Talk:Fermentation (wine)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Wine Portal Fermentation (wine) is part of WikiProject Wine, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of wines, grapes, wine producers and wine growing regions. Please work to improve this article, or visit our project page where you can join the project and find other ways of helping.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale within WikiProject Wine.
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.
WikiProject Wine open tasks Make visible or invisible by clicking Show or Hide, respectively. Here are some tasks you can do for WikiProject Wine: Article request: Charles Krug, John Patchett, Global warming and wine, Mesoclimate, History of French wine, History of German wine, History of Spanish wine, History of Italian wine, California wine regions, Vine training systems, wine list Expand: any of the ~1000 wine stubs, particularly the region and "miscellaneous" ones Improve: Cabernet Franc, Canadian wine, Greek wine, Sangiovese, Vitis vinifera, wine serving temperature, other Start class articles Articles to GA: Wine, Australian wine, Bordeaux wine, Burgundy wine, California wine, Champagne (wine), Chianti, Dessert wine, French wine, German wine, Grenache, Italian wine, Merlot, Pinot gris, Pinot noir, Rioja (wine), Sauvignon blanc, Shiraz (grape), Spanish wine, Sparkling wine, Winemaking, Zinfandel Articles to FA: Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Tempranillo Cleanup: Table wine, Wine competition, Wine tasting, red links in Spanish_wine_regions Peer review:Tempranillo, Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a wine guide, Alcohol in the Bible Copyedit: Aligoté, Cabernet franc, Chenin blanc, Malbec, Robert M. Parker, Jr., Pinot blanc, Rioja (wine), Tempranillo Photo request: Just about all of them! Any pictures of wine regions, grape varieties or wine would be useful. In particular we need wine region maps that can be licensed for Wikipedia. Collaboration: Operation stub-killer, Nominations for top level importance Wine Improvement Drive: French wine Infobox: Template:Infobox grape variety, Template:Infobox Winery Other: Comment on the grape article template and on the grape infobox. view • edit • discuss • history • watch

Contents 1 Yeast inoculation 2 Comments 3 Review 4 References 5 Photos/Diagrams 6 Image copyright problem with Image:Brettanomyces.jpg

[edit] Yeast inoculation

I don't see any mention in this article about the inoculation process to kill the wild yeast before the cultured yeasts are introduced. -Amatulic 00:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It is up to the winemaker (and I suspect there are some regional differences in regards to the ambient yeasts) but at least up here in the Pacific Northwest the ambient yeast is not really killed. The cultured yeast sort of dominate and take over with work of the ambient yeast being downplayed. Double checking with my sources, I also don't see any reference in them about killing the wild yeast as well. But feel free to include information with any source you may have. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The handful of California winemakers I've asked all inoculate the wild yeast to control the process (except for one who doesn't inoculate at all because he's fortunate to have good wild yeast in his fields, and you can taste the difference). The impression I got from these conversations was that the wild yeast is killed or dominated to extinction. -Amatulic 17:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "inoculation process". Usually that refers to actually adding the cultured yeast to the must. A lot of winemakers do add sulfites to the wine to kill/stun the wild yeast, although the studies indicate that at the levels of SO₂ that are used, it has little effect on most species of wild yeast, and no effect on the total growth. It's actually the vigor of the cultured yeast (if added) that overuns and kills the wild yeasts. Most winemaking books tend to tell you to add the sulfites to kill the wild yeast, but the microbiological journals for example, this one tend to differ from the "common thinking" of winemakers. --- The Bethling^(Talk) 21:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

I would like to have a explanation of primary and secondary fermentation, I'm not sure what the difference is!!!! Also why is fermentation written with uppercase in the lead section?? --Stefan ^talk 00:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

In a lot of ways "secondary fermentation" is sort of a misnomer. It's actually the same fermentation process (no new yeast or sugars), but the wine is transfered to a secondary container (usually an oak barrel or a stainless steel tank). Usually one that the winemaker can better control the wine's interaction with oxygen. This is done because the open vats/barrels that the fermentation starts in become a problem later in the process when it slows down, and less carbon dioxide is coming off the wine. --- The Bethling^(Talk) 00:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Review

Just after this article was started, Agne asked me, as a chemist, to review the article. Well, I am a chemist, but very much at the rarefied physical.theoretical side of the discipline and my knowledge of organic chemistry and biochemistry is rather weak. First, I have gone through making a whole lot of very small changes such as changing capital letters to small letters. Feel free to reverse any of these if you think I am wrong. Second, the broader issues. I think this article does a great job. The technical chemical details are rightly left to Ethanol fermentation and Fermentation (biochemistry). The coverage is good. It is well referenced. Well done. A small point - is "the "barnyard aroma" characteristic in some red wines like Burgundy Pinot noir" restricted to Pinot noir from Burgundy or is it found in Pinot noir from elsewhere? Indeed there seems to be a few points where reference to French wine production might be generalized to many countries, if indeed the point at issue relates to the wine variety and not the country. Apologies that this has taken time. Agne asked me just after I got back from a trip to London from Australia and I have been rather busy and laid low with a virus I suspect I caught on the flight. I have a colleague in the university who used to work in a wine institute. I will ask him to comment, when I see him next. --Bduke 02:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I really appreciate the review. I'll look into more about some of the country references. I mostly stuck with my sources though things like personal experience, (I've had many of barnyard-y Pinots from Oregon) differ from the quaint generalization. A common theme I've found among most wine resources is that they tend to focus on the "classic descriptions" and generalizations even though the word of wine is filled with more shades of gray then what just the "classics" would portray. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 09:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

This has been added to the references section: == Headline text == This process has its tricks, if you let the wine rest for a coupe of days it would taste different or maybe a little strange as if you let it rest for weeks, months, or even years.

I have no idea where the editor who added it really wanted to put it so I have moved it here. --Bduke 04:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that is a little odd. I think what they are talking about is extended maceration after fermentation is complete or maybe just plain old fashion bottle/barrel aging. Both possibilities really don't necessary belong in the fermentation article. It probably should be expanded and clarified for relevance with a reliable source before it would go back into the article.

[edit] Photos/Diagrams

Are there more illustrations available related to the wine-elaboration process relating to fermentation? (For example, ritual dancing connected to use of feet in the traditional-press process, ethnographies on this topic and/or accounts from antiquity?) Miraclebaby (talk) 05:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure about images from antiquity. But we can certainly request some diagrams of the process with the Project Greenspun Intiative. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Brettanomyces.jpg

The image Image:Brettanomyces.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --23:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)