Reddit reviews Wine Science: Principles and Applications (Food Science and Technology)

I'm jealous of your upcoming trip. :)

I don't know how much the subject would interest you personally, but asking wineries about their vine training methods and canopy management philosophy always cues them in that you are truly serious about wine. In Bordeaux, the French wine laws will actually dictate some of their answers (like for instance, the vines need to be trained a certain way to have only so many buds, etc) but there are subtle differences in how difference chateaux train their vines which can have an impact on the resulting quality of the grapes.

Another "geeky" question, given your biology background, is to ask them what types of yeast do they use and are they cultured or ambient. There are literally dozens of popular yeast strains that all have unique attributes. Some bring out more aromas, some are more alcohol tolerant and allow for more robust wines, etc. Some wineries will even cultivate their own unique "wild" ambient strains that they feel contribute the most ideal characteristics to their wines.

As for science wine books, I wore out David Bird's "Understanding Wine Technology" while studying for a lot of my enology exams. Yair Margalit has a book specifically relating to wine chemistry called "Concepts in Wine Chemistry" which is a doozy! Not having your type of background, I literally needed to have a copy of "Chemistry for Dummies" with me while I was working with that text. :P

Though the "Bible" when it comes to wine science is the actual enology text book used at UC-Davis and many other schools with an enology program. Ronald Jackson's "Wine Science" http://www.amazon.com/Wine-Science-Third-Principles-Applications/dp/0123736463/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267483933&sr=8-1

Ideally you don't want to juice them. You let them sit in a container for 3-4 days at around 45F (dry ice works well to cool). If you juice/press them too early, you'll have very astringent cotton-mouth tannins and green bell pepper flavours (3-methoxy-2isobutylpyrazine). Add s02 before you cold soak though, otherwise you'd be at risk of microbiological stability.

We add enzymes during cold soak to help extract color. Our lab results showed that we extracted 23% of the grapes potential color (total anthocyanins) and only 4% of total potential tannins during cold soak which is what you want! AFter that ideally raise the temperature to 68-70 before innoculating, and then bring it up to 88-90F for 2 days and cool it back down as the fermentation winds down.


Don't vigorously stir, otherwise you'll introduce harsher tannins. Gently "punchdown" the skin cap. As it begins to ferment the cap will rise to the top and need to be punched back down. Make sure the cap is always wet.

There are some great books out there if you're serious. THis is what i'm digesting atm: wine science

It means earlier in the season, the block was over-irrigated and thus energy was put towards growing a thicker canopy. Subsequently it caused more fruit to develop, with larger berries that usually have more of that vegetable, herby flavor.

If the vine is more stressed (less water), the vine's energy will go more into developing and maturing the fruit than it will towards developing phtosynthetic surface area (canopy devlopment). There is a general yield/quality ratio, but you can undercrop a vineyard as well. One can also overly prune early on in an effort to reduce yeilds which actually spurs excessive vegetative growth instead of limiting it.

In our case, I believe it was a matter of over-irrigating. It is our first year working with the vineyard, so we'll be fine tuning it over the next few vintages. We ended up getting ~5 tons an acre from that block when we were shooting for 2.8-3. That being said...the fruit and wine is tasting excellent, with great color and brix above 24 at harvest.

There are great diagrams available in this book that show how there is a trend where Brix and color go up as yield goes down. (i HIGHLY recommend this book if you're keenly interested)

Wine Technology and Operations by Dr. Yair Margalit
Wine Science by Ron Jackson