See Us at Whole Foods - Pinot - Oxford YouTube and a Fun Competition

Sat. July 25 , 4 - 6pm.
Whole Foods at Sawmill Parkway (Dublin Store).

Whole Foods are running a meet the local producer event and we'll be there since we're a local producer. Stop by, say, "hello" and wear you Via Vecchia buttons so we know not to bore you with our spiel all over again and can talk about other things.

Pinot Noir.

The Pinot is bottled and now labelled. This will not be released through any retail outlet and not subject to tasting events. It's too precious for that - seriously - the grapes are the most expensive we buy and it has been aged longer and as you know, time is money, especially when you manage your barrels like we do. And it is good. A true Pinot not artificially mellowed out. And we don't use enzymes to bleach the color into the wine from the grape; this is still produced the way we do all our wines with no artificial treatments or interventions, a process no-one else can claim hand-on-heart. This is not cola nor chemical soup.

Oxford.

Angie posted an animation of the Oxford Wine Affair we were invited to at Oxford, late June. We appear twice. A Via Vecchia button to anyone who can spot both appearances and describe the shot accurately enough. This "competition's" open until August 1st 5pm. Send entries via email to viavecchiawinery@yahoo.com and put "I Seeeeee Yooouuu" in the subject line.

Bottling Adamo 2007

The barrel racks got here on Friday, so we were able to bottle on Saturday.

We bottled the Adamo 2007 (sangiovese and cabernet franc blend) and then we moved the Jorro-Ma 2008 (syrah) and half the Evidente 2008 (pinot noir) into their French Oak barrels.
What we're left with is four secondary fermentation drums containing the sangiovese and pinot noir that goes into the Trovato 2008.
You may like to enjoy some video of bottling, corking and capping that is on our facebook space. On this blog we offer the following pictures of the winery and some activity.
On Wednesday we shall be finishing off the bottling of Adamo 2007 and finally transferring Trovato 2008 from secondary fermentation into ageing.
Also, thanks to those who were at Whole Foods, Lane Avenue, on Saturday afternoon. Michael was released from winery hard labour to do the tasting there. We know it was a success as he had to send Katrina back up to the winery to get more wine to sell.

Here you can see us preparing a French Oak barrel. We re-use our barrels as they're way more expensive than American Oak and old European wineries re-use them too. We clean, gas them, when not in use, then re-hydrate them to swell them up again before cleaning before re-use. Barrels leak like sieves if they've dried out so re-hydrating is necessary unless you want to lose a lot of wine.

Below you see our growing wall of wine. In the foreground are the prepped French Oak barrels that will receive the secondary fermentation from out of the blue fermentation drums.

This is our bottle filling machine. Wine is pumped into the reservoir at top, then wine is dispensed into bottles via the 4 spouts you see at the front. The bottles rest on the shelf below the spouts whilst filling. From here, the bottles are passed to the corker (no pictures of corker here, but a video of this is on facebook).

After the cork is inserted into the bottle, the bottle then has a tin foil cap placed on top of it and the bottle is inserted, neck first, into the capping machine. See video on facebook.

The wall of wine grows again.

However, we still have some wine left in secondary fermenters that will be used to top-up the barrels over the course of the next 12 to 18 months (these are the demijons at back, sealed with olive oil). The blue fermenters will be emptied by next Saturday.

Jungle Jim's Market, Cincinnatti, Ohio

It's with great pleasure that Via Vecchia Winery announces that all four of its 2006 wines are now carried by Jungle Jim's Market, cincinnatti, Ohio.

Jungle Jim's is THE place in Cincinnatti for food from all nations and a huge wine selection, so we're excited to go there. We've since found that many people anecdotally know of someone who has to go there each time they're in town.

So a big thanks to David S and Todd W of Jungle Jim's Market for taking time to taste our wines, listen to our story and take us on board.

Here's a link to the wine page. That's David in the photo.

