Category: Viticulture

Features / Viticulture

Tackling the 2019 MW Exam Part 1: Are yield restrictions necessary to produce high-quality wine?

Fruit thinning, green harvest, restricted yield, whichever name it may go by there are few canards as distinctly pervasive as yield-restriction. Across Europe, the belief that yield restriction is directly correlated with amplified wine ‘quality’ is so widely held that one can almost predict the nature of questioning at any tasting, visit or seminar. Let’s stop for a second; just how accurate is this belief? Is yield restriction really a fundamental requirement of high-quality wine production or is this hypothesis flawed?

Viticulture

Bodies of water and their effect on viticulture

Where beautiful wine is produced it is often remarked that one will also find beautiful places. Rivers, lake, oceans and seas feature almost synonymously amongst many of the worlds best wine regions. The river Moselle, the Saône, the Rhône, the Douro, the Gironde, Margaret River, the Loire, Lake Garda and the North Pacific to name a few. These bodies of water are located at the very heart of the worlds most illustrious wine regions. However, they offer much more to our favourite wine than just a picturesque backdrop, they play a fundamental, and oft-overlooked role.

Viticulture / Wine Science / Winemaking

Rotundone: putting the pepper in shiraz

The aromas and flavours associated with particular grape varieties and regional specific wines are more often than not a result of large numbers of compounds, of varying origin, interacting with one another and forming various olfactory and gustatory qualities. There are however a number of compounds (in this case sesquiterpenes) which have an individual aromatic quality associated to them. The distinct aroma of pepper so often associated with cool climate Shiraz/Syrah is the result of one of these sesquiterpenes …

Viticulture / Wine Science / Winemaking

Petrol aroma in riesling: what the TDN …

Exactly what it is which forms the final flavour profile of a wine is complex, multi-faceted and in the most part unknown. Despite this particular dominating aroma or flavour have come to define particular varieties. The petrol aroma in Riesling is one of them. I don’t know why, but I just can’t get enough of it, I’m a petrolhead. But what exactly is it? A fault? A varietal characteristic? Whatever it is, it‘s aroma that divides wine lovers and mystifies the casual wine drinker. This post will explore its origins and discuss in more detail viticultural and climatic factors affecting its presence and concentration.