The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine terms: Negociant

Ask an American how wine is made, and most of us will answer that it involves buying a winery and growing grapes on winery land. It's all very romantic, and it's one of the reasons why so many people think they want to own a winery (until, of course, they discover the joys of harvest and Pierce's Disease).

In fact, this vision of the wine business – which produces what are called estate wines – is not the only approach to winemaking. There is also the negociant method, a French term for a wine company that buys grapes or finished wine, or even both, and sells the resulting product under its own name. In this, a negociant may not own land or a winery, and the only “winemaking” that it may do is to blend the finished wine that it buys from other wineries into a final product.

There is nothing wrong with this approach; it's a centuries-old tradition that started in the French region of Burgundy, where some of the best wines in the world are produced by negociants. It moved to Bordeaux, where it works in a slightly different fashion, and today exists all over the world. That includes California, where many well-known wines are made under the negociant system. Purple Wine Company, which makes Mark West pinot noir and Avalon cabernet sauvignon, is a negociant (and quite proud of it).

Nevertheless, many California producers still don't like to be thought of as negociants. In this country, a stigma still attaches to the term, as if it's un-winely in some way. I can't tell you how many winemakers and marketing people make an effort to reassure me that their wines are estate wines when I interview them, as if estate wines carry some guarantee of quality. Which they don't.

The photo is from Kay Pat of New Dehli, via stock.xchng, using a Creative Commons license

wine terms, negociants

More on the New Normal, in dollars and cents

One of the best descriptions about what's happening in California came from Bloomberg reporter Dan Levy, which makes for a nice followup to Monday's post about the wine market and how much it has changed since the fall of 2008.

Levy has all the numbers in one place and he has the right experts discussing the changes and what they mean:

• The dollar value of U.S. retail wine sales dropped 3.3 percent in 2009 after rising every year and almost tripling from 1991 through 2008. Though consumption increased 1.9 percent, that didn't make up for the fact that U.S. consumers are abandoning wine that costs more than $15 a bottle.

• Sales of wine priced more than $15 declined 10 percent last year, and wine that cost more than $30 fell at least 15 percent.

• More than 30 wineries are for sale in California, Oregon and Washington, the most ever. But properties aren't selling because owners are reluctant to accept the low offers they are getting. Land values in Napa Valley, home to about 400 producers, have fallen 15 percent from the 2007 peak.

Levy also has this gem of a quote: "We went in like blind fools," said one woman who hasn't made a mortgage payment on her Napa property in more than a year. "We didn’t really expect to get the loan, but felt committed when we did."

wine market, wine prices, The New Normal

Wine terms: Champagne and sparkling wine

Wine terms are confusing enough on their own, but the terms for champagne and sparkling wine offer their own style of confusion. For one thing, thanks to a trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, only sparkling wine that is made in the Champagne region of France can be called Champagne.

But that's only the beginning. After the jump, a glossary of champagne and sparkling wine terms -- in honor of my old pal Darryl Beeson, who always enjoyed a fine glass of the bubbles. We'll be toasting you tonight, my friend.

Why I don't like winespeak

Saw this review of an Argentine malbec: "Dark purple red colour with black berry on the nose. On palate it's black currant with hint of spice. Approachable light to medium bodied and little or no tannins but lack of depth and short finishing."

Does anyone have any idea what this means?

wine terms, winespeak

Randall Grahm and Bob Dylan

And why not? Each is, in his profession, one of a kind -- though Grahm, as good a winemaker as he is, probably hasn't made the wine equivalent of Blonde on Blonde yet.

I mention this for two reasons. First (shameless self-promotion alert), the Wine Curmudgeon and Grahm are scheduled to appear on Olivia Wilder's Blog Talk Radio show at 8 p.m. central on Sunday (Grahm first, and I'll then join him). Second, Grahm made a music video, called "Sub-terroir Rhonesick Blues," to promote his new book, Been Doon So Long. It's a very clever takeoff of Dylan's classic version of his "Subterranean Homesick Blues," which appeared in the documentary, Don't Look Back, directed by D.A. Pennebaker.

The  Dylan version is here; you can watch Grahm's effort below. Lots of in jokes, and it helps if you know the Dylan song, but still funny. My favorite line? "You don't need a Spectator to know which way your wine blows."

Randall Grahm, Bob Dylan. Olivia Wilder, Blog Talk Radio

Wine terms: Residual sugar

Or, in laymen’s terms, how much sugar is left in the wine after fermentation is complete. The amount of residual sugar tells you how sweet the wine is going to be.

This is not a difficult concept to understand, though we do have to make a brief detour through chemistry class. Wine is made by adding yeast to grape juice from the crushed grapes. The yeast converts the sugar in the grape juice to alcohol, which is the process of fermentation. It’s similar to bread baking, in which the yeast eats the sugar in the flour and expels carbon dioxide, which makes the bread rise.

Fermentation can end naturally, when the yeast eats all the sugar and dies. When this happens, the wine has very little residual sugar, higher alcohol levels, and is considered dry. Or the winemaker can end fermentation early, before the yeast eats all the sugar. These wines have higher residual sugar, lower alcohol levels, and are sweet. (For the difference between sweet and fruity wines, go here.)

More, after the jump:

Wine terms: Hybrid and native grapes

The wine grape world is divided into three main categories – vitis vinifera, or European-style wine grapes like cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay; native grapes like concord and catawba; and hybrid grapes like chambourcin, and seyval blanc.

Why don’t you hear more about native and hybrid grapes? Because most wine made in the world is made with vinifera. It’s the easiest to grow in most of the important wine regions, easiest to make wine with, and mostly makes the best wine.

But this doesn’t mean that hybrids and native grapes (the ultimate list is here) aren’t legitimate wine grapes. More, after the jump: