All you need to know about great wine
Yeast's impact on wine.
"This wine is nutty, rich, soft.full of cookie dough flavors and fresh baked bread." These are comments that prevail during consumer and professional tastings regarding red and white wine.
Usual follow-up commentary include, "there must be a good amount of oak ageing in these wines."
Early on in our education of wine manufacture it is usually made clear that yeasts primary role is to convert sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. In our early learning stages yeast is usually treated without much importance.
That is, until you begin to discover Champagne production for example. In the classic Champagne Method, ageing on the lees (the dead yeast and particles left after fermentation) is responsible for the characteristic biscuity flavors in some of the great sparkling wines of the world.
Stirring wine on these lees also has the direct effect of softening the wine. Molecular components within the yeasts align themselves based on polarity (as a magnet would) to achieve this softening effect.
Over the years as I interviewed winemakers, microbiologists, and chemists I was made aware that the strain of the yeast was just as significant.
One incredible example I was able to witness was in the production of fino sherry. Here a unique type of aerobic yeast known as the flor or flower sits on the surface of the wine literally protecting it from the air and providing some of the unique characteristics for which sherry is so well known.
Other yeast strains have the characteristic for being heat or cold resistant, slow fermenting, color enhancing, and flower or fruit flavor enhancing.
Some names you will hear commonly include: Pasteur Champagne, Montrachet and others.
One of our Chardonnays at Franciscan Estates is dedicated to 100% wild yeast fermentation. In the past this practice had been touted as risky due to the possibilty of fermentations not completing effectively.
The advent of temperature control, and other microbiological enviromental controls has allowed us to manage these once difficult practices. The wines which result are incredibly complex and unlike anything done with traditional monoclonal yeasts.
For this discussion please contribute any comments you may have on this subject especially advances in DNA as it has contributed to the production of yeast which may benefit winemaking,
Cheers to a yeasty finish!
Enclosed is an electron micrograph of a yeast
Usual follow-up commentary include, "there must be a good amount of oak ageing in these wines."
Early on in our education of wine manufacture it is usually made clear that yeasts primary role is to convert sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. In our early learning stages yeast is usually treated without much importance.
That is, until you begin to discover Champagne production for example. In the classic Champagne Method, ageing on the lees (the dead yeast and particles left after fermentation) is responsible for the characteristic biscuity flavors in some of the great sparkling wines of the world.
Stirring wine on these lees also has the direct effect of softening the wine. Molecular components within the yeasts align themselves based on polarity (as a magnet would) to achieve this softening effect.
Over the years as I interviewed winemakers, microbiologists, and chemists I was made aware that the strain of the yeast was just as significant.
One incredible example I was able to witness was in the production of fino sherry. Here a unique type of aerobic yeast known as the flor or flower sits on the surface of the wine literally protecting it from the air and providing some of the unique characteristics for which sherry is so well known.
Other yeast strains have the characteristic for being heat or cold resistant, slow fermenting, color enhancing, and flower or fruit flavor enhancing.
Some names you will hear commonly include: Pasteur Champagne, Montrachet and others.
One of our Chardonnays at Franciscan Estates is dedicated to 100% wild yeast fermentation. In the past this practice had been touted as risky due to the possibilty of fermentations not completing effectively.
The advent of temperature control, and other microbiological enviromental controls has allowed us to manage these once difficult practices. The wines which result are incredibly complex and unlike anything done with traditional monoclonal yeasts.
For this discussion please contribute any comments you may have on this subject especially advances in DNA as it has contributed to the production of yeast which may benefit winemaking,
Cheers to a yeasty finish!
Enclosed is an electron micrograph of a yeast
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