Some notable comments from David and Todd

"Old European style reds"

"All food-friendly wines"

"California wine, with a twist"

"Well balanced"

"We like what you did with the fruit"

Their address is:

Jungle Jim's International Market

- 5440 Dixie Highway -

Fairfield, Ohio - 45014

Phone 513-674-6000 - Fax 513-674-6001

Getting Busy again

So a lot is happening again.

Saturday 9am - 12noon - if you know us, pop on by see what's up - shout when you arrive, we'll help you across the snow.

We checked out or old barrels and rejuvinated them. This consists of cleaning them out and filling them with water to rehydrate them. We have put wine in before hydrating and just watched it leak out again, whilst frantically caulking the head with sliced cork - can't do that with a plastic cork. Luckilly it has always been the head that leaks and even luckier, the head you can see, not the one against the wall.

So all went well with 2 barrels. 1 barrel decided it would pursue an alternative career as a sieve impressionist and got into character by happily leeking like one for about 12 hours.

It leaked from the head and the staves. But happily for us, it eventually gave up and decided to join us in maturing the 2007 wine and closed up as tight as a, well, a barrel.

It all helps with cutting down the expense of ordering more used french oak barrels and helps the planet.
We ordered morebarrels for 2007 too. They may be here next week, and we may start transferring soon after. I think the secondary fermentation is more or less complete. We'll see.

These barrels will be rehydrated too.

Tomorrow we try out our new filling machine. For thos eof you familiar with the Tom Baker Dr. Who, the filler looks like the machine used by the Santarans (Sultarans?) to go around kidnapping survivors of a crashed ship on an earth many years in the future. I dare not copy a photo from the BBC since they jumped all over those who copied the TellyTubbyies. remember them?

Well what about the Clangers, BagPuss, Chrystal Tipps and Alistair, Ivor the engine and Ludwig (what was that all about?). And long before there was Captain Jack, there was Captain Pugwash and Noggin the Nogg. Feel free to add to the list of nostalgic programming.

By the way, the Pinot Noir for 2007 is out of this world and will get even better over the next 6 months or so. Reserve now as we already have people who have tasted from those barrels making offers!

Also, Jorro-Ma (the Syrah) is getting very low.

Locally Minded

Just a reflection on just how small a community can be.

So we get about a bit now and talk to the people we meet at tastings and the retail owners, and we find out how there's a lot of interconnectedness (is that a word?). For example, the retailers in different parts of town seem to know each other, they know the same buyers, and as you build up these acquaintances you can help each other out with referrals, their ideas for business and now, Christmas parties.

With our charitable giving, it leads to introductions to others to experience the wine, who in turn make connections with you with their acquaintances. We're at a stage where we're experiencing the ability to say we do know a name that is offered up to us by a new acquaintance.

(Note on charitable wine auctions - a bottle of ours just went for $560 at an event hosted by Hexion)

With people, it is great to recognise them out and about. It's fantastic that some turn out to be evangelists for us - true locally oriented heroes. And it is a measure of their integrity and determination, in the face of all that's convenient and mass produced and cheap, when they turn up to further support you beyond the wine and also buy the chickens' eggs - thanks, Janice.

Personally, I like to be able to use these connections to help those I meet. It happened recently at Whole Foods where I met a gentleman (who bought a mixed case of wine) whose father was growing berries and was getting into mead making, but needed support and guidance, so I was able to put him in touch with the Simply Living organisation and Local matters, both wonderful resources for putting local producers in touch with retailers and people.

Finally, I connected over time, generations and geography when an older gentleman challenged the authenticity of our wine making methodology at a tasting with a healthy synicism. On recognising his heritage I switched to using Italian and soon, after probing questions to test my authenticity, he understood, to the point of buying wine. He promised me feedback too, which I hope he does do.

A Temple of Our Wine

So, you know we're pretty creative bunch what with soap dishes made from our barrel staves, soap with our grape skins and so on and so forth, not least the design elements of our labels, choice of bottles...well, looks like we have surpassed ourselves this time!

