Chill Reds

Fall is the time to chill with red wines, according to Dave Desimone for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who explains that it was typical to serve red wines at room temperature, but that was back when rooms didn’t have central heating and were much cooler than they are today. Desimone says a good chilling to certain types of reds — especially those with reduced sugars and lower alcohol content between 9% and 11% aka my wheelhouse — adds to the wine’s pleasure. He recommends looking for less-tannic grapes “such as Gamay in Bourgogne, Trollinger in Germany (called Schiava in Northern Italy), as well as Zweigelt and Sankt Laurent in Austria” as chilling contenders.

Unfiltered Wine. Huon Hooke answers Why some winemakers think filtering removes the ‘goodness’ of the wine for The Sydney Morning Herald. Hooke explains that filtration is a typical process in winemaking used to clarify wines, but that it’s become popular for some winemakers, like natural and low-intervention winemakers, to bottle their wines unfiltered, resulting in a cloudier wine.

Some winemakers believe filtration removes some of the “goodness” of wine – some of its flavour, aroma and texture. Texture (or mouth-feel) has, in recent times, become something of an obsession of winemakers. It never used to be talked about: it’s now recognised as an important part of the appeal of wine.

Hooke says not everyone agrees on this approach and that there are different degrees from gentle filtration to heavy filtration, but adds that a well-made wine that is given the time to settle naturally is less likely to need filtering.

Emerging U.S. Wine Regions. In 7 Untapped Wine Regions in The US That Are Worth Trying, InsideHook’s Pamela Vachon writes about a few underrated American wine regions worth exploring.

Each state or region in the United States is on a unique trajectory in terms of its winemaking journey: discovering the nuance of its particular terroir and the techniques and grapes that are best suited to produce excellence. New AVAs — American Viticultural Areas — are continually emerging, ambitious winemakers are pushing boundaries and seeking to move their regions into national or international prominence, and changing climatic conditions are allowing winemaking in places where it wasn’t previously possible.

New Jersey — described as “an agricultural oasis,” by Devin Perry of the Garden State Wine Growers Association — has over 50 family-owned wineries including Beneduce Vineyards, Autumn Lake and Bellview. Snake River Valley in Idaho is starting to gain more recognition and wineries like Sawtooth Winery and Ste. Chapelle Winery are happy about that. Other emerging regions include Texas, Temecula Valley in California, Loudoun County in Virginia, Long Island’s North Fork, and Colorado.

Wildfires and Wine. In Inside scientists' mission to save America's wine industry from climate change, Andrew Selsky writes about the research being done to address the growing threat of wildfires to vineyards and winemaking in the U.S.

The risk to America's premier wine-making regions -- where wildfires caused billions of dollars in losses in 2020 -- is growing, with climate change deepening drought and overgrown forests becoming tinderboxes. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, grapes are the highest-value crop in the United States, with 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of grape-bearing land, 96 per cent of it on the West Coast.

Selsky writes about how scientists from Oregon State University, Washington State University and the University of California, Davis are working together to address winemaking where smoke exposures may become more common. They are working together to develop coatings to protect grapes, identify the compounds that create the ashy taste from smoke taint, and working to install smoke sensors in vineyards.