Know your Wine Terminology: House Wine

A winery may have a wine which they call their "house wine". This wine will often be among the winery's most popular wines. This wine is often blended by the winery. Often, the wine will not have a year vintage, as it will often be blended over several years to obtain as consistent taste as possible.

While every winery won't explicitly label their "house wines" as such, its easy to spot. In a grocery store, the house wine is often the only wine the store will carry. For Oliver winery, their "Soft" wines could be considered their house wines. For Brown County Winery, their "Vista" brand of wines could be considered their house wines. In the Midwest, the house wine is often a Semi-Sweet wine.

House wines can offer some interesting tastes, but often nothing overly complex or exotic. These make good wines to drink every day, but could also be considered for a party too due to their economy and broad appeal.

Know your Wine Terminology: Table Wine

Many wines have special uses. Sparkling and Champagne wines are often used for celebrations. Gluhwein is a type of mulled wine suitable for cold winter days. Icewine and dessert wines are best paired with sweet dessert dishes. In the United States, when we speak of Table Wine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_wine), we speak of a wine which is not sparkling and which is not fortified. Table wine, such as 'French Lick Red Table Wine' is often labelled without indication of the varietal. A table wine might be a wineries special blend of wine from a variety of grapes.

In Europe, Table Wine is the lower of two official categories of wine. The higher category is 'Quality Wines Produced in Specified Regions' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_Wines_Produced_in_Specified_Regions) and must follow a large number of regulations to labelled as such. In Europe, the Table Wine designation is easier to come by. This sense of lower quality is also inferred when used in the United States as well, along with the un-sparkling and un-fortified status.

Table Wine should not be confused with Table Grapes (http://midwestwinegeek.blogspot.com/2012/12/know-your-grapes-table-vs-wine-grapes.html) which refers to grapes destined for direct consumption (as opposed to wine grapes, which are intended to be made into wine).

Know your Wine Terminology: French Hybrids

Since arriving in the New World, vine growers have struggled to grow European wines in America. Despite the favorable environment, native North American diseases such as black rot, Powdery Mildew and Downy Mildew would eventually destroy the vines. Other pests would also wrecked havoc on the vines, including aphids which eventually caused the the great wine blight in France. 

Over the years, many solutions to this problem have presented themselves. Some have tried to prevent or cure the diseases with little success. Others have made due with the native grape varieties such as Concorde, but the taste of American grapes can be off-putting to some. After the great wine blight in France, the idea of grafting a European variety to the roots of an American vine proved to be a popular way to fight the native diseases and pests. But another solution that has found more popularity in America than Europe is the creation of hybrid grape varieties.

Botanically, a hybrid is a man-made plant that contains varying combination of elements of the 2 parent plants. It takes many attempts to craft a hybrid, but the ultimate goal is to create a plant which retains the best qualities from both parents. In grapes, the goal is usually to create a new variety which is resistant to disease.

The so called French hybrids are just one category of hybrid grapes. They are such named because they were created in France, largely with the intention of improving the quality of vines in a specific region. The list of French hybrids include Baco Noir, Seyval Blanc, and Vidal Blanc. 

However, the French wine industry is very conservative in nature and has placed laws against the use of hybrid grapes. Despite their unpopularity in France and Europe, these grapes have found a place at home in North America and the Midwest, with Baco Noir, Seyval Blanc, and Vidal Blanc grown throughout the Midwest and beyond.

Know your Wine Terminology: Semi-Dry and Semi-Sweet

Wine has its own vocabulary describing tastes, styles, methods, processes, and a myriad of other topics. We've already covered Dry and Sweet wines, but this time, we cover the middle ground (and in wine, there's ALWAYS a middle ground): Semi-Dry and Semi-Sweet wines.

Sweetness in wines usually comes in the form of residual sugar. This is sugar that has not been converted to alcohol in the fermentation process, either because the the alcohol level became so high that the yeast was killed off, or because the wine maker introduced chemicals to kill stop the fermentation early. As covered before, when there is no residual sugar, or very little, the wine is considered Dry. If there is a large amount of residual sugar, then the wine is considered Sweet.

But, there a range between Dry and Sweet. Wines in this range may be called Semi-Dry or Semi-Sweet. In the US at least, there is no standardized rule when a wine is called Semi-Dry vs. Semi-Sweet, but in general a Semi-Sweet wine should taste sweeter than a Semi-dry wine.

