Wine and Variables

[Jerry D Mead]

Kaet...It's not like brewing beer or distilling whiskey, where the same result can be repeated almost identically year after year.

Too many variables in wine. And same grapes, from same vineyard, picked on the same day and given to different winemakers will yield wildly different wines sometimes. Why?

In the case of a red wine...perhaps because of how long the skins are left in contact with the juice during fermentation will determine the amount of extraction and concentraion of fruit flavors...tannin and acidity and other components of the grape and its skin. And trying to do it the exact same amount of time the next year (or even the next day) won't work...because the chemistry of the grapes will be different. Even grapes picked from the same vineyard the next day will have different sugar levels, acid levels and pH, because of another day of sunshine, or maybe it rained, or....

Whether the fermentation takes place in wooden tanks or stainless steel makes a difference...oh! and what kind of wood? Is the wine filtered? (How heavily?) Fined? Barrel aged? How long?

And those are just a few factors. Making wine is not a factory kind of thing. Think of it as agricultural artistry.

JDM