Wine 101: The Things I've Learned About Wine

By Tom Mansell, Science Editor

About a year ago, I started my own blog. About six months ago, I became the science editor for this publication. Several years ago, I was a scientist (I still am), but I knew next to nothing about wine culture. Luckily, I read a lot of magazines and websites so that I could learn all about things that didn't quite make sense to me from a scientific point of view.

Wine needs to breathe.

People say wine is a living thing, right? So living things have to breathe! Getting oxygen into wine actually softens the tannins, right there in the decanter! Never mind that the kinetics of tannin polymerization are on the order of weeks. Good thing I can buy a special "oxygenizing" glass to age my wine 10 years in 10 minutes! It must be some advanced technology.

Wine consumers only understand the 100-point system.

No one will buy a wine that gets 4 stars out of 5. That's like an 80 out of 100! A 5-star system should start at 2.5 stars, just like the 100 point system starts at 50. But really, you don't see any scores less than 70, so it should start at 3.5 stars.  See, this is all too confusing for the average consumer! Which brings me to my next point.

Wine tastes the same every time you drink it.

Humans all have the same number of taste buds, so everyone's palate is pretty much the same. Therefore, an 89 is an 89 to everyone, no matter how long after purchase you drink it.  After all, why have the precision of 100 points if an 89 could become a 90 or (gasp!) an 88 on a different day? Plus, aroma and flavor aren't affected by the food you consume with a wine, so tasting conditions really don't matter.  Bottle variation is a red herring.  What matters is that all the qualities of a wine can be reduced to a two-digit number. Simple!

Everyone hates hybrids.

The unholy mixing of Vitis spp. must be stopped! Disease resistance and cold-hardiness be damned. If it's not pure Vitis vinifera, it's crap!

Leaves are the enemy and must be destroyed.

My first article on this site was about the effects of sun exposure on grapes. I learned quickly that the only way to increase sun exposure to grape clusters is to remove every single leaf from the fruiting zone somewhere around bloom. Not only does this increase the cost of wine, but it gives otherwise bored vineyard workers something to do before harvest time. It's win-win.

Plus, it makes the vineyard look so pretty!

Winemakers and growers love it when people outside the industry tell them how to do their jobs.

How can you not love free advice?!?!

Comments

[Chris]

Great article. It's hard to break yourself out of pre-conceived notions, no less a whole industry. Hopefully the newer generation of wine drinkers will be a bit more open minded than the previous generations.

[jim silver]

I think someone is having some fun with us...

[Peter Bell / Fox Run]

1. To this list, I would add, "Vines should be referred to as Varietals, not Varieties", as in "we're putting in 5 acres of Italian vairetals this year."

2. Re: "Wine needs to breathe", we all know that tannins actually take weeks to polymerize, but there is an explanation for the softening effect that is actually credible.

When I probed the brain of Prof. Gavin Sacks,it [he] told me, "Tannins are polyphenolic, which means they have lots of free hydroxyl groups (C-OH). These hydroxyl groups are what bind to salivary proteins.

"Upon exposure to oxygen, the hydroxyl groups will convert to ketones (C=O) which changes the polyphenolics to a class of compounds called quinones. Quinones have no affinity towards salivary proteins."

[Ian Barry]

Thanks Tom. I wish I would have read something like this 13 years ago when I was first starting in the wine business. It would have saved me lots of trouble. Wine is officially de-mystified.

[Peter Bell / Fox Run]

Sorry for the typo in post #3. I can't get in to edit it.

Peter

[Tom Higgins]

Tom -

Love the April Fools post. Thanks for the laughs.

[Elaine From Cookware Help]

Oh dear I started to read this and they I looked at the date

[tony gallen]

what happens to wine if there is no viscosity ?