I’ve been working on a series of pieces for the New York Cork Report discussing the science of biodynamic and organic winegrowing. I’m up to my ears in Rudolf Steiner, Nicolas Joly, Maria Thun, Jamie Goode, and a whole bunch of scientific literature.

My first post went up last Thursday and has generated a slew of comments in spite of containing little controversial content.

I’ve also been interviewed about this project for the popular wine blog saignée, and that interview has also generated significant feedback.

The interview explains a lot about my motivation behind this project, which I have been meaning to undertake for quite a while. Hopefully by the end of the series, we’ll discover which biodynamic practices have some scientific merit and which ones are better left in the realm of the spiritual.

Throughout the series, I will be referencing my posts on NYCR and adding extraneous or supplemental information on this site. The official posts will go up on Thursdays over the next several weeks at The New York Cork Report.

                          

by Richard Pliny, Beer Correspondent

Style: “Blended IPA”
Color: Orange-straw
ABV: 9%
Price Point: $8 for 22oz
Technical Notes: From the Southern Tier website, “High in the winter sky, two parallel stick figures are visible & known as “the twins,” or the constellation Gemini. The astronauts of the 1960s flew as teams of two in a program named after the celestial pairing. At Southern Tier, we have our own fraternal twins, Hoppe [reviewed here] & Unearthly. Blended together & placed in this vessel, the mission of our Gemini is to travel high & take passengers on a journey far into the heavens.”

Hedonic Notes: The beer pours a translucent pale orange with very little foam.  That foam which does form is characterized by large bubbles and a brilliant white shade.  There is a slightly cloudy appearance and the bottom of the bottle has a healthy amount of sediment. Floral, aromatic hop notes pervade the aroma.  A slight bit of citrus follows, accompanied by a thick, almost honey like malt backbone.  The hop notes are complex yet subtle, with hints of pine and grass mixing with the stronger floral and citrus notes.

As the beer warms, the subtler hints become more pronounced.  Hop bitterness reminds one of an American style IPA, with prominent pine and citrus.  A delightfully sweet caramel malt forms a subdued yet appropriate contrast and highlights the more delicate aspects of the hop bitterness.  Grapefruit and orange notes dominate, while grass does not play as prominent a role as in the aroma.  Earthy notes are not as noticeable as one may expect in the finish, which is more dry than bitter.

In spite of the 9% alcohol, any sort of solvent texture is minimal, even as the beer warms.  The finish is very dry and imparts a clear astringency that quite distinct from a hop bitterness.  A surprising smoothness accompanies this dryness and astringency, making for a very unique finish.

Overall the beer is very drinkable.  It is more drinkable than Hoppe, though arguably not as good a vessel for exploring the many facets of hop bitterness.  Personally, I found Hoppe a more interesting experience, but perhaps this beer isn’t trying to compete as much as complement.  It should be noted that this beer was aged for a few months, perhaps subduing the hop flavors.  That said, it was quite unique and a delight to drink in general.

Rating: 4/5 Corks. Gemini is a delightful IPA to drink, but perhaps not as high in the sky as Southern Tier’s Hoppe.

The final frontier: beer in space!

In 2001 Kirsten Sterett, a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, conducted experiments brewing beer in space.  With the help of Coors, Sterett had a small fermentation experiment fly on a shuttle mission, with a control sample on earth.  Experiments looked at cell counts and protein expression levels.

Sterett's brewery apparatus. Thanks to NASA for the image.

Under the influence of gravity (i.e., on Earth), cells form aggregates and settle out of solution.  This results in a layer of sediment at the bottom of the beer and is largely responsible for the slow progression of aging.  In microgravity, however, the cells remain in suspension throughout the length of the fermentation.  Moreover, carbon dioxide bubbles don’t leave the system since there is no bouyant force in the absence of gravity. In remaining in suspension, the cells are able to consume sugars more rapidly since the diffusion limitations are lessened.

Sterett found, somewhat paradoxically, that total cell counts are reduced when fermentation is conducted in orbit.  However, certain proteins were expressed in higher levels. Later experiments focusing on pharmaceutical production would find that bacterial cells are able to produce better target molecule:biomass ratios in microgravity.

Though the precise mechanism is not clear, efforts are underway to engineer organisms that are able to produce similar results in gravity. The bulk of earlier microbial experiments in space focused primarily on pathogenic bacteria.  Findings from Salyut in 1982 and Spacelab D1 in 1985 seemed to indicate that microbes have increased antibiotic resistance in microgravity.  It appears microbes are able to form more dense biofilms in the absence of gravity, making mass transfer to the center of the population difficult.

