Within the next week, I will be sharing with you the winemaking process with the Master Vintner™ Small Batch Wine Starter Kit from Northern Brewer. Throughout this video, I will walk you through the five essential winemaking stages and share with you exclusive winemaking techniques to give you the best wine results. They also make the process easy, fun and enjoyable.
Throughout the past four weeks, I have had a fantastic time learning more about the wine making process and making my own wine. Hopefully this video will inspire you to start your own batch. I promise you won’t be disappointed!!
I can’t wait to show you Winemaking with the Coloradan Wino. Stay tooned!!
Pinot Noir grapes are grown around the world and consume a total of 290,000 acres of land, making it the most highly prized wine in the world. Pinot Noir is made predominantly from pinot noir grapes, a red wine grape variety known as Vitis vinifera. The name “Pinot Noir” is derived from the French words for pine and black; pine referring to the tightly clustered, pine-cone shaped, grape variety, and the black referring to the color of the grape.
Although the color of the grapes is very dark, the thin-skin and low levels of phenolic compounds within the grape cause it to produce wines are pale in color, translucent, and have subtle flavors. The acidity is medium to high and the tannin levels are low to medium. The grapes are usually aged in French Oak Barrels for any amount of time between two to 18 years depending on the style that the winemaker is trying to get.
Pinot Noir is predominantly grown in France, but other popular growing locations include: the United States, Germany, New Zealand, Italy, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and South Africa. The grape is best grown in cooler climates in chalky clay. Below, you can see the Pinot Noir belt, this shows the regions and latitudes of those regions where pinot noir is best grown.
Photo courtesy of Wine Folly
Growing the grape variety has been challenging for many winemakers because the grape, itself, is weak, the tightness of the grape clusters and sensitivity to wind, frost, cropping levels, soil types, and pruning techniques, causes the grapes to be very susceptible to a variety of diseases and mutations. Not only is the variety difficult to cultivate, but it is also difficult to transform into wine. The wine often goes through dumb phases, causing uneven fermentation and unpredictable aging.
The best serving temperature for Pinot Noir is when it is cool to the touch, being about 63 degrees F.
Flavors:
As stated above, Pinot Noir is very unpredictable. This causes the wine to create a wide range of flavors depending on the vintage and where it was grown.
The most common flavors of Pinot Noir are cranberry, cherry, and raspberry, but other common flavors include: vanilla, clove, licorice, mushroom, wet leaves, tobacco, cola, and caramel.
Pairings:
Pinot Noir is a wine that will make everyone happy because it is said to be a “catch-all food pairing wine”. Pinot Noir is light enough for salmon, but complex enough to hold up to some richer meat including duck. It also pairs well with chicken, mushroom risotto, grilled trout, and lobster.
It’s only fitting that the wine that goes with everything pairs perfectlywith the cheese that goes with everything. The type of cheese that goes with everything is Comté.
Feature image courtesy of http://tourly.com.au
Over the next couple of weeks I will be making my own small, one-gallon batch of Pinot Noir wine. I will be giving a step-by-step tutorial as well as some great winemaking tips to make the perfect batch of wine every time. Join me on my journey of making my first batch of wine and hopefully it will spark some inspiration for all of you to try making your own batch! 🙂
The Coloradan Wino 