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Wine

Wine

Wine is one of the oldest and most celebrated alcoholic beverages on earth. Scholars believe the first wines were made in the Middle East sometime around 8,000 BCE, and introduced to Europe around 4,500 BCE. Wine usually made from the fermented juice of grapes. Different styles of wine are created from different varieties of grapes and yeasts. Not every wine is made from grapes, it can also be made from other fruits like apples and berries. Wines made from starches like malted barley and rice (barley wine and sake respectively) are more named for the high alcohol content rather than the process.

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About Wine

What You Need to Know About Wine:

Almost every wine is a blend of different wines. When a wine is more than 75-85 percent of a single grape, it becomes a varietal and is named after the dominant grape, ie a Cabernet Sauvignon is made of primarily Cabernet grapes. Merlot, Merlot grapes. Chardonnay? Chardonnay Grapes.

The vintage of a wine refers to when the wine was harvested, and is on every wine label. A vintner is the person who makes all the decisions related to the production of a wine, and a vintner works at a vineyard. The geographical location of the vineyard is called an appellation. Most European wines are named for the appellation rather than the varietal, ie Bordeaux, Champagne, Chianti etc.

When oenophile (wine lovers) taste a wine, they taste the wine in a series of steps. Smell is a huge part of taste, which is why you always see wine lovers smelling wines before tasting. The way a wine smells is called its nose. You may have also seen people swirling wine around in a glass. This does several things, it helps to aerate the wine, it releases some of the aromas and it shows a wine's legs. Legs are the noticeable traces of oil left running down the inside of a wine glass. They tell how much alcohol glycerine and sugar a present in a wine, the longer the legs the more alcohol etc.

Now, that you have noted the nose and legs, you can actually taste the wine. Let the wine roll over your tongue and fill your mouth. Note how the wine feels in your mouth, how does it feel? Smooth? Silky? Harsh? The initial dominant flavor of the wine is called its forward flavor. The after taste is called the finish. A long finish is prefered to a short one.

Related Images

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MALAGA, SPAIN - DECEMBER 28: A man in traditional costume drinks wine out of a wineskin flask before performing in a traditional Verdiales Flamenco contest on December 28, 2011 in Malaga, Spain. Verdiales is a style of Flamenco thought to originate near the Andalucian port of Malaga, and is performed by a group of musicians known as 'Pandas' during the contest held in the outskirts of the city.

President of French far-right party Front national (FN) and candidate for the 2012 French presidential election Marine Le Pen (C) drinks a glass of wone as she visits the cellars of the Fevre vineyards, on November 26, 2011 in Chablis, centraleastern France, as she arrives to visit his property as part of a campaign visit on the theme 'Protection of the wine-producing heritage and the support to low-sized vineyards'.

Eva Joly (C), French Green Party 'Europe Ecologie les Verts' (EELV) member of Parliament and candidate for the 2012 French presidential election, drinks a glass of wine with winemaker Jean-Claude Brelière (R) on November 24, 2011 in Rully, eastern France, during a campaign visit. The Norwegian-French magistrate, angered by the shortcomings of the Socialist/Green accord on nuclear reduction policy, which on November 23, 2011 to say on the RTL radio station, if she would ask to vote in the second round of next year's presidential election for Francois Hollande, the French Socialist Party (PS) candidate, declared today that she wanted to go ahead with her ecologist project for 2012 and to end the controversy with Socialist Party.

Protestors drink sparkling wine in front of The Quirinale, the presidential palace, to celebrate after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned on November 12, 2011 in Rome. The 75-year-old Berlusconi is quitting after a parliamentary revolt and a wave of market panic put an end to his 17-year domination of Italian political life, raising global fears of a political crisis in Italy.

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