The Qualities of Wine - Appearance and Bouquet
The four qualities that make up the character of a red or a white dry
wine are appearance, bouquet ("nose" in the wine-maker's jargon), flavor
and finish. APPEARANCE
 Color and clarity are the two factors of a wine's appearance. The color
of red wines may vary from deep rose to dark crimson. Some reds show a
distinct brownish tinge, others a tinge of purple. There is no rule
about color, except that the wine-maker usually tries to get a good
depth of color into his red wines and to avoid strength of color in his
whites. The color of a natural wine comes from the skins (except the
small amount that comes from the wooden cask in which it may be held for
the first stage of its maturation). The longer, therefore, that the wine
is left "on the skins" the stronger its color will be.
The color may be further strengthened by adding some or all of the
"press wine" (the wine separated from the mart in the wine press), but
while this may add a considerable strength of color to the wine, the
mart contains the highest concentration of aldehydes, esters and
tannins, only a proportion of which are desirable in the finished wine;
too much of them will adversely affect flavor, bouquet and finish. Red
wines are pressed after fermentation, whites before. In each instance,
the amount of presswine put into the free run juice is a matter for the
wine-maker's judgment, having regard to the qualities and balance he
wishes to achieve.
A general rule is to beware of a red that is pale, and a white that is
strong in color. In a dry white (of the hock/riesling type) the
desirable color is pale yellow/green. The greenish tinge, said to be
chlorophyl, is much sought by wine-makers in the light, acid wines, for
it gives the wine an appearance of freshness (not in the sense of being
young) and cleanness. One wine-maker of our acquaintance likes to think
of freshness and cleanness in his wines in terms of "cold, clear spring
water". The wines, both red and white, should be quite clear; bright is
the wine-maker's term for a good, clear, wine, and he achieves it by
racking (shifting from cask to cask, leaving sediment and lees behind),
fining (clearing sediment by use of albumen, or gelatin, or bentonite
clay) and by polishing (pumping through filters immediately before
bottling).
Sometimes you will find, notably in some of the very good, aged Hunter
River dry reds, a decided cloudiness. This is a very fine sediment that
in no way affects the bouquet, flavor or finish of the wine, but does
tend to spoil the appearance of what otherwise is a wine of notable
distinction. When we wish to poke a little fun at the Hunter vignerons,
we call it "Hunter River mud", but it has to be done carefully because
the Hunter vienerons think that all muddy wine comes from the Murray
River Valley!
Some dry whites you will find to be a much deeper yellow than others.
Generally, the hotter the district in which the grapes are grown, the
yellower will be the wine. The "heavier" it is, the closer it comes to
the white burgundy style, strong of bouquet and full bodied, and the
yellower it tends to be. But the rule is not fast. Some of the justly
famous Carte D'Or rieslings of Yalumba, in the Barossa Valley, made
entirely of rhine riesling grapes, are golden yellow in color.
BOUQUET
When you intend to drink a bottle of dry table wine with a meal and you
expect both meal and wine to be good, open the wine two or three hours
beforehand. This will get rid of any "bottle stink" it may have.
Sometimes there is a faint tinge of sulphur in the bottle; it will be
"free" sulphur that does not combine with wine, but it can be smelt if
not allowed to escape. Sulphur is much used in wineries for
sterilization of bottles and casks; it has an all pervading and
offensive odor, but it is easy to handle, highly effective in killing
many bacteria and undesirable yeasts. Pour a little of the wine (less than half a glass) into a tulip shaped
glass and swish it around the sides. This will free the odors without
allowing them to escape from the glass. Put your nose into the glass and
sniff. If you have not over-filled the glass you will not get a
nose-full of wine, but, instead, a nose-full of aroma. But how to
describe it? The bouquet probably will delight you. It may remind you of
fresh straw, of good earth, or many things, but fundamentally it should
smell of grape juice, and when you become really expert, you will be
able to identify, not only grape, but variety of gape. This is as it
should be, for, as we said at the beginning of this book, wine is a
preserved form of the fruit grape, and if in the preservation processes
it has lost all identity with the original, there is not much merit in
the wine.
Wine in the cask, at the time it is ready for bottling, has very little
bouquet. Its flavor is there, although still awaiting the refinement and
development that age and slow chemical change will bestow. But stored in
the large volume (1000 gallons or more) of the cask and sealed off from
the entry of air, it seems reluctant to give off its proper bouquet. It
is not until it has been in the bottle for a few months, as a unit of
liquid perhaps as small as one-tenthousandth of its cask size and with
an air-space very much greater in pro-portion to that which it had in
the cask, that it willingly gives up its natural bouquet. Even then, it
needs to be spread thinly as a film of liquid on the sides of the glass,
and thus in maximum contact with air, to give off the whole of its
potential bouquet.
It is best to use a thin glass, particularly for dry reds, so that the
wine may be warmed a little by the hands, for this too, helps free the
bouquet. For the same reason, dry whites should be served not too cold,
for the colder they are, the more reluctant they are to part with their
aroma. If you really want to judge all the qualities of a dry white you
will drink it at room temperature. If you can't bring yourself to do
this, perhaps a glass of beer would better serve your thirst!
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