The ISS would make a great place for a pub. Image courtesy of NASA

So is beer production possible in space?  The question is currently unanswered, but appears promising.  Sterett did taste about 1ml of her beer, but noted that it did not taste very good.  Space beer would no doubt be a rather different drinking experience without a proper head forming (not to mention drinking from a straw and having limited aroma due to container constraints).

Japanese brewer Sapporo offered a beer brewed with barley descended from samples grown in orbit.  The beer launched in early 2009, with a mere 100 liters were produced and sold to a lucky 250 customers chosen from a lottery for 10,000 yen (roughly $110US) per six-pack.  (as an aside, if any readers out there happen to have a bottle of this sitting around I would love to write a feature on it!) Is space beer going to be the beverage of the future?  Probably not… and I’m still waiting for my jetpack.

“R&D Report for ‘Space Barley’” Sapporo.

Suds in Space. NASA.  2001.

Wilson et al. “Space flight alters bacterial gene expression and virulence and reveals a role for global regulator Hfq.“ PNAS. 2007.

                          

http://www.winebusiness.com/news/?go=getArticle&dataid=67958

A few more details about my back-of-the envelope analysis, for the scientifically inclined:

Assumptions (mostly made for simplicity):

• The liquid in the bottle is 750 mL (~0.75 kg) and has the same heat capacity as water, 4184 J/(kg*K) (Wine is 85-90% water)
• A wine bottle is a cylinder 27 cm long and 6 cm diameter
• The cylinder is encased in a 1 cm layer of styrofoam, thermal conductivity 0.033 W/(m*K)
• The liquid in the bottle is well-mixed (bouncing around in a truck, sure, why not?). This is important because it drastically simplifies the problem. It assumes that the temperature throughout the container is the same. Good thing, too, because I HATE cylindical coordinates!
• The initial temperature of the wine is cellar temperature, here approximated to 16C (60.8F)

Sample calculations. This was literally done on the back of an envelope.

Using the surface area, heat capacity, and thermal conductivities, plus the heat transfer coefficient of air, I was able to model this as a heat-transfer resistance problem. There are two resistances to heat transfer in series, convection from the air and conduction of the styrofoam. By combining the resistances you can treat them as one total resistance. This resistance relates to the heat flux into the container. The heat flux multiplied by the surface area and divided by the heat capacity of the fluid will give you the temperature change.

Since this system is not at steady state (that is, the temperature is changing with time), it can be modeled as a first-order differential equation:

This leads to an exponentially decaying increase in temperature (shown in the graph at winebusiness.com), the time constant of which (r) depends on the resistance (convective and conductive) and heat capacity and amount of fluid (750 g of wine vs. 1 gram of air).

Basically, air heats up a lot faster than liquids at a certain volume because (1) there is much less of it to heat up, and (2) energy transferred to gas is more efficiently displayed as a temperature increase than in liquids (particularly water, which has a hydrogen bond structure such that much of the energy input will go into breaking hydrogen bonds instead of making molecules move faster).

                          

It seems like every day you see or hear of a new study about the “health benefits” of wine consumption. For example, this month’s Wine Spectator has a headline that claims that wine improves Tuscan women’s sex lives. Less publicized are studies about the harmful effects of alcohol consumption, of which there are plenty. My article discusses why wine labels do not make the oft-repeated claim that a glass of wine a day can improve overall cardiovascular health. The answer may surprise you.

Check it out here:
http://palatepress.com/2009/09/the-american-paradox-wine-labels-rarely-list-health-benefits/

                          

The winemakers poured some very good wines and talked about different issues, like skin contact, different sites in the Finger Lakes, and the right Brix to pick Cayuga White at before it starts to develop the labrusca “foxy” character. Not much critique of the wines, but lots of casual discussion among peers. I was definitely in my element, asking questions when I didn’t feel too intimidated. This was what I was looking for, some serious wine talk.

Wine. Serious Business, right?

I don’t want yesterday’s post to be interpreted as negative altogether. I had a great time at the Festival, on both days, and while I didn’t taste every wine in the tasting guide (not even close), I think I got up to about 100. Considering the throngs of people, that’s not too bad. Sunday was a lot calmer than Saturday, and I did actually get a chance to talk with the pourers (and in some cases, winemakers) that were working. There were far fewer shenanigans on Sunday. It was actually quite pleasant.