It didn't start out as being a Temple of Wine, but that's what it ended up as.

We took a used French Oak barrel of ours, cut out the front, used the staves to make internal shelving, burned images and text into the wood, made it safe, but all from the perspective of a floor display.

Then it gets borrowed and it ends up in the air and looks like a Temple of Our Wine. See photo. That's our wine bottles around, in and on it.

Some behind the Scenes...

This is our corking machine. Place cork in brass hopper and pull lever down.

This is our filling machine. Place bottle under nozzle (teat?) and fill.

This is our labelling machine. Place on labelling table in exactly same spot as last time, labeller in exactly same spot on table, get template bottle with secret marks on it to align, then place bottle on it, hand crank and the labels are on...maybe first time if you've been a good lad. If not, you will suffer the endless torment and agony of micro-adjusting misaligned labels.

Bottles, upright in cases on our roller conveyor, resting to allow the cork to decompress in the bottle neck, before going on to labelling and then being placed upside down in cases to keep cork wet.

Just a Few Things...

As we creep ever nearer achieving that most excellent event of seeing our wine in its bottle, fully dressed, there are events going on that heighten this excitement and serve to douse it somewhat. In short, we're experiencing a decidedly mixed bag of emotions right now. Its effect is seen in how few the posts to this blog has become.
So this post will be plain and just go through some high and low lights of the past few weeks. It's ameasure of things when we really only have one low, but it is of such fundamental importance, it seems to dominate and negate all else.

Highlight 1 - Soaps and Recycling Grape & Seeds.

This is so cool. Lucia of Zen Tree Soaps found a use for our grape skins and seeds. She makes soaps and all manner of our related products. When she came by to see us transfer from primary fermentation to secondary fermentation she went away with about 3lbs of each grape varietal we had - taken right from the fermentation bins.
Within a week she had returned to show us her Pinot Noir soap. A soap with our pinot noire grapes in it. Paolo has been using this for two weeks now and reports the bar is at the stage where the grape skins are really poking up and so as you soap yourself they act as an exfoliant.

Highlight 2 - Recycling Grape Sediment (Lees).

Still with Lucia, we gave her about a cup of lees from which she is experimenting with a face pack. The lees are a great anti-oxidant and we know from our own experience, that if you smear it on your face, as it dries it really cleanses your skin.

Highlight 3 - Candle lab

Curt of The Candle Lab stores visited. They make custom candles and they run candle making parties. he likes our wines and is looking for a way to introduce them into the business. State laws, such as they are, do not simply allow him to sell our wine, or readily include them as a private event party beverage.

Highlight 4 - Maca's

Michelle (of Mamapalooza fame in prior posts, and partner in StarfFish Clothes), called us from Maca (a Tapas Bar in Powell, no website) . She had got the owner interested in our wines. So we went down with some wine for him to try. This was very nerve-wracking as it turns out that Norm, who was a basketball player for Barcelona (No.15), Spain, was taught how to taste wine by the winemaker of Chateaux Margaux.
Long and short of it was that he liked it, said we were doing the right thing, and that it was amazing that we turned out a nice wine as he thought we had a big handicap other winemakers don't (our shipping of our grapes).
So he wants the wine. And again, State laws being such as they are, this is not as simple as it sounds due to minimum markups etc. But we'll get there.

The Abyss - 1

Our label approval is a grind.

