UMAMI

By Jessica Zimmer

Ameaty, savory element called “umami” adds body to a wine and creates a pleasant sensation relating to fullness. Wines with the umami element pair well with smoked and spiced dishes, including stews, poultry, and dried fruits. The silky, rich quality of umami is present in soy sauce and Parmesan cheese.

“I believe there are savory components to most wines, certainly all reds — earthy richness, animal fat, roasted meats. They are normally covered up by fruit extract, what I call baby fat. As the baby fat falls off a wine in the cellar, in some wines with excellent vineyard sourcing and terroir… umami notes emerge,” said Hagen.

Many winemakers view umami as a sixth element, after acid, complexity, fruit, finish, and intensity.

The best way to experience umami is to cook a cultivated mushroom like a shiitake mushroom, according to Timothy Hanni, a professionally trained chef and Master of Wine based in Sonoma County. The deep taste is created by the conversion of glutamic acid to free glutamate.

Umami can be developed by growing a wine in a rare terroir that produces the element. Patience in cellaring also helps, said Wes Hagen, estate host and head of wine sales and wine education for Native9 and Ranchos de Ontiveros Wines in Santa Maria, California.

Hagen added fully mature dry wines and wines with some sweetness are defined by their umami and earthiness.

Umami tends to be observable in concentrated, jammy, sometimes bitter, and extremely complex wines. Wines with umami tend to be fuller-bodied than the average wine, according to Adam Edmonsond, the general manager and senior sommelier of The Sommelier Company, a provider of independent wine and spirits expertise.

Well-known wines that exhibit umami include well-aged Châteauneuf-du-Pape from the Rhone Valley in France, Shiraz from Australia’s Barossa Valley, and Amarone della Valpolicella, made near Verona, Italy. For the Amarone, umami comes from raisination, a specialized process that involves drying some of the grapes prior to winemaking. Raisination concentrates flavors from the grapes and contributing new flavors. The raisinated juice is then blended with juice from non-dried grapes before being made into wine.

Tips for winemaking

Amateur winemakers and professional winemakers working with small batches can create umami by choosing grapes known to create this quality. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsaut, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Pinot Noir, red Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, and Syrah grapes can work. Generally, red wines tend to have more umami than white wines.

White grapes can also create umami. For example, blends containing Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, and Pinot Blanc grapes exhibit umami.

Hiba Salloum, owner and winemaker at Umami Wine in Kherbet Kanafar, Lebanon, favors two white grape varieties that are native to Lebanon. These are Obeidi, also known as

Obaideh or Obeidy, which some believe to be a local clone of Chardonnay, and Merwah, an ancient vine of Phoenician origin related to Semillon.

A winemaker should not use overripe grapes. After pressing, they should look for a Brix of between 21 and 22.5 for red grapes and between 22 and 23.5 for white grapes, said Hagen. He also recommended using a feral or indigenous yeast.

A winemaker can use oak, French, American, Eastern European, or Hungarian, in a variety of formats and sources and at different stages of the winemaking process. Hagen recommends using toasted French oak barrels and whole-cluster fermentation where practicable in reds. Oak characteristics are meant to enhance the wine and add dimension, as if adding a spice, said Kristin Belair, director of wine growing and sustainability for Honig Vineyard & Winery in Rutherford, California.

“It can be helpful to inquire about the vinification and aging processes and how these relate to what you are trying to achieve in your own wine,” said Belair.

Dr. Anita Oberholster, specialist in cooperative extension in

Continued on next page enology at the University of California, Davis, said the yeast lees in an aged Chardonnay barrel can help a white wine develop umami. For champagne, a second fermentation in the bottle, which allows longer contact with the lees, creates umami.

“Be careful, because lees can turn on you. Stir that lees every day. Sniff it to make sure it’s not getting an off flavor,” said Oberholster.

Adding aging time to the wine can also help. Hagen has held wines for two years after extended barrel treatment. This allows the wines to settle into their quality.

As a winemaker works, they should keep careful notes about their process, including tasting notes and lab results. This will help them refine their craft from vintage to vintage.

“Some best practices include making sure your barrels are topped up regularly, having temperature controlled storage conditions, and regularly tasting and monitoring SO2 levels. If you are thinking about blending, make a small trial blend of a few 100ml to see how it tastes prior to putting a larger blend together,” said Belair.

Pairing umami wines with food

Wines with umami go well with a wide variety of dishes, from seafood such as oysters to hard cheeses.

Recommended pairings include cold cuts and smoked meat for red wines with umami, fish and vegetable gratin dishes for white wines with umami, and grilled chicken or duck breasts and Niçoise salad for rosé wines with umami.

Hagen encourages matching a fully mature Chardonnay that

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Cabernet reduction and scalloped potatoes with Brie.

Oberholster’s favorites include Parmesan cheese with an aged Chardonnay and prosciutto with tomato with a crisp German Riesling.

Hanni warned that foods with a high intensity of umami, including asparagus and ripe tomatoes, make any wine seem more bitter, acidic, and sour.

Umami is becoming a more widely discussed topic in the wine industry. In the next few years, it is likely that more winemakers will share the work that has gone into their bottles. Edmonsond said he would like to see more wineries capture umami in their wines, as it is a part of the flavor spectrum that happens to be rare.

Oberholster said she hopes to develop sensory studies to understand how umami presents itself uniquely in different varieties of wine. She would like to work with the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis to share the information with the public.

Oberholster added umami is hard to describe on its own.

“That’s because umami impacts sweetness and bitterness. When we’re able to draw out umami, like showing its subtle gradation between different Chardonnays, we can share that with winemakers. This will help them create the best wines from the grapes they use,” said Oberholster.

Jessica Zimmer is a news reporter, attorney, and educator based in northern California. She has worked in journalism for over 20 years. She covers a wide variety of industries, including alcoholic beverage production, transportation, law, and the arts.