In fact, I should give a shoutout to a winery that I hadn’t had anything from before that impressed me with just about every wine they poured, Keuka Spring Vineyards. I bought a half case from them, my only wine purchase of the festival. Big ups to the Crooked Lake Red, a red blend with a lot of character, featuring the Rougeon grape.

The Festival tries to appeal to all kinds of wine consumers, but it’s really just a big party. Some people like frat parties, some like cocktail parties, and some like tea parties. This year, Saturday was the frat party while Sunday was more like a cocktail party. There’s no reason for wine cognoscenti to thumb their noses as the proletariat guzzle their sacred drink. On the other hand, there has got to be a better way to get consumers interested in wine than relying on novelty and appealing only to the lowest common denominator. Underselling the high-quality wines while playing up the sweet and simple ones may be a good way to get consumers to drink wine, but what then? Maybe I was a bit off when I considered the “dichotomy” of our wine culture. Rather than a discrete separation there must be a continuum of wine consumers with varying amounts of knowledge and experience. Where do these new wine consumers turn when they want something beyond the simple? What happens in between wine naïf and wine connoisseur? These are probably the types that would attend talks and tasting sessions about enjoying wine (e.g., the Riesling Room). These are the ones that likely make up the bulk of the continuum, like a bell curve. Perhaps these are the ones that the wine festival should target. I like what Hazlitt did with the winemaker’s corner, and I like the idea of the Riesling Room. I would love to see more ideas like this.

There is a lot in play here, and the sample is likely skewed. After all, in terms of the Festival we are talking about a sample population willing to pay up front for all they can drink on a hot summer day. I’m out of my league here. I have said many times that I understand molecules, but that I don’t understand people. The system we live in is much too complex to be understood fundamentally, especially from someone like me who naïvely expects predictable and rational behavior. This could also be the reason I am so drawn to infomercials and Evangelical Christian radio programs.

Where was I? Oh yes, the Festival. I would go again next summer. If I go on Saturday, though, I’m not going to be driving myself and I’m not going to be spitting. Hell, maybe I’ll even go to the toga party. How does that Red Cat song go again?

PS:
If you’d like a completely different, more descriptive, and Thompsonian (Hunter S., not Lenn) take on the Festival, check out the reaction of my friend Brian, my compatriot and cameraman for the festival. Ithacork takes no responsibility for his views, motorcycle analogies, or spelling.

Science!
One of my biggest gripes at the Festival was the fact that almost every white wine I tasted was ICE COLD, probably because it had been sitting in an ice bucket or cooler all day. Whites coming out of the fridge are likely going to be around 39-40 degrees F (4C), but when wines sit in an ice-water mixture they get even colder. I’m not one of those who goes around saying that your all your whites should be served at exactly 45 degrees Fahrenheit, but 33 is cold, especially for those of us with more sensitive teeth (read: winos with hardly any enamel left…). If you serve ice-cold wine, you’re not only doing the taster a disservice by giving him a brain freeze, you are muting the aromas of the wine.

All right now, fellas. What's cooler than being cool? NOT serving your wine ICE COLD.

In a paper in the Journal of Sensory Studies, the temperature effect was studied extensively. In the cases of red and white wine, aroma intensity was found to be significantly lower at lower temperatures. This makes sense, since aroma compounds are generally less volatile at lower temperatures (in general, this effect is also non-linear). As for acidity and sweetness, contrary to what you might have heard, temperature in this study had no statistically significant effect on acidity or sweetness in white wines. (Ross and Weller, “Effect of serving temperature on the sensory attributes of red and white wines”, Journal of Sensory Studies, 2008).

                          

The Finger Lakes Wine Festival sounds like a great idea. For me, it sounded like a great way for me to taste all kinds of wines from Finger Lakes producers that I don’t often get a chance to taste. In case you don’t know, I do the bulk of my buying and tasting of local wines in the tasting room, where I can talk to employees and taste all the wines I want. Some of these wineries are an hour, hour-and-a-half away, so I am admittedly weak on, say, Keuka Lake. So on paper, this festival which brings in hundreds of wines from across the Finger Lakes (and some other regions like the Niagara Escarpment) looks like a great idea.

Apparently they will give these things to just about anybody!

