-
Wine Jobs
Assistant Manager
Assistant Cider Maker
Viticulture and Enology...
-
Wine Country Real Estates
Winery in Canada For Sale
-
Wine Barrels & Equipment
75 Gallon Stainless Steel...
Wanted surplus/ excess tin...
Winery Liquidation Auction...
-
Grapes & Bulk Wines
2022 Chardonnay
2023 Pinot Noir
2022 Pinot Noir
-
Supplies & Chemicals
Planting supplies
Stagg Jr. Bourbon - Batch 12
-
Wine Services
Wine
Sullivan Rutherford Estate
Clark Ferrea Winery
-
World Marketplace
Canned Beer
Wine from Indonesia
Rare Opportunity - Own your...
- Wine Jobs UK
- DCS Farms LLC
- ENOPROEKT LTD
- Liquor Stars
- Stone Hill Wine Co Inc
The chemistry that makes your wine taste good (or bad)
Jul 21, 2015
(WP) - When it comes to wine, the devil is in the details. No matter how fancy, every bottle of wine is mostly water and alcohol -- only 2 percent of the chemical composition allows for any variety. But oh, how that 2 percent can vary.
The latest video from the American Chemical Society's Reactions series can help you arm yourself with science facts to throw at your pretentious, wine-swirling friend at the next Rosé soirée.
First of all, here's the bad news for wine plebs like myself: All of those "flavor notes" that people talk about really exist, even at the chemical level. Chocolate! Tobacco! Grass! What?
Some scientists estimate that a single glass of wine contains thousands of different chemical compounds. Those chemicals are determined by the soil the wine grape is grown in -- which can contain a host of unique minerals to influence the fruit -- the grape itself, the climate, and the fermentation process, where crushed grapes provide sugary fuel for yeast, which in turn produces alcohol. The barrels and environment a wine is aged in can contribute new chemical compounds as well.
Even the shape of the glass you drink from can be a factor -- especially for bubbly wines like champagne, which release important aromatic chemical compounds when their bubbles burst.
And most wines probably have mostly the same chemicals inside of them -- it's the concentration of one compound over another that makes the biggest difference.
And most wines probably have mostly the same chemicals inside of them -- it's the concentration of one compound over another that makes the biggest difference.
Comments: