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Surf4Wine Wine FAQ
Your frequently asked questions - answered! Just click any of the links below that fit your question
or if nothing here covers it you can email your question to one of
our wine experts.
How long can I keep a bottle of wine for once it's opened?
Good question. If you can't manage it all in one sitting, the best bet is simply to pop the cork back in and put it in the fridge. It should still be OK the next day, and might even still be drinkable the
day after that. But it will have changed a bit: as soon as a bottle is opened and the wine exposed to oxygen, the steady process of decline will have kicked in. Various preservation devices exist (e.g.
vacuvin, inert gas), but these don't really work any better than putting the cork in and keeping the bottle in a cool place.
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What is 'corked' wine?
Have you ever opened a bottle, and instead of clean, fruity aromas found that it smells of mouldy cellars and damp cardboard? This is what a corked wine smells like. Contrary to popular opinion a corked
wine is not one that has bits of cork floating in it (this is totally harmless, fish the bits out and the wine will be fine); instead, it is a wine that has been contaminated by a chemical called
trichloroanisole (TCA). The human nose is extremely sensitive to this contaminant (it can be detected at concentrations as low as parts per trillion!), which is a result of a chemical reaction between
chlorine and cork. It is a major problem, spoiling between 1% and 7% of all wines, depending on who you listen to. This is why artificial corks are increasingly being used, especially on inexpensive wines
not destined for ageing. The degree of cork-taint can vary, but you'll find that almost all retailers will replace a corked bottle without question if you return it.
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I hear a lot about 'oaked' and 'unoaked' wines: what do these terms mean?
Oak barrels are an important and complicated variable in the production of the majority of serious red wines and an increasing number of whites. Many white wines, and in particular Chardonnays, are
fermented in small oak barrels. This adds some complexity to the wine, and also imparts toasty, nutty and vanilla-like flavours to the wine, especially when the barrels are new. Red wines are rarely
fermented in barrels, but will often spend a lengthy period of ageing in them. Barrels allow a small amount of oxygen to come into contact with the wine, thus accelerating the development of more complex
flavours, and when new oak is used, the wine picks up flavours of vanilla and spice and tannins from the wood. Different effects can be achieved depending on the type of oak used (commonly French or
American, but Portuguese oak is quite different and is commonly used in Portugal, and Slovenian oak is often used in Italy). The quality of the wood used is important, as is the size of the barrel. It
all gets rather complicated. Oak barrels are expensive, though, and for cheaper wines the effects of barrel fermentation and ageing are simulated by the use of oak chips or even used barrel staves bolted
to the inside of stainless steel tanks. This practice is illegal in some more traditional wine-producing countries, and as you might expect, results can be variable. Because oak ageing can add an
attractive lift to a wine, some producers have overdone it a bit, and the tasting term 'oaky' is pejorative taste term for a wine that has been given too much oak treatment. An oaky wine will usually
taste and smell of freshly sawn wood, or may have sweet vanilla flavours. Like many taste judgements, it is a bit of a subjective call: people differ in their tolerance for oaky wines. In reaction to
this, some new world producers have begun using 'unaoked' as a positive marketing term. It's a strange world…
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Why do restaurants get people to taste a small sample of the wine before pouring
it?
It's empahtically not to see whether the punters like the wine or not. Instead, this tasting exercise serves to determine whether or not the wine is faulty, primarily through cork taint or oxidation. You
can't just send a wine back because you don't like what you've chosen.
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What differences are there between vintages?
It depends. In cooler climates there tends to be more vintage variation; this is seen particularly in the classic regions of Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire of France, for example. In regions such as
these., there will typically be a few really good vintages, several average ones and a couple of real disasters. In warmer climates there's still a difference between vintages, but it's much less extreme.
It's worth remembering that vintages vary widely from region to region within each country, and that in any one region there will be producers who did much better (and much worse) than average in a
particular vintage.
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What does the term 'Reserve' mean?
You'll often find the term 'reserve' on the label of a bottle, as it is a term used throughout the wine world. There is no formal definition of what makes a 'reserve' wine: producers usually use this to
indicate a wine that is made from selected grapes or has been given lavish oak treatment.
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What is Botrytis / Noble Rot?
It's a fungus that infects grapes, causing them to rot. Scientific name Botrytis cinerea. Imagine the following scenario. It's almost harvest time, and your vines have lovely healthy bunches of ripe white
grapes hanging off them. Then, after a succession of damp misty mornings the grapes are infected by a Botrytis, with the result that they shrivel up and go all furry. A disaster? Quite the opposite. This
is what is known as noble rot, and although the grapes look disgustingly inedible, infected bunches yield small quantities of concentrated juice that produces some of the world's most complex, sublime and
long-lived sweet white wines. What sort of flavours should you expect in a wine affected by noble rot? There is often the tang of thick-cut marmalade and apricots. The texture will be rich and viscous,
and although the wine will be sweet, in good examples there will also be plenty of acidity to give balance. Because of the risk associated with producing these wines and the low yields involved, these
wines are invariably expensive, but the Australians are now producing delicious, affordable botrytized wines from grapes that have artificially been seeded with fungal spores. Innovative, eh? Look out for
good examples from Sauternes in Bordeaux, Vouvray, Bonnezeaux and Coteaux du Layon of the Loire, Tokay in Hungary, Burgenland in Austria and various regions of Germany.
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Is a £10 wine twice as good as a £5 wine?
Difficult to answer: it's almost impossible to define wine quality objectively, and for any given sum you can get a range of good, bad and indifferent wines. But bear in mind that for a £10 wine,
proportionally more of the money will have been spent on the wine (taxes, shipping and duty add up to about half the cost of a £5 wine), so the quality may well be much higher. However, as you spend
more the law of diminishing returns comes into play, such that higher up the scale you have to pay a lot more for each increment in quality. And with highly sought-after wines you could be paying for the
scarcity just as much as the quality.
