Being a wine taster is like running a placement agency: as a sommelier, one decides what kind of restaurants and cuisines would work best for a wine, much like finding a job for an 18-year-old. Making wine, on the other hand, is equivalent to bringing up a baby, educating him and nurturing him. It is, if one asks me, the bigger of the two assignments.
And as a sommelier, it was only a natural progression for me to find myself pulled with magnetic intensity towards the latter. A leading winemaker from France offered me a chance to work the vineyards, something not touristy, where we see things from a glass-bubbled air-conditioned bus. I immediately decided to get down and dirty with it. As Confucius said, “…I do, I understand.”
So I arrived with a pair of jeans and two T-shirts and began my winemaking journey. This was 2005, which later turned out to be the best year that the region of Bordeaux has experienced since ever. So, as my winemaker friend said, if the wine didn’t turn out right, it would be entirely my fault.
Harvest is mostly done by hand, at least for high-end wines or in regions where the terrain can't be worked by a mechanical harvester. The difference is that we as humans can choose the ripe bunches and leave out the over- or under-ripe ones. A machine on the other hand harvests all – it shakes the vines and all the berries fall into a basket below, so the selection isn’t as stringent.
Next, the grapes are transferred to the winery where the white grapes are crushed; reds do not require crushing. Emptying truckloads into a 50 hectolitre steel tank is weight enough to crush them. Then we add “permitted essentials” which help to open up the berries and extract flavour and colour. No we don’t (and can’t) add fruit flavours, alcohol, water or sugar (although certain countries allow this too).
To start the tank fermenting, we add some yeast. Yeast smells like freshly baked bread, and as with everything that we add to wine, (just like spices in proper Indian cooking) yeast is first tempered, or activated, by mixing with lukewarm water before adding it to the vat.
The process of fermentation takes about a week (or a little more) and you can tell because as the wine is fermenting, there is this constant cloud of carbon dioxide above the vat. How can you tell? Just try breathing while standing on top of the vat and you’ll know.
Post this, the winemaker may or may not conduct a secondary fermentation called Malo-Lactic Fermentation (MLF). This is a natural process where the harsh malic acids (as found in unripe apples) are converted to a softer lactic acid (also found in milk) thus making the wine softer. It is essential for red wines but not so much in whites, where the idea is to preserve the natural acidity for that refreshing zing.
This done, the wine is either rested in stainless steel tanks or aged in oak barrels. Oak ageing makes the wines even softer; it takes away some of the young fruity characteristics and replaces them with mature notes of toasted nuts, spices, vanilla and tropical fruits. But oak can also be dangerous, for in the wrong hands, it can kill a wine in full youth.
Once the desired oak-ageing is achieved, the winemaker will blend his wine. The idea is to create a balanced mix while accommodating for the annual vagaries of nature which ensures that no two harvests are ever alike. It is the toughest task, drinking young tannic red wines first thing in the morning right until lunch! Once the blending is over, this final mix or “Cuvée” is then rested before being filtered and bottled.
And that friends, is how wine is made. Complicated for just “fermented grape juice”, but all wine is made for solely one purpose – to be drunk! Visiting a vineyard is a great way to learn about wine but taking a sip is equally pedagogic. So now that we are done with the visit, time for a toast.
Magandeep Singh is India's first sommelier, food, wine and travel writer and TV show host. His passions include studying languages and choking the saxophone. In his free time he works.
