Crusted Wine - Why?
April 14, 2008
Why is crusted wine called as such? - Meg in Portsmouth, VA
Crusted port wine is a type of ruby port. It is also an inexpensive version of vintage port, and in turn receives it’s curious name from being unfiltered. This leads to a very interesting natural sediment that builds up over time from grape skins, twigs and seeds, hence the “crusted” in crusted wine. Appetizing no?
Definitely and absolutely, crusted port wine should be decanted. If not, you might take a sip and end up snacking on something that isn’t quite edible. However, what’s good about crusted wines is that you can enjoy them at a much younger age vs. a good vintage port, some of which can take decades to mature, where they can be fully appreciated.
Keep in mind that when you see the date on the bottle, this is alluding to the bottling date and not the actual year in which the grapes were grown. Cheers!!
Late Bottled Vintage
April 11, 2008
What is meant by saying a bottle is late bottled vintage? - Chandra in Seattle, WA
Late Bottled Vintage is the term given to wines that are left longer in a barrel than what had been planned for, due to a lack of demand. This practice has led to 2 distinct wines. From these 2 types, both of them are bottled between 4 to 6 years after the vintage. The key difference between them is that one is fined and filtered before it is bottled and the other one is not.
Basically, when a wine is filtered like this it can be consumed without having to be decanted first. Now as for the unfiltered wines, these definitely have to be decanted. Some wine lovers feel that the filtering process takes away from the character of the wine. One of the reasons this practice made sense was that late bottled vintage is similar to drinking a vintage port without having to wait 10 plus years before enjoying the bottle.
Kinda like getting your cake and eating it too so to speak and not having to feel all that wine guilt just because you want to indulge. But then again sometimes its good to be cautious. A lot of late bottled vintage wines are worthy of your time but a few, due to the filtering process and how they were crafted can be likened to drinking a shadow and will leave you with an unsatisfied craving for more. Cheers!!
Unfiltered Wine
March 12, 2008
Does unfiltered wine have a better taste than wines that have been fined? - Lee in Missoula, MT
Instead of producing unfiltered wines, these days many large scale labels will run their wines through a very fine filter to remove the sediment and particles that could give it a foggy appearance. Still there are a lot of small wineries that believe this process may strip the wine of it’s character and unique flavors.
Because of this they rely on other processes such as cold stabilization or racking to remove these particles. Keep in mind that unfiltered wines or wines that have been left unfined may have a small amount of sediment in the bottle.
The appearance might not be as clear but these wines are certainly as good as and most likely even better than what the large wineries produce. When looking at the bottle, don’t worry if you were to notice a small amount of sediment at the bottom. This is not something that can make you sick but it’s not too fun drinking it either.
Wines are sometimes labeled unfined to point out the fact that they should be more flavorful. Who doesn’t enjoy a good tasty mouthful of something rare and special every now again?