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What does the term 'Vieilles Vignes' or 'Old vines' mean?
You'll often find the term 'old vines' (in French 'vieilles vignes') on the label of a wine; it's becoming an increasingly popular marketing term. There is no legal definition, but it's usually used to
refer to wine made from grape vines that are over 30 years old. Older vines, so the story goes, produce fewer grapes but those they do produce are of a better quality than fruit from younger vines. Really
old vines of 80-100 years old are rare, but can produce some sensational wines.
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Why is the standard wine bottle size 75 cl (750 ml)?
Who knows? One attractive explanation I once heard is that this was considered just enough for a Frenchman to consume with his dinner each evening.
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When and how should I decant a wine?
'Decanting' is transferring a wine from its bottle to another container, most commonly a decanter. There are two main reasons for decanting. First, bottle-aged red wines and Vintage Ports commonly have a
lot of crud at the bottom, and careful decanting separates this from the wine. Second, decanting exposes the wine to air¾lets it 'breathe'¾which may or may not allow the wine to express
itself more fully. Received wisdom states that tannic young wines 'open out' (smell better) when they are decanted, although attempts to demonstrate this effect in blind tastings have largely been
unsuccessful. Still, whether or not decanting is beneficial for a wine, the whole ceremony is immensely satisfying and probably worth doing just for the fun of it. If you decide to decant, the first thing
you need to do is leave the bottle to stand for 24 h or more. Without joggling it around, pull the cork and try to pour it in one continuous, steady motion: stopping and starting the process will mix up
all the gunk again, a bad thing. If you don't have a decanter, no worries: you could use any clean container, then wash the original bottle out and pour the wine back into it.
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How long can I keep a bottle of wine for? Will it improve with age?
It all depends on the wine in question and your cellar conditions. Wine is one of the few foodstuffs that can improve with age, and this is also one of its key fascinations. The longevity of different
types of wine is a complex and inexact science: real wine bore territory! Given good cellaring conditions (cool, stable temperature is key among these) fine red wines will improve for many years after
release, as will Vintage Ports and certain sweet and dry white wines; indeed, some wine styles (such as classed growth clarets from a good vintage) only begin to show what they are capable of after a
decade in the cellar. But most everyday wines are best drunk on release. If you lack access to a proper cellar, a cool, dark area in the house may be suitable for short to medium-term storage.
Alternatively, you can have your wines professionally cellared (for an annual fee) or buy an expensive temperature controlled storage unit.
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What does the term 'terroir' mean?
Imagine that on your property you have three vineyards, one that has a clay-based soil, one that has a gravelly soil, and one that has chalky soil. Each of these vineyards is planted with the same grape
variety, and the grapes are all handled the same way in the winery. Yet when you taste the finished wines from each site, each will have its own unique characteristics. Terroir is a French term which
refers to exactly these site-specific differences in wines that are caused by factors such as soil types, drainage, local microclimate and sun exposure. Debate rages about the importance of terroir versus
the role of the winemaker, and also exactly how factors such as soils influence the flavour of the wine.
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What do the terms 'grape variety' or 'varietal wine' mean?
You've seen the words 'Chardonnay', 'Sauvignon Blanc', 'Cabernet Sauvignon', 'Shiraz' and 'Zinfandel' on wine bottle labels. These are the names of different varieties of the wine grapevine, Vitis
vinifera. There are dozens of different varieties commonly used to make wine, either on their own or in blends, and each contributes its own particular flavour profile to the finished product. A
'varietal' is a wine named after the single grape variety it was made from. This consumer-friendly practice began in earnest in the USA in the 1950s and is now so popular that the majority of wines from
the new world now have the grape variety (or varities, in the case of blends) on the label.
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Why are some wines described as 'tannic'?
'Tannins' is the collective name for a bitter, astringent group of chemicals that are found in skins, pips and stems of grapes, and also in the oak barrels that are commonly used to age wine in. Take a
young, dark monster of a red wine and swish it around your mouth. That bitter, tongue curling, tooth-coating, drying sensation you get is from the tannins. Tannins are used in the leather-making industry
to turn cow hide into shoes, belts and posh sofas, so no wonder it feels like tough young wines are turning your mouth into leather! However, even though this description doesn't sound too appealing,
tannins are a vital component of red wines. They contribute structure, which in turn facilitates ageing and thus the development of the complexity that comes from long-term cellaring. And without tannins
to counter the fruit, most red wines would taste flabby and unbalanced.
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What is'structure' in a wine?
If you read tasting notes (not advisable in most cases) then you might have come across the adjective 'structured', most likely in relation to a red wine. This rather abstract term refers to the elements
of a wine that confer longevity, mainly tannins and acidity. Most Bordeaux style reds will have in their youth a structure mainly comprised of tannins, both from the oak they have been matured in and also
the grape skins. In Burgundy and the Northern Rhône, the structure tends to be contributed both by the tannins and also the relatively high acidity.
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What is 'dumb' wine?
The dumb phase of (generally red) wine, also referred to as the flat spot or the awkward, transformational, or adolescent phase refers to the period of transition from its youth to maturity. At bottling,
a wine may be luscious, with rich, ripe aromas and flavours. After a certain period of time (typically a few months) the wine may begin closing down, in that the fruit begins to decrease before the
complexities of maturity have fully developed. The combination of declining fruit and pre-emerging complexity cancel each other out, creating a wine that simply doesn't taste very good. The cause of this
phenomenon is uncertain, and it's time frame is uncertain, sometimes lasting for several years.
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