Federal laws being such that they are, means that because our State of Ohio does not touch California, where we get our grapes, means we cannot claim the California appellation. Fine. However, if you want to state the grape varietal on your label, you need the appellation, so we are prevented from stating the varietal on the label. And, without the varietal stated, you cannot put the year.
So, even though , we do get our grape from California, we do use sangiovese etc, and we did produce our wine from the 2006 harvest, we cannot say any of that at all, anywhere.
All we can say is Red Wine, state alcohol content and give the blend or varietal a fanciful name.
We were not allowed to state that we don't sulfite either, or use minimal sulfites, or sulfites below the organic standard.
At one point we were prevented from using "produced" even though we do produce the wine - that got sorted out in our favour - eventually.
We feel penalised. We cannot state what we have done on our label. we cannot state truth. In fact, during one enquiry of the Feds, we were accused of doing something illegitimate because otherwise we wouldn't be querying their rules and trying to find loopholes to get the true information on our label!
How does this serve the public, when we are prevented, through regulation, from stating truthfully on the product's label what is in the bottle so that the consumer can make an informed decision?
Whatever, we'll get there. If anyoen has some helpful industry advice, it would be very welcome.

Columbus C.E.O. Magazine Article
Yeah, we'll talk about this later. Lessons learned in journalism, we guess.

Transfer to secondary fermentation

Over Friday 12 and Saturday 13 we transferred the wine from primary fermentation to secondary fermentation.
Deciding when to do this was mostly driven by the finger method, but had to include some allowance for the must rising and peaking, then falling back into the wine. Whatever.
The transfer is a hard slog. We had a guest staying, Roger, who was here for a spiritual healing event he'd set up, but he soon found himself helping in the winery.

Here's Roger being plied with food and drink, prior to the forced labour.

The transfer is roughly divided into two processes.
1. Free Run
Up until 2 years ago, free run for us meant opening a spigot and letting the wine flow out of the primary fermentation vessel. Now it means what we pump out. With free run we pump the wine from the primary to the secondary fermentation vessel until it's full, then seal it with an airlock of olive oil.
2. Press
After we have got the wine out of the primary, we then take the grapes and seeds (marca/must/cap) and press these out. We collect a lot of wine this way, but it's a bit more silty. This we separate into demijons and use it to manage our barrel losses whilst ageing and also to keep the secondary vessels topped up. The silt will settle out quite effectively without use of chemical or mechanical filtration.

Here's our press. It's all manual. We make it a bit of fun too as you can work the press like a ship's capstan, so obviously we stand around the press and sing sea-shanties as we pull and push the lever on the ratchet. Before the press really "bites" into the grape the ratchet spins quite freely on the central screw, hence the capstan effect. When the press has bit, then one person cranks the lever, end of capstan.

This part of the operation takes a while and is monotonous. Long into the Sat's early hours, Roger listened to us singing sea - shantys. We are pirates, you know.
Sea shanty's are great as you can take it in turns to make up your own verses...you can but imagine.

After the wine is pressed out, you dismantle the press and you get a compacted "cake" of grape and seed - see below.

Another piece of fun was pressing Mike's cap. Here you see a short (and dark) video of him finding his cap.
[video to come - fed up of waiting for yahoo video to process it]
Now we did have some labour saving device this year int he form of that conveyor that you saw us use during the crush itself. Now you see the conveyors on the floor providing a great way to get heavy drums of pressed grapes out of the pressing area and into the area where they're staged to go out of the winery.

Oh, did I mention this was messy?

Next post about how we have collaborated in the community to use our waste grape skins and seeds and how we're going to reuse the silt that settles out of the wine.

Last of the 2005

Today was, in retrospect, a watershed. It passed almost without significance and yet, it marked an end to making wine outside the "bubble" of the bonded winery status of Via Vecchia Winery. Why? Well, today saw the breaking of the last remaining barrel of our Bordeaux blend (Truove) from 2005 which was not produced under bond. From here on in, any bottling of personal use wine will come from the bonded 2006 barrels.

We leave you with images of that last barrel, a stack of wine cases duly receiving their bottles, and Michael standing proud beside his quarter share.

Well done all.

Bottling and Corking Wine

[At Left, Anton filling a bottle of wine with 2005 "Bordeaux"]

[At Right, Clone Rob and Apron Boy

then cork the filled bottle]

As requested in a prior post, more on the wine filler. We do have video of this, but it's currently on private view in youtube because, as usual, the production possibly suffers too much from bloopable innuendo and double-entendres. Oh well, if we vote to release it, it will be released - check back.

Racked the Top-Up Wine.

First task yesterday was to decant the wine in the demijons into empty demijons, leaving the lees behind and giving it an airing. We missed the full moon, I know, but hope the new moon did something

We've had a lot of queries from search engines on lees and sur lees, but we forgot to take a picture of the lees in the demijons so those searching for them could get an idea what they are. In our process the lees serve as a natural anti-oxidant - any ladies want some as a natural face-pack?

As we racked the wine we tasted. All was A.O.K.

Topped Up the Barrels.

We also took the racked wine and topped up our barrels of wine to eliminate headspace. Again, some tasting and stirring and smelling. The wine is progressing nicely.

Broke into another private stash.

We bottled another lot of 2005 "Bordeaux" with our incredibly efficient, not-a-drop-is-spilled wine filler. We still are not filtering, relying on natural sedimentation to do the job naturally.

Michael.

He's back from some place with "hole" in its name, somewhere out west. Apparently our resident feats-of-strength-I-may-have-a-thing-for-Carmen Miranda-fruit-headwear man got himself into a bit of bother with a kayak and a raging two foot deep torrent of water. Nature IS very deceptive. But a big "THANKYOU" to Shep who risked all to save him.

Of Friends and Fun

(This is Rob P (left) and Marty. When Rob P left for California in 2004, Marty was created to replace him. To avoid them being mistaken for each other Marty was given pinned-back-go-faster-ears and made to wear a cap)
Yet again we find ourselves just having too much fun!
Is such a thing possible!
How do we do it?
Remember a few posts back we asked where in the world was Rob P? Rob P who was meant to turn up for the BDX barrel break? Well turns out we were so happy to learn he was going to visit us from California that we all refused to read his email correctly when he told us that he could make it anytime except the day we planned. Anyway, Rob P showed up yesterday at the winery...and it turned out to be (naturally) one of those late night / early morning affairs.

There was also the added and delightful bonus of Molly. This is not to say Rob P isn't in himself a delight - I mean, we all love a wine critic, right. Molly wasn't quite sure about what we were about but as we toured the winery with her and explained what was happening and what we did, she settled in as it jived with what she had learned from a Discovery Channel programme about true/real winemaking.
Rob P and Molly showed up after we were just about done with winery business. Just as well. Which was:
1. Bottle Labeller.
The bottle labeller arrived. Ok, this probably needs a post of its own with pictures, but this piece of equipment has just got to be the world's most expensive inexpensive-looking product. I mean, it is very well made, with some very nice touches, but even so... If you want to check it out go visit Great Engineering and click on the BenchMATE product for demo and spec sheets. Thanks Greg for getting it to us all the way from Oz at a price cheaper than the US can provide and in a quicker timeframe too.
2. Bottle Filler.
This is on order and due in on 4th June.
3. Labels.
Real good progress here. We're just about to lock off on design format between designer and printer and have our label size worked out. We need to do the back label though.

Other business.
a) Wine tasting.
We tasted the BDX, now in its 13th month in the barrel. In the words of Borat, "You like."
b) Rob P and Molly.
Oh, that was just too much fun. We sampled the BDX, then went back and tried some 2004 and 2005 SanGiovese/PinotNoir.
We handled the Chambourcin with tact.
Needless to say we probably overdid the real wine propaganda, but hey, when you're passionate you can't stop yourself. And we hope Rob P and Molly enjoyed themselves too (guys, we'll send pictures and you can let us know which ones we can publish - Molly, we'd love the video of you naming your barrel and Rob P the one with your stylish headgear).
c) News from the frontLine of Wine Tasting.
After a tremendous campaign of endurance and self discipline in which no quarter was ever given, Mr. H of Westerville, possibly our biggest reader and, together with Mrs. H, the most gracious and generous of hosts, accidentally drank a 2004 Sangiovese/Pinot Noir. Any disappointment he may have felt upon the realisation of such a lapse in self-discipline that allowed the out-flanking of his long term strategy was then successfully countered with the satisfaction that he had drank something quite special and smooth. Well done, Sir!

