Learning the basics about winemaking is useful because it allows you to (a) credibly evaluate the wines that you taste and (b) impress your date

Date: October 15, 2010

If you don’t know jack about wine, you’re really missing out – but you’ve come to the right place. This stuff has fueled parties for thousands of years and has even given a doormat country like France a modicum of respectability, so you really should introduce yourself to it.One day, you’ll hope to be an adult and then you won’t have the option of knowing nothing: you’ll be expected to bring a bottle to friends’ houses, to order for you and your date at nice restaurants, and to serve a respectable glass at your own dinner parties. We’ll give you an overview of the pricey liquid, from how it’s made to the important differences between colors of wine, their regions and vintages, and, of course, how you can best enjoy them.

1. Learn the basics about making wine

You may be wondering, “Why do I care how the stuff is made?!” If so, you really should relax, maybe even have a glass of wine. Learning the basics about winemaking is useful because it allows you to (a) credibly evaluate the wines that you taste and (b) impress your date. For instance, it’s always a fun piece of trivia to let people know that red grapes can make white wine, and it is good to know that you should never chill your white wine by chucking it into the freezer – frost severely damages the alcohol balance and taste of wine.

So what exactly is this stuff and why is everyone all up in arms about it? Let’s be clear: wine isn’t just high octane grape juice. Good wine really is tough to make; if you don’t believe us, try a nice bit of crappy wine and you’ll quickly learn why Monty Python claimed that it “opens the sluices at both ends.” Making a good wine involves taking a great grape, growing it in the right soil, ushering it through the fermentation process, aging it in the right way, and releasing it at just the right time. So there are plenty of things to screw up, and the English have been botching it for years.

1. What is wine?

2. The ingredients

3. The process

What is wine?

Essentially, it is fermented grape juice, but with a few extra twists. God saved a few pieces of Eden when he gave us the boot, and one of the best is the fact that any fruit containing sugar will turn to booze if you leave it to ferment. In the process of fermentation, yeast converts the sugar into alcohol. Yeast is found all over the place, and in the wild it lands on the skins of grapes; hence, when grape juice is left to sit about in the wild, that yeast will mix with it and ferment it naturally. Vintners nowadays don’t take any such chances: they labor over what precise strain of yeast to use in their recipe because different choices will obviously lead to different results.

The ingredients

Most people believe that green grapes make white wine and red grapes make red wine. That is largely true, but if you care to impress anyone with arcane eno-trivia, you should know that white wine can also be made from red grapes. The inside of red grapes is essentially “white” — it is only their skin that is red. And most wines are made with just the inside of a grape. The red color in red wine is created by allowing the fleshy interior to mix with the pulpy skins when it is being crushed. This process infuses red wines with “tannin,” an ingredient that gives red wine its distinctive flavor. So you can make white wine with red grapes — like White Zinfandel, a fine white wine made from a grape with a decidedly red exterior – but not red wine with green grapes. Oh, and most champagnes are made from red grapes. Weird, but true.

The process

The grapes are crushed with or without the skins and then left to ferment. The nasty bits are removed from the juice and a disinfectant is used to neutralize any contaminants, such as mold and bacteria, that may have been on the grapes — remember, they’ve just been sitting outside for ages, surrounded by bugs and dirt, and yeast ain’t the only thing lurking on the skin. The fluid, or “must,” is then left to complete the fermentation process in either big steel vats or small wooden barrels — barrels call for a longer process and are harder to keep at the right temperature, but supposedly lead to a better finished product, for which you of course will end up paying more. Once the wine is properly fermented, the vintner will need to pluck out all the little nibblets and then mature the clarified vino. The better vineyards will age the wine for years in oak barrels, which infuses the wine with positive woody hints. The lamer vineyards will shove the stuff in a steel vat just long enough for it to be squirted into cardboard boxes with plastic spigots.

Source: http://www.soyouwanna.com/soyouwanna-learn-basics-wine-1501.html

News and pertinent information about wine trade, wine appreciation, wine shops and outlets, wine and food pairing, wine making, viticulture, vintages, climate conditions affecting wine, new and revived wine regions etc can be found here in this section. Yats wine Cellars is much more than a Philippines wine supplier with a few wine shops, wine bars and wine outlets in Philippines where clients can buy good wines in Manila, Pampanga, Angeles City, Subic and Clark Philippines.  Yats Wine Cellars is also a rich source of information for the convenience of the growing community of wine lovers, wine connoisseurs and hobbyists.   Wine lovers in Manila, Subic, Pampanga, Angeles City and Clark Philippines can enjoy fine vintage wines in any of Yats Wine Cellars wine shopping outlets, wine bars, wine shops and wine restaurants.

The wine shop in Angeles Philippines Clark Freeport Zone Pampanga as well as other wine shops, wine bars and wine outlets in Subic and Manila are wells stocked with interesting selections of  wine from many vintages spanning over 90 years from various producers covering a wide range of prices.

As a wine collector, hobbyist or someone in the wine trade, are you concerned or interested about this also?  If so, please stay tuned in to Yats Wine Cellars’ web site to stay abreast of things to do with wine in the world.

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Clark Wine Center was built in 2003 by Hong Kong-based Yats International Leisure Philippines to become the largest wine shop in Philippines supplying Asia’s wine lovers with fine vintage wines at attractive prices.  Today, this wine shop in Clark Philippines offers over 2000 selections of fine wines from all major wine regions in the world.  As a leading wine supplier in Philippines, Pampanga’s Clark Wine Center offers an incomparable breadth of vintages, wines from back vintages spanning over 50 years.  Clark Wine Center is located in Pampanga Clark Freeport Zone adjacent to Angeles City, just 25 minutes from Subic and 45 minutes from Manila.

Wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, Loire, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Alsace, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, South Africa, Chile and Argentina etc. are well represented in this Clark Wine Shop.

http://www.ClarkWineCenter.com

Getting to this wine shop in Pampanga Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone Philippines from Manila

Getting to the Clark Wine Center wine shop from Manila is quite simple:  after entering Clark Freeport from Dau and Angeles City, proceed straight along the main highway M A Roxas. Clark Wine Center is the stand-along white building on the right, at the corner A Bonifacio Ave.  From the Clark International Airport DMIA, ask the taxi to drive towards the entrance of Clark going to Angeles City.  From Mimosa, just proceed towards the exit of Clark and this wine shop is on the opposite side of the main road M A Roxas.

For inquires and reservations, <a title=”Click here to contact us” href=”http://www.clarkwinecenter.com/?page_id=14″ target=”_blank”>contact us here</a>

Clark Wine Center

Bldg 6460 Clark Observatory Building

Manuel A. Roxas Highway corner A Bonifacio Ave,

Angeles Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga 2023

0922-870-5173 0917-826-8790 (ask for Ana Fe)

Wine@Yats-International.com

YATS Wine Cellars

Manila Sales Office

3003C East Tower, Phil Stock Exchange Center,

Exchange Rd Ortigas Metro Manila, Philippines 1605

(632) 637-5019   0917-520-4393  ask for Rea or Chay

Best place to buy wine in Clark Pampanga outside Manila near Subic and Angeles City Philippines is Clark Wine Center.