Hubby and I are taking an 8-week wine appreciation course through the alumni association’s evening college at Michigan State called Wines of Europe. It started on Valentine’s Day and ends at my birthday. Nice bookends.
I grew up around wine. My father and his father both made wine; my paternal grandparents and parents are both wine drinkers. Mom researched wines for a faculty wives’ party way back in the day and she has become a connoisseur over time. She works to broaden my palette but my palette is pretty stubborn.
On day one I learned that wine grapes are made up of 25-30% sugar. The fermentation process turns that sugar into alcohol and the “natural” alcohol level for red wine is about 12%. If you let the fermentation process runs it’s course it will suck up all of the sugar and leave a very dry wine right before it turns into vinegar. If you stop the fermentation process (they used to do it with sulfur) before that point, you’re left with some sweetness in the wine. 1% is the sweetness point at which we recognize sugar on our tongue. Sweeter wines (read: sweeter grapes) are grown in hotter, sunnier climes – hence sangria and the like in Spain. The further north, the dryer the wines (unless the wine-maker steps in to mess with the production process).
But. There’s a special added attraction the Dutch developed called fortified wines. Fortified wine is brandy and you can fortify wine to different degrees. You do this by adding alcohol before the end of the fermentation process, leaving the sugar concentration high, and giving you a powerful punch. We tried 6 kinds of wine that first night of class. The dessert wine was fabulous. It’s called Moscatel de Setubal and I recommend it. It’s from the south coastal region of Portugal. I can’t quite imagine drinking it with an actually sweet dessert, I think the flavors would compete. But I can completely see it with almonds, walnuts and a selection of cheeses. Hubby and I are throwing our mid-winter Surf and Turf the first weekend in March. Maybe I’ll invest in a bottle and do something a little fancy with the evening’s ending…
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