Topping Up

There are many who claim to have fun with what they do, and yet... and yet you look at what they post to their web sites and blogs and they all look so serious and well, not having fun. I know we have been accused of just having fun, but frankly, since when does having fun lessen the importance or credibility of what you do? And that's not rhetorical, you can answer and debate that one with us if you like.

So anyway, today's fun was topping up the barrels. We also had the pleasure of Mike coming over to visit and help. We haven't seen enough of him lately and it was good to have him joining in the fun - or should I say, work.

We topped up from our reserves in the demijons. All hand pouring no less, with lots of sampling. We have some video of that, but can't post it here as some of us got a bit colorful in our comments.
The Cabernet Franc had kicked up again! We won't interfere with that though and we'll let it burn itself out. We do not want high alcohol wine but that Franc may well push it for us, so we may actually withhold it from sale this year and blend it with something next year.
We also tried a 50% Cabernet Franc and 50% Syrah mix - too early too tell what it would be really like, but it was pretty much alright, good even, anyway, we drank it.

So now to pictures.

This is our hand crafted process in action. Careful pouring to top up the barrel. Please note that there you see direct evidence of our natural filtration process - note the sediment at the bottom of the gall jug? well that has settled out and will not go into the barrel. The same happens in the barrel. When we siphon the wine out of the barrel the sediment will be left behind. In the meantime it's a lesser form of a sur lees method of winemaking. The lees are reputed to be natural antioxidants too, and is why we are able not to rely on sulfiting.


This is our board room. Very serious, as if!

This is us under the watchful eye of Bacchus. A gift from Katrina, who Michael (white shirt) proposed to.


Finally, we got the 2005 Winery Year DVD out - we have two versions 1, the fast cut/lively music version and 2, the sepia toned/Italian folk song soundtrack. As those of you who have seen these productions of prior years, I hope you'll agree they're just full of fun. But then, we do have fun, as I said.

Testing and Tasting

[siphoning wine into hydrometer - left to right, Paolo and Michael]

We tested the specific gravity of the wine this week. We just used the hydrometer. As long as the specific gravity shows that most of the sugar's burned off, then we're doing well.

It is always a bit of a nervy moment because we do not calculate adjustments to add yeast or sugar to ensure a result - we want the wine to do it itself and show us what it is / what it wants to be. This way we produce a wine full of its own character, rather than of our own subjective ideas of what it should be like.

The alcohol content is simply a matter of deducting this reading with that taken at the stomp and dividing by 7.36, or 7.39, can't remember. We had very good readings at the stomp and we're showing below 1 now, so that's good - dry wines here, but not acidic as there will be some residual sugar.

I'm concerned that we'll have too high alcohol - over 12% on some. We prefer a normal level of alcohol so you can actually drink it without it being a chore - so 12% would be good.

[ measuring specific gravity]

We may got to Vin Italy in Verona too to check out winery equipment and wines.

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More Wine Goes Into Ageing

Saturday - and we put the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc into ageing in their French Oak barrels.
The pump played up again. Nothing to do with the impeller - Paolo repaired the torn blade and it held all day - but the motor itself. Seems like the motor wants to turn over, but there isn't the "kick" to start it off. We checked the load on the drive wheel, the tension of the drive belts and they were fine. It's just that the drive wheel didn't turn even with no load upon it. Anyhow, since it was making noises like it wanted to go, we resorted to "kick-starting" it. This was achieved by running the pump with the drive exposed and Marty hand cranking it until it 'caught". This worked all day long and we got through it fine.
However, since the pump is meant to be both self-priming and self starting, this is not good. We believe the starting capacitor is "fried".

