Water 2 Wine Blog : Houston

• Made from 100 percent Gamay grapes
• This wine’s style is typically light and fruity.  It’s meant to be consumed young.  Beaujolais can be chilled
• Beaujolais is the best selling Burgundy in the United States by far, probably because there is so much of it, it’s so easy to drink, and it’s very affordable.  Most bottles cost between eight and twenty dollars, although the price varies with the quality level.

What are the quality levels of Beaujolais?
There are three different quality levels of Beaujolais:
Beaujolais: This basic Beaujolais accounts for the majority of all Beaujolais produced. (cost: $)
Beaujolais-Villages: This comes from certain villages in Beaujolais.  There are thirty-five villages that consistently produce better wines.  Most Beaujolais-Villages is a blend of wines from these villages, and usually no particular village name is included on the label. (cost: $$)
Cru: A cru is actually named for the village that produces the highest quality of Beaujolais. (cost: $$$$)
What’s Beaujolais Nouveau?
Beaujolais Nouveau is even lighter and fruitier in style that your basic Beaujolais and it is best to drink it young.  Isn’t that true of all Beaujolais wines?  Yes, but Nouveau is different.  This “new” Beaujolais is picked, fermented, bottled, and available at your local retailer in a matter of weeks.  (I don’t know what you call that in your business, but I call it good cash flow in mine.   It gives the winemaker a virtually instant return.)
There’s another purpose behind Beaujolais Nouveau: Like a preview of a movie, it offers the wine-consuming public a sample of the quality of the vintage and style that the winemaker will produce in his regular Beaujolais for release the following spring.
Beaujolais Nouveau is meant to br consumed within six months of bottling.  So if you’re holding a 2000 Beaujolais Nouveau, now is the time to give it to your “friends.”
How long should I keep a Beaujolais?
It depends on the level of quality and the vintage.  Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages are meant to last between one and three years.  Crus can last longer because they are more complex.  There are Beaujolais crus that are more than ten years old and still in great condition but that is the exception, not the rule.

As a result of the German law of 1971, there are two main categories, Tafelwein and Qualitätswein.
Tafelwein – Literally “table wine.”  The lowest designation given to a wine grown in Germany, it never carries the vineyard name.  It is rarely seen in the United States.
Qualitätswein – Literally “quality wine,” of which there are two types.
1. Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete: QbA indicates a quality of wine that comes from one of the thirteen specified regions.
2. Qualitätswein mit Prädikat: This is quality wine with distinction – the good stuff.  These wines may not be chaptalized: The winemaker is not permitted to add sugar.  In ascending order of quality, price, and ripeness at harvest, here are the QmP levels:
Kabinett – Light, semidry wines made from normally ripened grapes. Cost: $10-$20.
Spätlese – Breaking up the word, spät means “late” and lese means “picking.”  Put them together and you have “late picking.”  That’s exactly what this medium-style wine is made of – grapes that were picked after the normal harvest.  The extra days of sun give the wine more body and a more intense flavor.  Cost: $12-$30.
Auslese – Translated as “out picked,” this means that the grapes are selectively picked out from particularly ripe bunches, which yields a medium to fuller style wine.  You probably do the same thing in your own garden if you grow tomatoes: You pick out the especially ripe ones, leaving the others on the vine.  Cost: $20-$45.
Beerenauslese – Breaking the word down, you get beeren, or “berries,” aus, of “out,” and lese, or “picking.”  Quite simply (don’t get scared about the bigger names), these are berries (grapes) that are picked out individually.  These luscious grapes are used to create the rich dessert wines for which Germany is known.  Beerenauslese is usually made only two or three times every ten years.  It’s not unheard of for a good Beerenauslese to cost up to $500.
Trockenbeerenauslese – A step above the Beerenauslese, but these grapes are dried (trocken), so they’re more like raisins.  These “raisinated” grapes produce the richest, sweetest, honey-like wine – and the most expensive.
Eiswein – A very rare, sweet, concentrated wine made from frozen grapes left on the vine.  They’re pressed while still frozen.  According to Germany’s 1971 rules for wine-making, this wine must now be made from grapes that are at least ripe enough to make a Beerenauslese.

A balance of sweetness with acidity and low alcohol.  Remember the equation:
Sugar + Yeast = Alcohol + Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Where does the sugar come from? The sun!  If you have a good year, and your vines are on a southerly slope, you’ll get a lot of sun, and therefore the right sugar content to produce a good wine.  Many times, however, the winemakers aren’t so fortunate and they don’t have enough sun to ripen the grapes.  The result: higher acidity and lower alcohol.  To compensate for this, some winemakers may add sugar to the must before fermentation to increase the amount of alcohol.  This process is called chaptalization.  (Note: Chaptalization is not permitted for higher quality German wines.)
The three basic styles of German wine are:
Trocken–dry
Halbtrocken–medium-dry
Fruity–semidry to very sweet

The color and the grape: Red wines, because of their tannin levels, will generally age longer than white wines.  Certain grapes, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, tend to have more tannin than, say, Pinot Noir.

The vintage:  The better the weather conditions in a given year, the more likely the wines from that vintage will have a better balance of acids, tannins, and fruits, and therefore have the potential to age much longer.

Where the wine comes from: Some vineyards have optimum conditions for grape growing, including quality soil, good weather, proper drainage, and slope to the land.  All of this combines properly to produce great wine that will need time to age.

How the wine was made (vinification): Fermenting and / or aging the wine in oak, or leaving the wine in contact with the skins longer increases the amount of the natural preservative tannin it will have, which will help it age longer.  These are just two examples of how the wine making process affects the aging of wine.

Wine storage conditions: Even the best wines can’t age well if they’re stored improperly.