What Is A Winery?
Posted by Pam Thompson | Wineries | Posted on May 21st, 2010
Any person who enjoys a very good dinner in a high class restaurant usually has the opportunity to have wine to drink. Many enjoy this drink whose history goes back thousands of years. In any movies of ancient times one sees huge dinners with the people drinking goblets of wine. Beautiful goblets and other evidence of this practice has been found in many archaeological digs. Many of the royalty had wineries at their castle.
When a person drives around the countryside they see various signs on the road announcing a winery and inviting people in to taste their product. There are even wine tours in many places where a bus will transport people to a number of these places. If one likes wine this is an excellent way to be able to sample some of the many kinds available.
Wine is produced mainly from grapes but there are other types of wine as well. Wines such as dandelion, apple and strawberry are quite well known. The wineries are where the grapes, or these fruits and plants, are processed to be turned into wine. There are a surprising number of these companies who do not grow their own grapes but have them shipped in.
There are wineries all over the world and in most states of the U. S., even in Alaska. However, the best known, as well as grape growers, in the United States are located in Napa and Sonoma Counties, California. A good number of the grape growing companies in that area were started in the 1800′s.
There were a number of wineries that had to shut down or go out of business during prohibition when liquor of any kind was illegal. Some of them are sophisticated to the point of having their own laboratories and research teams to constantly test the blending of different types of grapes. Many of the wineries today started out as home winemakers and have become very successful.
A large number of the finer wines combine several different kinds of grapes to produce a unique flavor. Some of these grapes are fermented separately before entering the blend. Fermentation of the grapes takes place in stainless steel tanks to which yeast and sugar is added. There are two periods of fermentation.
Following the final fermentation, they are transferred to barrels to age. Some use special barrels, such as American Oak which gives an extra special flavor to the wine. After the wine is placed in a barrel it must age for approximately nine months before it can be bottled. There are competitions each year to judge the best wines. It is very prestigious to win the top honors for such an event.
Some wines are aged for years and bring out a very different taste then those that have been recently bottled. This type of wine is usually quite expensive, the more it ages the higher the price. Many wealthy people have complete wine cellars with a large selection of various wines to enjoy or serve their guests. However, no matter where it is made or by whom, there is someone in the world enjoying a glass of wine as this article is read.