Wine myths

[Dirty Frank]

A mate of mine was telling me wine without a date on the label has been manufactured and processed rather than brewed and aged.

I know cheap lager is brewed in a day and aged in a day and he is telling me wine goes through a similar process unless it has the year on the label, then its aged properly.

Any truth to this? it sounds plausible to me.

[calibrax]

Non-vintage Wine: Wine made from the juice of grapes harvested from several years; there's no year noted on the label of such wine.

from http://www.tableandvine.com/common_wine_terms.html

[Noger]

85% of the grapes need to have come from that year (with some fiddling allowed for winter harvest) for the label to have a year on.

I don't think the EU regs specify aging, so you can't tell anything from date or lack of. For example NV Champagne, Sherry and Port could be very well aged.

Any ageing requirements would, I think, come from the Appellation if one existed.

[zac510]

There is a great book on this subject called "The Great Wine Swindle." It's a difficult read (I only got through the first few chapters myself) but informative. To summarise; most of the wine world is tosh and shrouded in smoke and mirrors to prop up its own image, but if it tastes good and the price is right just forget about it and enjoy it

[jas xjr]

I was told many many years ago that most of the wine that went into liebfraumch came from Italy and was blended with german wine.
Whilst most people might think it is naff , incredible amounts of this stuff was sold , so much so that the Germans could not produce enough

[LooneyTunes]

Dirty Frank said:

A mate of mine was telling me wine without a date on the label has been manufactured and processed rather than brewed and aged.

I know cheap lager is brewed in a day and aged in a day and he is telling me wine goes through a similar process unless it has the year on the label, then its aged properly.

Any truth to this? it sounds plausible to me.

I think quite a few wine geeks would argue that the majority of wine these days is "manufactured" (in an industrial sense). The volume demanded by the market just couldn't be produced using traditional methods (at least not at the price point a lot of people want to pay).

Indeed, there are various tricks the more "industrial" scale winemakers use to speed up the process... oak chips, powdered acids, and "mega purple" being the most notorious. BUT, unless you're mixing vintages, you can still put the year on the label.

[deeen]

jas xjr said:

I was told many many years ago that most of the wine that went into liebfraumch came from Italy and was blended with german wine.
Whilst most people might think it is naff , incredible amounts of this stuff was sold , so much so that the Germans could not produce enough

Just as "British" wine has only to have been bottled in Britain, I believe. It could have crossed the Channel in a supertanker.

[Simpo Two]

Brewing wine

[JaybirdUK]

For the record wine does not have a 'personality' as it is non sentient.

Oh and it mostly tastes of grapes, something these wine experts fail to pick up on.

[85Carrera]

jas xjr said:

I was told many many years ago that most of the wine that went into liebfraumch came from antifreeze and was blended with german wine.
Whilst most people might think it is naff , incredible amounts of this stuff was sold , so much so that the Germans could not produce enough

edited for accuracy (or was that Austrian wine ...)

[Simpo Two]

Didn't the antifreeze story come from a batch of wine that was rejected for some reason and an airport supposedly sprayed it on its runways instead?

[Dirty Frank]

Simpo Two said:

Brewing wine

Do we not brew wine then? lol

[Noger]

LooneyTunes said:

... BUT, unless you're mixing vintages, you can still put the year on the label.

You certainly couldn't with simple Vin De Table until (I think) last year. No vintage and no region allowed under previous regs. In France the recent move to "Vin De France" is bringing this in slowly.

[LooneyTunes]

Noger said:

LooneyTunes said:

... BUT, unless you're mixing vintages, you can still put the year on the label.

You certainly couldn't with simple Vin De Table until (I think) last year. No vintage and no region allowed under previous regs. In France the recent move to "Vin De France" is bringing this in slowly.

Correctish.

Whilst you can't officially put a vintage on the label you can include a "lot number" in an obvious position and, as this link illustrates, it can bear a striking resemblance to the year!

Fairly common way of sidestepping the rules... and has been going on for quite some time with a number of producers.