All About Wine: Everything You Need to Know, Quite Literally

The objective of this article is to provide the education to comfortably serve and suggest wines that compliment a guests meal and meet their value expectations.

The grape vine is the source of all wine. Reaching the highest level of quality in wine is only possible by starting with the highest quality fruit. Maximizing fruit quality from any vineyard site can be a lengthy process, because the end results are revealed only after several seasons of comparison.

There are multiple and interlacing factors to consider in order to achieve highest fruit quality. In selecting a site, the average length of the ripening season, the normal annual weather conditions, the soil type, fertility and drainage, the topography, sun exposure, and likely pest problems should all be taken into account well before the first vine is planted.

With time, it was discovered that better-quality fruit would grow on vines that are pruned back to distribute the bearing wood evenly over the vine. So, in the winter months, when the leaves have dropped and the vines are empty of sap, they are pruned back almost to the main stem. Pruning is an art of delicate balance; too much will cause small, uneconomical crops; too little will cause over-cropping and low-quality fruit. Pruning also facilitates cultivation, disease control and harvesting, when the vines are trained to grow in a particular shape.

There are only two basic pruning methods: cane-pruning and spur-'pruning, also known as head-pruning in late May or early June, when the daytime temperature reaches 60-65° F, the flowering will begin. An early flowering usually signals a very good quality vintage. The warmer and calmer the weather, the better; rain or hail can be disastrous now. After flowering, the shoots are thinned, the best shoots tied to th_ wires. The grapes now begin to sweeten as sugar is transported from the leaves into the fruit. The berries swell and their increased water content dilutes the concentration of the acids. Flavor compounds and tannins also begin to build. Monitoring for ripeness will soon move from weekly to daily.