3/31/2010 In the Wine Lands

I went with an SAS trip to two wineries in South Africa’s wine lands outside of Cape Town. We first went to Backsberg Estate Cellars. I got off the bus and was really struck with the beauty of the area. Green slopes contrasted the brown mountains in the distance on a warm day with a cool breeze. I learned about Backsberg and how they are a zero carbon company, meaning they are extremely environmentally conscious. After discussing a little bit of how they manage the company, and market wine internationally, we learned about wine tasting.

There was a long table with places for everyone. Each place setting had five glasses of wine and a brandy. Before tasting each wine we were shown how to hold the glass, look at the wine for color and impurities, swirl it for oxidation, look at the legs of the wine showing sugar and alcohol level, smell the wine and letting it trigger the memory of various flavors and smells, then taste the wine. Now tasting, I have learned, is different than your casual sip of wine. In tasting you take a sip, swish it a little so that all surfaces of your mouth experience the flavor, then you part the lips a little and take in some oxygen to bring out the flavor and allow the smell to continue to be a part of the tasting. At last you swallow and take a breath, now experiencing the aftertaste. The aftertaste is especially important because this is the taste that induces you to take another sip. We went through the wines and ended up with the brandy in our hands.

The brandy was handled differently. Instead of holding the glass by the stem to avoid heating the wine with your hand, you deliberately hold the glass cupped in the hand to heat the brandy. After a few minutes of warming it up you can smell the nice brandy fumes by taking a little whiff near the glass opening. This is unlike smelling wine where you stick your nose into the glass. If one was to smell brandy like wine it is a bit unpleasant and overwhelming. After smelling the brandy I took a sip and ‘chewed’ it, letting my mouth experience everything. Then swallow and take a deep breath in through the mouth. This brandy was spicy and warm. What was really fun, was my professor’s young son who tried the brandy. Once he swallowed the brandy his eyes popped wide open and he opened his mouth, panting from the heat.  

I learned I tend to like a more mature white, one that has spent some time in a barrel, and a full-bodied red. I also did not like the rose wine we tried which is basically a pink colored, white wine. After the tasting we traveled to Nelson Wine Estate where they talked to us more about the process of making wine.

At Nelson Estates I learned how the trellising of the vine and the pruning of the canopy are very important. They affect ripening time, water absorption, ease of picking, and other very relative factors. I learned that sometimes after big rains they have to shake the water off the grapes so they don’t absorb and get too watery. They showed us the fermentation bins and told us about using French and American oak for the barrels. I was told that French oak brings out the different tastes. It sharpens the good and the bad. American oak, on the other hand, has a more blending effect that smoothes the flavors making the wine more palatable. Nelson Estate uses a mixed barrel of French and American oak to bring out the flavor, but keep it nice to drink. After the tour we had the pleasure of tasting wine at Nelsons. This wine tasting was more informal and invited people to associate the smell and taste with whatever they can, but reminded us that what we were drinking was essentially just grape juice.