I should have realized when the shirtless guy screamed “Let’s get hammered!” on the way in. I should have realized when the first person dropped a glass and hundreds of people let out waves of “OHHHH”s for about a minute. I should have realized when I saw a woman hold out her glass for a pour (still attached to her neck by a lanyard) and simply say “Sweet.” I should have realized that this was that kind of party.

And hey, I’m not above “that kind of party”. There is very little that I am above, especially when it comes to alcohol. But, since I was (somewhat) on the clock, I was spitting, and there is just something about being the only sober person in a sea of very drunk, rambunctious people.

I found some comfort in the Riesling Room, set up by Finger Lakes Wine Country. It was a quiet, roomy place to do some serious tasting of some great Rieslings and even listen to some talks about growing and tasting Riesling, with a $3 entry fee on top of the admission price. I’m certain that the $3 contributed to the muted atmosphere. Even in the Riesling room, though, it was still “that kind of party”, featuring a short survey of about 5 Finger Lakes Rieslings of varying levels of sweetness that resulted in stickers saying “I like it sweet”, “I like it dry”, and “I go both ways.”*

What? It means I like my Riesling both dry AND sweet. Oh. Well, I can see why you would think that, but my taste in wine actually has nothing to do with my sexual preference.

Most wineries were pouring from the bottom of the list. Usually, in tasting rooms, the wines are presented from dry to sweet, and things like Catawba, Niagara, etc., are the sweet stuff. In retrospect, why would a winery bring its really good stuff if everyone there is just going to slug it down, not appreciating the hard work that went in to growing, harvesting, vinifying, blending, cellaring, and bottling the wine?

The dichotomy of Finger Lakes wine culture (and perhaps wine culture in general?) had hit me square in the face. Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards is a great example of this dichotomy in action. They make Red Cat, the biggest selling wine in New York State. They move 100,000 cases a year of the stuff, which is marketed as “hot tub wine”. There is a Red Cat mascot (of whom I unfortunately didn’t get a picture) parading around the festival like Donald Duck in Frontierland.

However, Hazlitt also makes some very good {vinifera} wines. In their enormous tent (as seen on the video), they had set up a “Winemaker’s Corner” where I found winemaker Tim Benedict, bedecked in Hawaiian shirt and wide-brimmed beach hat, pouring the vinifera wines. While the line for Red Cat and others was packed, the winemaker’s corner seemed rather lonely. I found violets in the Cabernet Franc, a good balance of fruit and flowers in the dry (0.4% RS) Gewürztraminer, and light petrol over a nice Semi-Dry Riesling.

Thinking of this, is it any wonder that when I enter a tasting room I am often asked if I like “Dry or Sweet” wines? Is this the tasting room staff’s way of determining if I am either (a) a wine snob or (b) part of the unwashed masses demanding that my wine taste like grapes? For the record, my response is always “I want to taste everything.” In fact, I even had a dry Niagara at the Festival (it… reminded me why people make Niagara sweet).

Some writers argue that New York state should focus on vinifera wines if we are to be a major player on the world stage. I agree in that I like many vinifera wines better than hybrids, but one reality of the Finger Lakes is that growing vinifera grapes is time-consuming and expensive because of the care they require in a cool, moist climate like this. Furthermore, the benefits of selling the cheap stuff are likely not limited to the financial. How many wine lovers are brought into the wine world drinking Blue Nun or Manischewitz or white Zinfandel? True, many will continue to pound the plonk for the rest of their lives, but some will rise above it, expanding their palates to more interesting, more complex wines. If even a few see cheap, sweet wine as a gateway between soda and Sauvignon, then so be it.

So, is it just a sad truth of Finger Lakes wine that you’ve got to sell the simple, sweet stuff so you can make the complex, delicious stuff? Events like this seem to reinforce the fact that the average wine consumer in the Finger Lakes is the woman reaching out and saying “Gimme something sweet.” For the sake of this region, I hope not. Should events like the Wine Festival should attempt to educate consumers about the high-quality wines that the Finger Lakes produces? Or should they exist to sell product? What do you think?

Tomorrow: The VIP experience at the Festival, plus some Wine Festival Science!

• “I got Nautie” (sticker)
• “Spit or Swallow” (sticker)
• “I go both ways” (sticker)
• Naughty Virgin
• Hot Sin
• Forbidden Nights
• Pecker Head Red
• 69 Ways to Have Fun
• Well Hung
• Lonely Seaman
• Seneca Steamer (OK that’s not outright innuendo, but you may have heard a similar term somewhere on urban dictionary)

                          

Just to preface: I do like some of the wines made with hybrid and even native grapes. I am definitely not anti-hybrid. What I’m not really a fan of is hybrid and native wines with way too much sugar in them, which is EXACTLY what most wineries at the festival were pouring the most of. If you can sit through the 5 minutes, enjoy.

