Residual sugar in wine

On the advice of a merchant I bought (for me) a fairly expensive red wine, made in Australia’s Barossa Valley.

Looking at the back label, with its customary descriptive blurb of “berry fruits”, “plum”, “blackberries”, “chocolate”, “vanilla” and all the rest that someone thought up, I saw that the alcohol content was a stonking 14.5%.

In my view that is too high, with the alcohol overpowering those “berry fruits”. It was dry on the palate.

I took its residual sugar content. This was 8%, which should have made it a normally balanced wine. It was the tannin content that made it taste like a dry red wine.

Unaware of the tannin content, I had bought a wine that was happier to be more of a laying-down wine than one for present-day drinking. They might have mentioned this with the “berry” fruits business. Its tannins would have softened in time and brought the wine into balance, making it a fine wine.

It must have been very hot in the Barossa Valley that vintage year, with the grapes producing a lot of sugar. Even if the winemakers had stopped the fermentation earlier to reduce alcohol content, the resultant wine would have been too sweet on the palate. So 14.5% it was.

In Europe, we seldom get the very hot weather that produces too much sugar in the grapes. Here it is often the opposite, demanding added sugar to produce enough alcohol for pleasurable drinking and preservation.

I usually add sugar to my own vintages in London, aiming for around 22% before vinification (Port is about 20%), and fermenting the wine out to contain about 6% residual sugar.

I could stop fermentation of the sweetened must for the wine to contain more sweetness and less alcohol by adding sulphur, or even fine filtering (to get rid of the yeast) if I had the equipment. But I rather like to leave the whole process to nature.

As for the adding of sugar at fermentation time, French authorities, when I wrote professionally on wine anyway, designated that those winemakers below a certain latitude, were not allowed to add it. At that time, a pied noir, kicked out of Algeria, bought a vineyard in Bas Médoc, well south of the designated latitude, and  wondered why his wines were not as good as those made by his neighbours. That was, until he was woken at night by sugar tankers passing by to help improve those neighbour’s wines. He then started to make good wine.

Wine is often blended at source. I do as well, as my own red gets down to around 6% sugar. That is a bit too dry for it, so I have no compunction about mixing it in a decanter with a sweeter red – to the benefit of both.

Commercial winemaking is just another business where the weather is a major element and fortunes can be made or lost. So a certain amount of manipulation by the professional and the amateur when making wine is commonplace.

Dry whites and rosé wines usually have around 7% residual sugar content, reds anything between 6% to 9% - the successful results depending on body, tannin, sweetness and acidity. As for the wine’s acidity, this can also be added to wine, especially in hot climates, in order to produce a successful product.

Out of all this, it seems extraordinary to me that, combined with other factors, the differences between dryness and sweetness in table wines should depend upon such small differences (about 6%) in the wines’ residual sugar content.V

Fear in War

It was when applying for another war medal (one that was never sent to me, and not one for gallantry) that I was asked if I had ever been frightened during my wartime service in the RAF.

My first encounter with the enemy was when, after joining up and waiting for flying training, I took a job as a farm labourer. Food was in short supply. I was helping the war effort and experiencing farm life.

When hoeing weeds in the middle of a field, a German JU88 bomber flew over me at just above treetop level and banked on its way to bomb Reading railway station (it actually missed the station and destroyed a school and killed many children). I could see the pilot and rear cockpit gunner quite clearly. The gunner must equally have seen me. But they were trying to navigate in foreign territory at low level so had little time to waste by shooting up a simple farm labourer. It all happened so quickly. Was I frightened? It was far too sudden and unexpected an incident to generate fear.

Then, going on leave to London, and near to the capital, the train I was in came to a halt in an air raid. Searchlights scanned the night sky to look for the enemy  bombers. Anti-aircraft guns were in action. But no bombs fell nearby. Was I frightened? I wrote about it to a friend in America saying that I would not have missed it for anything. So I certainly could not have been frightened then.

Waiting at RAF Hornchurch, on the fringes of London in Essex, while waiting for a posting to Flying Training School in America, I volunteered to mend roofs in the much-bombed East End, London district of Plumstead. I was on a slate roof mending it when one of the first German rockets landed in the vicinity. It was just a loud bang. The rocket, being supersonic, the swooshing noise of its arrival came after the rocket’s ground explosion. Was I frightened? I didn’t even know then that the explosion was caused by a rocket.

On leave in London, buzzbombs detonated around with some regularity.

These flying bombs were powered by a pulse jet engine and made a loud, pulsating, growling sound.

If one was still making its noise when overhead, all was well. It would land elsewhere. But if the engine cut out just before arriving, you took shelter – in our case, when living in a flat in Victoria, under a strong table. In a bath one just hoped to hear the bomb fly over. Was I afraid? Sometimes apprehensive for sure.

Crashing a PT19 training aircraft in Oklahoma, USA, was a time when I could have expected to be frightened. But I imagine that trying to work out how to get down in one piece gave me little time for fear. I landed in one piece, the aeroplane in several.

Flying in Coastal Command from RAF Davidstow Moor, Cornwall, in twin-engined Vickers Warwick aircraft, and blessed with wonderful eyesight, I spotted a German Fokke-Wulf aeroplane as a dot in the far distance. Alerting those on board through the intercom, we dived to just above sea level and headed for home. They can’t have seen us. With our 303 machineguns we were virtually defenceless and no match whatsoever for such a fast and powerful enemy aircraft bristling with substantial cannons. Was I afraid? It was simply part of a job that I loved doing, and it did break up the monotony of long operational flights in a very noisy and cumbersome machine. I don’t think that any of us on board experienced fear. And after each sortie we were guaranteed a fried egg in the mess on our return.

On RAF airfields, latrines were in huts dotted around the place (some for men, some for women). One day, at Davidstow Moor, I was going about my business and had need of a lavatory. There was one nearby, which turned out to be the cleanest that I had so far encountered on the station. After sitting down I heard a woman cough in a nearby cubicle. Now, being caught in a women’s lavatory was a court martial offence. It could have been the end of my RAF career if I was discovered. I dressed, crept to the door, exited, and walked away as nonchalantly as possible. No one saw me.

So yes. I really did experience fear in wartime – in a ladies lavatory.

Mistletoe update

You might recall my blog on mistletoe. It told how, without success, I tried over the years to “plant” the soft berries of this parasite into junctures of spurs growing from our small apple tree in a pot.

I then, two months after Christmas, found some dried berries clinging to mistletoe twigs in a builder’s skip, and planted them – again without success. So I reluctantly gave up the struggle.

Then, two years later, a small mistletoe shoot sprang out through the tree’s bark an inch or two below where I had planted seed toward the top of the tree.

It was a great day – a celebration day. I had succeeded after many years of failure. But there were no berries attached to the branch.

Twelve months later another bunch of mistletoe appeared below the first one. And after yet another year a third lot appeared low down near to the earth in the pot. But there were still no berries.

Fast-forward another three years – until this 2017 spring. And there, at last, on the lowest and most recent branch, lovely little flowers were opening where new growth usually takes place.

Mistletoe clearly has a mind of its own, and likes to surprise – even hiding its sex for a while.

Anyhow, it looks as if one of those dried berries was a female one. Roll on 

Christmas.