Wine

Wine
"Cork taint" is when the taste and smell of a bad cork taint the wine, giving it a musty taste and aroma. A wine that has gone this way is called "corked". About 7 to 15% of all bottles of wines are affected. In most cases, it's so slight that normal people drinking wine wouldn't notice it, only professionals.

Plastic corks are called "artificials". Many corkscrews don't work well with them, and when they do, it's a battle to get them off the corkscrew. They let as much if not more air than corks into the bottles, so you can't age wine with them. Foil caps (crown caps) also let too much air in.

In Australia, New Zealand and the UK, screw caps are gaining consumer acceptance, but they have a real hill to climb, because they are associated with cheap-o plonk and trailer parks. Earlier attempts at screw caps in the 1980s didn't seal as well as they now do. For normal wines, some wine experts feel that screw caps are the way to go. They seal a bottle effectively, are easy to open, and make it easier to seal an unfinished bottle of wine back up. For the foreseeable future, very expensive wines will surely retain cork, because it will take a lot of coaxing to get someone to pay hundreds of dollars for a screw-top bottle of wine.

The latest new wine bottle cap being trialled, as of 2004, is the plastic stopper that pops off. You tear off the strip around the stopper, pull the stopper and it comes off with a satisfying pop. The hope is that consumers will find the pop noise remiscent of a proper cork coming out.

Boxed Wine
Boxed wine was always the lowest of the low. It made screw-top bottles of wine look sophisticated. It was the cheapest plonk, plus it was in cardboard, for heaven's sake. Even so, someone was buying it, because it was still there on the shelves, and boxed wine was 15 to 20% of the wine sold.

Attitudes have changed now in the UK and Australia -- not amongst super wine snobs, but amongst people who enjoy regular glasses of wines with their meals. High-end, premium wines by respected vintners are going into boxes. In North America, they are trying to rename them to "cask wines" to get away from the earlier stigma.

The wine isn't actually in the box. Well, it is, but first it's in a tough plastic bag with a tap attached. Even if you recork a bottle, new oxygen has been introduced that has already started to ruin it. That doesn't happen with the boxed wine. As wine leaves the bag, the bag collapses by that much -- keeping air out. A box of wine will keep up to a month after opening. They are sold in 3 and 5 litre sizes.

The new boxes of wine are more expensive than the boxes that used to hold plonk, but then, there are better quality wines inside. You usually get a slight price break over buying that same brand of wine in bottles: producers are able to pass on the price savings.

No matter how good it is, and how much it all makes sense, for a long time there will be many people who just won't buy it, regardless. It takes a lot of effort to get people to consider trying it -- they're perhaps not so much afraid of the taste as of the fact that they would be drinking wine out of a box. It will certainly be a while before you can present a box of wine to a hostess at her door. You can just imagine the frozen half-smile on her face.

People who are more savvy, though, about enjoying wine every day are getting used to, and hooked on, the idea. With a box cracked open, there's practically unlimited wine on tap -- until the box runs out, anyway. Beats the old days where there was always an awkward pause on whether to open another bottle or not. And it ends the agonizing about whether to bothering opening a bottle for dinner or not. You can have a glass every day, and not worry about the wine going bad before it runs out.

Cooking Tips
Wine can be used to tenderize meat (as is done with the German dish, Sauerbraten) and to deglaze pans.

In sauces and when deglazing, red wine needs to be reduced more than white wine. The heat will break down the colour compounds in red wine, making it a deeper red colour, and rendering the colour compounds less likely to turn any other food they come in contact with further on in your recipe an off-worldly purple. Fortified wines though, such as port or sherry, are sometimes splashed in right at the end.

Storage
White wine: Replace cork in bottle and store in fridge; drinkable for up to 1 week.

Red wine: Replace the cork, store outside of fridge. Most reds should be okay for several days. For more expensive or less-stable red wines, consider buying one of those vacuum bottle sealers to extend its life. If a bottle does go off, you can still use it in cooking if you boil it for about 10 minutes to remove any unpleasant flavours.

History
Drinking wine straight up was considered barbaric by Greeks and Romans.

They always cut it with water, generally 1 part wine to 3 parts water. Pliny mentions that seawater could also be used to cut the wine with. They would also make mulsum, mixing the wine with honey. Many parts of Italy still dilute their wine with water -- this is called "tagliare" (to cut) the wine.

The Romans considered the best wines to be made at Falernia, near Naples.

The Romans hadn't mastered the art of being able to preserve wines for years without their going bad; after all, they only had amphora crocks to keep it in. Cato (Marcus Porcius Cato 234 BC to 149 BC) in "On Farming", gives many ways to trying to preserve wine and how to rescue wine that has gone bad despite all these attempts.

Egypt had a wine culture and tradition that was thousands of years old, until the country was invaded and taken over by the Muslims.

England was a hot-bed of grape growing and wine production during the 400 years that it was a Roman country. During the Dark and Middle Ages, it was carried on in England to a very small extent around the monasteries, disappearing almost completely when Henry the Eighth abolished the monasteries.

The first wine to appear in the cork-stoppered bottles that we are familiar with today was champagne (as of 1729).

By the 1860s, Australians were interested in growing grapes. By the end of the 1800s, Australians were exporting wine to Britain. But they were not considered very good quality at the time.

During Prohibition (1919 to 1933) in America, Kosher wines and Sacramental wines for religious purposes were still allowed to be made and sold. Apparently the market for religious wines did a booming business.

The Ritz in London was caught selling leftover wine to other guests in 2004.

Literature & Lore
"One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts." -- Samuel Johnson (English essayist, 1709 - 1784).

St Vincent is the patron saint of wine merchants.

Language Notes
The Roman word for unmixed wine was "merum".

Wines made from grapes grown in England are called "English wines", while wines made from grapes or concentrates brought into the country are called "British wines".

Acknowlegements
Locke, Michelle. Quality of boxed wine is improving with age. Cincinnati Enquirer, 25 June 2004.

Also called: Vin (French) Wein (German) Vino (Italian) Merum (Roman)