Paolo designed a dip-stick to measure off how much wine was being pumped. This was needed to roughly gauge when we had enough of a Varietal in a barrel, essential when wanting to achieve the different percentages of each Varietal in each barrel. It worked fine.

Topping off the Bordeaux blend barrels was done by siphoning out of the demijons we had racked in December for the Cab Franc. We left the Cab Franc until last because it is the smallest percentage in our Bordeaux blend and our pump cannot pump with the responsiveness needed to be shut off in time when the barrel is full. There is a device that can be bought that senses the change in pressure at the barrel full point and shuts the pump down there and then.

The Bordeaux blend dealt with our Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. We had enough Cabernet Franc to make up its own barrel. Anton reminded us all that Cabernet Franc is the father of Cabernet Sauvignon, and for my money, at this stage, it seemed better in many respects. The remainder of the Cabernet Franc went into storage in a bag from FlexTank that will keep the wine safe for up to two years -you place the bag in a 60gallon drum.

Only the SanGiovese and Pinot Noir to go.

[l to r - Paolo, Marty (holding drum), Michael in back of drum, John in front of drum holding red funnel]
Here we're carefully pouring off the last several gallons in the drum into a demijon. We don't pump out all the way to the end as we do not want to suck the sediment (lees) back into the wine - remember we rely on natural sedimentation as our filtration method as we do not mechanically nor chemically filter our wines. This wine will be again siphoned into the French oak barrel.



This is Anton siphoning out of the demijon the Cabernet Franc into the French oak barrel.


This is Micheal diligently tagging the Cabernet Franc barrel.

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"Finish" and "Taste"

Up and down, up and down. That's how the emotions go when you put something out there for public scrutiny. We have had a very good reception apart from a Chicago tasting of one of Michael's splits. We don't know details as to treatment of the wine before tasting (was it left out for a while and subjected to +70F?) but at least it was all good apart from the finish.
Anyway, and I ask Michael to correct me as I'm sure he'll consult the Encylopeadia of Wine, from my own point of view I understand Finish and Taste to mean the following.
Finish.
There are basically two groups of aromas in wine 1), the direct aroma through the nostrils and 2), the indirect aroma when the wine is in the mouth (retronasal).
Finish refers to the endurance/persistence of the retronasal/type 2) aroma. So, in theory, a Great Wine (or an ordinary wine with a lot of artificial help)continues to reveal aromas and flavors in the mouth after it has been swallowed, lips licked, and a breath taken.
Taste.
The four possible tastes in wine are Salt, Sour, Bitter, Sweet. It cannot be anymore since the human tongue just deals in these four. If you taste Salt, oh dear! I really don't think any wine should naturally taste of salt, but if you're manufacturing wine for the Fast Food Generation, perhaps the addition of salt would help them appreciate it.
Some sweetness, bitterness of astringency from tannins or the "sur lees" method, and some acidity will be present. For my part, and this is extremely subjective, a Great Wine should have all three in barely perceptible amounts, neither one dominating. Therefore I like a mellow, smooth wines and avoid high alcohol wines (12.5% and Up) because they have their acidity artificially increased to cope with the alcohol (and I believe higher acid also leads to higher sulfiting, but need to check that one).
That's enough for now (The Winery Web Site Report continues to influence), but next time see an epistle from Eubulus on the consumption of wine.

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More Research

Well, I discovered another regular viewer of this blog - Doug. Doug (of Portland, OR)has done his own bit of research about wine making and has found that what Via Vecchia Winery does is unique and not a lot of winemakers do it the real way. He also finds that the ones like us in CA charge a lot for their wine. Well we've seen the $63/bottle and Up prices ourselves.
Additionally, Michael dug out a winery that only deals exclusively with caterers. Mmmm, a volume route to market. I would like to meet her.
And it's my birthday on Christmas Day.
Listened to the soundtrack from the "Nightmare before Christmas" too.
Can we go to Lido's ?