prismatic soil is formed into columns; columnar soil is also formed into columns but with a salty “cap.” Blocky soil is irregular. Granular is crumbly, usually the result of plant growth. Single-grained soil refuses to “clump” together.

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Good/Bad Dirt = Texture, Structure, and CLORPT

Soil “behaves” based on a combination of texture and structure. What a farmer might call “good soil” may be a granular soil with a loamy texture, as it holds water and nutrients. A vigneron, however, might prefer a sandy clay soil with a blocky texture, as it would be well-drained of both water and nutrients.

As for the specific soils we wine students love to talk about – jory, tufa, greywacke, marl, schist, shale, slate…they differ due to five major factors, known as CLORPT. (Now there’s a term I bet you never heard before!) CLORPT stands for climate, organisms, relief, parent material, and time – all the things that go into the various vineyard soils, all over the world, that make such tasty wine. And, lest we forget – they support all plant life and therefore animal life as well – one must eat before one can drink.

The Bubbly Professor is “Miss Jane” Nickles of Austin, Texas – missjane@prodigy.net

Note: I researched this post using about two dozen Wikipedia pages, the Soil Sciences of America Association,  and the “gardening resources” page on the Cornell University website.

Filed under Context is queen, WineGeo

The Southern Alps, Mount Cook, and the Nor’westers

October 6, 2014 1 Comment

Mount Hood Hiking Path

Mount Hood Hiking Path

Students of New Zealand wine are familiar with the mountain range known as The Southern Alps. They can probably tell you that the mountain range extends along much of the length of New Zealand’s South Island, forming a rain shadow that keeps a good portion of the eastern side of the island warm and dry. For this reason, the wine regions of Marlborough, Canterbury, and Central Otago are able to grow some of the finest Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir in the world.

The Southern Alps run for about 275 miles, forming a natural dividing range along the entire length of the South Island. New Zealanders often refer to the range as the Main Divide, as it separates the more heavily populated eastern side of the island from the somewhat wilder west coast. A large portion of the mountain range, which includes glaciers, glacial valleys, and lakes, is inaccessible except to the heartiest of mountaineers, and enjoys the protection of the National Park Service.

The highest peak in New Zealand, Mount Cook (also known by the Maori name “Aoraki,” said to mean “Cloud-Piercer”) is part of the Southern Alps.  At 12,218 feet high, Mount Cook is a dangerous but popular challenge for mountain climbers.  Aoraki/Mount Cook consists of three summits – the Low Peak, the Middle Peak, and the High Peak – surrounded by the Tasman Glacier to the east and the Hooker Glacier to the west.  The settlement of Mount Cook Village is a tourist center and serves as a base camp for climbers. For the adventurous, the area offers a wealth of hiking and skiing as well as star-gazing at Mount John Observatory in the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve – the largest dark sky reserve area in the world.

Nor'west Arch over Canterbury Photo by Jman Matthews

Nor’west Arch over Canterbury Photo by Jman Matthews

The prevailing westerly winds known as the “roaring forties” push in from across the Southern Ocean and the Tasman Sea, bringing along with them a host of moist air, much of it aimed directly at the west coast of New Zealand. When the winds bump up against the mountains of the Southern Alps, they are forced upward, and this force cools the air, and condenses the moisture to rain. The cold air and precipitation are kept on the west side of the island, thus creating the warmer, drier conditions on the eastern side of the island where the majority of the population (and vineyards) live.

The prevailing west winds also create a weather pattern known as the nor’wester. As the ocean breezes rise up the west side of the mountains and drop their rain, the wind turns warm and dry as it descends down the eastern side of the mountains, similar to the Zonda often experienced in Mendoza. These warm, dry winds play a major role in the intermittent droughts experienced by Canterbury and other regions on New Zealand’s eastern coasts.

A more pleasant side effect of the nor’wester winds is a cloud formation unique to the South Island of New Zealand known as a “nor’west arch.” A nor’west arch appears in the sky as an arch of cloud in an otherwise blue sky, and is frequently visible in the summer across Canterbury and North Otago.

The Bubbly Professor is “Miss Jane” Nickles of Austin, Texas

Context is Queen: I know this post seems a bit far-fetched for a wine post…but…I’ve found in teaching or studying a subject as complex as wine, it helps to know the context. While a wine student may memorize the fact that the Southern Alps form a rain shadow for parts of New Zealand, taken out of context, that bit of information will remain what students (not so kindly) call a “factoid” and others may call “trivia.” Such things are hard to remember, and even more difficult to understand. However, with a bit of context, especially at the human level (“what can you do there, do I want to go there, that looks cool/scary/weird…”) these facts become much easier to remember, use, and understand. So that’s what this post is all about – content is king, and context is queen!

 

Filed under Context is queen, For CSW Candidates, Travels in Wine World, WineGeo

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