Other countries have other terms for Dry, Semi-Dry, Semi-Sweet, and Sweet.

	Dry	Semi-Dry/Semi-Sweet	Sweet
France	Sec	Demi-Sec	Doux/Moelleux
Spain	Seco	Semi-Seco	Dulce
Italy	Secco	Semi-secco	Dolce

   
Most of these countries use the English equilvalent of Semi-Dry to describe wines in the middle of the road. In the States, Semi-Dry and Semi-Sweet are both used with varying degrees of frequency.

There are other ways that sweetness can be added, which is somewhat common in Midwestern wines. For instance, Honey Wines and Fruit wines are popular. These wines are not traditional wines, as they contain fruits other than Grapes, so legally they cannot be called just 'wine'. These drinks, sweetened by honey or the additional fruit added to the grapes, often fall into the Semi-Sweet spectrum of wines. So when shopping for wines in the Midwest, you'll often find the wines to be be in this land between Dry and Sweet.

Know your Wine Terminology: Dry

Wine has its own vocabulary describing tastes, styles, methods, processes, and a myriad of other topics. This time, I cover one of the basic descriptions of a wine: Dry.

Dry wines are the opposite of sweet. Their chief characteristic is that they are made from with very little sugar. They tend to have more alcohol, as the fermentation process is allowed to continue until nearly all of the sugar has been converted to alcohol. While a wine can't be 'Dry' since it is a liquid, the dryness here refers to the way the wine feels and not so much how it tastes.

Dry wines are commonly called for in cooking. Though remember the adage: never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink. (And speaking of cooking, the old's wife's tale that all the alcohol will burn off during cooking is just that: an old's wife's tale.)

Personally, I'm not a big fan of dry wines. Part of it is that these wines feel awkward on my tongue and in a way does feel dry. They certainly leave my mouth craving sugar to balance out the taste. Perhaps its due to a poor food pairing on my part. Dry wines should be kept away from sweet foods. Salty foods are a better match, but much depends on the style of the wine and the style of the food chosen.

Sweet grapes are grown in warmer climates where the fruit has more time to ripen. So in the Midwest, with a more temperate environment, grapes tend to have less sugar in them from the start. Dry wines are common in the Midwest, though semi-sweet wines are more in style.

My guess is that Dry wines are not more popular in the United States is due to the overall sweetness of our diets. We are used to eating sweet foods and sweet drinks, so a non-sweet drink like a dry wine tastes odd. Perhaps its time to start bucking that perception and for you and I to try drier wines more often. Perhaps we'll find a bottle or two that we like.

Know your Wine Terminology: Sweet Wine

Wine has its own vocabulary describing tastes, styles, methods, processes, and a myriad of other topics. This time, I cover one of the basic descriptions of a wine: Sweet.

A common way to classify a wine is according to the amount of sugars left over after yeast has converted some of the sugars in the grapes into alcohol. A wine labelled as 'Sweet' means that the wine contains a high level of these residual sugars. Sweeter wines tend to contain lower levels of alcohol as the sweetness is from sugar yeast did not get a chance to convert. The presence of other items can affect the perceived sweetness of a wine. Acids and tannins, which taste bitter, detract from the sweetness of the sugar in the wine, making an otherwise sweet wine taste less so.

Generally, to make a sweet wine requires a grape which contains a high amount of sugar. Winemakers can tweak this by adding sugar before or after fermentation or by adding must (fresh pressed grape juice) after fermentation.

Environmental conditions will affect how sweet a wine is. Depending on the variety, riper grapes will produce a sweeter grape. Noble rot, a type of fungus that attacks grapes under the right conditions, will act to make the grapes and resulting wine sweeter. (Yes, a fungus can be beneficial to grapes. So is yeast, which is also a fungus. Wine is delicious, but no one ever said that making it wasn't a bit creepy...)

Sweet wines are often labelled as 'Dessert wines'. When pairing wine with foods, Sweet wines should be paired with dessert. Which wines should be paired with which desserts will depend on the type of wine, the variety of grape, and the actual taste the individual wine imparts.

Typically, sweet wines are served chilled, just a few degrees above freezing. This plays to the strengths of the sweetness of the wine and allows your tongue to better detect the sugars in the wine.