FOOD & WINE
Uncorked Wine reviews by Gill Gordon-Smith IWE
Back to the future Illustrations by Eddy Sara.
Amphora: Historically a pottery vessel with two handles (or a unit of measure) but now used in wine circles to describe a large clay pot used to ferment and age wine. The practice originated some 6000 years ago in what’s now modern-day Georgia in pots known as qvevri – though many old world regions have used similar vessels over the centuries. The slightly porous clay gives the wine texture by allowing a little oxygen to slowly reach the juice, while keeping the pure fruit expression. Basket press: A vertical grape press usually made of wooden staves in a cylindrical shape held together by steel hoops. It looks like a basket and has a horizontal wooden disk that gently presses the grapes. The juice from the squashed berries escapes through the slats and is captured. Concrete eggs: A concrete tank shaped, unsurprisingly, like an egg. Winemakers have used concrete tanks for a long time, but egg-shaped fermenters arrived in the early 2000s. With no dead corners, the wine circulates during fermentation keeping the temperature fairly constant and adding texture, depth and mouthfeel. It’s a neutral fermenter that allows a little oxygen in but doesn’t impart flavours like oak barrels can.
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Orange (amber, skin contact): Wines made from white grapes that are treated like red grapes. The grape skins are kept in contact with the juice for days or even months. Skins contain colouring matter, phenolics and tannins and this style of wine has different flavours and lots of texture. The colour is various shades of orange or amber depending on how long the juice is left ‘on skins’. Wild ferment: Fermentation via the natural or ambient ‘wild’ yeast found on the grape skins and in the environment and vineyard. The flavours from wild yeast are often more expressive than cultured yeasts, but there is some risk involved compared with the common practice of adding selected or cultured yeasts which allow more control during fermentation.