More comments and some notes on particular wines in a later post.

                          

This doesn’t have much to do with wine, but it may give you some understanding of me personally. An interesting thing that Tyson alludes to is that scientific literacy is not limited to those privileged enough to have a scientific education. It’s not about facts, it’s about your worldview. This is not just how I see wine, it’s how I see the entire world.

Even in the wine world, there is a lot of mysticism, sometimes to the point of quasi-religious fervor. The way I see it (and the way I try to get people to see it), there are logical explanations for many of the phenomena that happen from bloom to bottling to drinking. Does it make those phenomena less wonderful? Of course not. In fact, understanding them, to me, is wondrous and wonderful in itself.

                          

A little while ago I got an email from a reader. She writes:

I came across your blog online…I’ll be visiting the Finger Lakes soon and I was wondering if you know of any wineries that produce/sell de-alcoholized wine? I gave up drinking last year (sound decision, I promise) but still love the taste of wine. Am trying to find new and interesting de-alcoholized wines when I travel.

Here’s my response:

Thanks for reading the blog. I don’t know of any producers of de-alcoholized wines in the Finger Lakes, but I will ask around.

Do you drink a lot of de-alcoholized wine? I have had several alcohol-removed wines (in the name of science) and none of them really taste like wine to me. Alcohol actually does much for the body and especially the acid balance of wine. Alcohol-removed wine to me tastes extremely acidic.

Winemakers sensitive to those who choose not to drink alcohol can use glycerol or other agents to provide body and some even use capsaicin (from hot peppers) to replicate the “burn” of alcohol. Ariel Vineyards from California claims that its n/a wines have won gold medals against alcoholic wines. So maybe not all n/a wines are bad news.

For the Finger Lakes, though, might I suggest a compromise of spitting? I spit whenever I visit wineries, since I am usually the one driving my friends around. Spitting would give you the tasting experience and the opportunity to talk with the tasting room staff without taking in that much alcohol. Also people who spit really look like professionals, because most pros spit!

Failing that, i do know many wineries carry juice made from wine grapes.

Looking back on this advice, I’m not sure that recommending spitting was such a good idea. No matter this person’s reasons for avoiding alcohol (medical, psychological, financial, religious, or anything else), I’m not sure that the answer is bringing her into closer contact with alcoholic wine. Indeed, for those of you who do spit, alcohol CAN get into your system without you swallowing a drop. It can traverse mucous membranes contributing to some absorption into the bloodstream. Various estimates exist but some numbers that I saw estimate that 3% of the alcohol in a drink is absorbed through the mouth (questionable Ref: Wine Business Monthly). So after a full day of wine tasting, spitting only, you could still end up having the equivalent of a drink or two. Of course, that doesn’t count those wines that are so rich and delicious that you’re just compelled to gulp them down.

What do you guys think? Have you ever had a decent alcohol-removed
“wine”? Any advice for this reader?

Science!
Wine is a complex mixture of water (about 85-89%), alcohol (12-14%), organic acids like tartaric, malic, and lactic acid, sugar (sometimes), and volatile aroma compounds. If your goal is to remove alcohol from wine, you might think you could just boil it. Alcohol is more volatile than water, ergo boiling the wine will reduce the alcohol. The problem with that is that all of the aroma compounds in the wine are also volatile, so you would destroy the wine (not to mention the effect of heating the wine).

Alcohol can be removed from wines in many ways, but nowadays the most popular way is reverse osmosis. It’s a controversial topic in winemaking (see this article by PinotBlogger for some of the opposing viewpoints on alcohol removal), and I’m not really going to comment on the controversy, just the methodology.

Reverse osmosis involves high pressure, used to push the wine through a very stringent membrane filter. Only compounds whose molecular weight is smaller than 90 can pass through a tight RO filter. This includes water, ethanol, and the {volatile acidity} compounds ethyl acetate and acetic acid. Once these pass through the membrane, the alcohol and VA is removed by distillation and the water is returned to the wine. No water is added during the process. For a picture, see below.

This very simplistic diagram attempts to approximate the process of reverse osmosis on wine.