Barossa Wine – Wine Facts

Welcome to Barossa Online.com We hope that you find this site informative and interesting. We know that one of the best things to come out of the Barossa is its famous Barossa wine. We have gathered together some helpful tips and advice on a few topics relating to Barossa wine. Please enjoy...   

Some Facts about Wine you may not know: 

·         The majority of the flavour of red wine comes from the skin of the grape, the flavour of white wine comes from the flesh of the grape 

·         The best red wine, particularly with Barossa wine, comes from grapes which are small as these have more skins providing a more intense flavour which is extracted into the juice during the fermentation process 

·         The juice of most wines is clear, red wine gains its colour from being fermented for a time with the skins of the grapes, which is where the colour is extracted from 

·         It is not the variety of the grape that determines the sweetness of a wine, it is the methods of the winemaker.  Any grape variety can be made into dry or sweet wine 

·         Wines share the same flavour compounds as found in many fruit, vegetables, spices, herbs, and other organic matter.  This is the reason why wines are described as having ‘peach’ or ‘plum’ flavours, ‘chocolatey’ or ‘spicy’ characteristics 

·         Allowing wine to breathe releases the wine’s flavours.  This is done by aerating the wine, the most common method is decanting, which simply means pouring the wine into another container, or decanter 

·         Swirling wine in a wine glass releases the aroma, or bouquet, of the wine 

·         Grapes are the most planted fruit crop in the world.  There are currently about 20 million acres of grapes planted around the world 

·         Only a small proportion of wine produced each year improves over time.  It is usually the full bodied red wines such as Shiraz Barossa wine, fortified wines, rich sweet white wines, and some high quality dry white wines that get better with age 

·         It is the sugar in grapes that, when fermented, turn into alcohol.  A ‘dry’ wine refers to little or no residual sugar left in the wine.  ‘Sweet’ wines have an amount of residual, or added, sugar in them 

·         Wine evaporates inside oak barrels, which are commonly used, especially in Barossa wine production, to age a wine.  Evaporation of the wine can be as much as 10% to 15% per year 

·         Some French oak barrels hold as much as 300 litres of wine, these can cost around AUD$1,500 

·         The average age of a French oak tree harvested for turning into wine barrels is 170 years 

·         A ‘corked wine’ means it has been tainted by a chemical compound in the cork.  It is a common misconception that cork taint is from fragments of cork in the wine 

·         The rate of wines affected by ‘cork taint’ is generally between 2% and 10%.  Wine affected by ‘cork taint’ will smell off, similar to a mouldy musty smell 

·         Cork is the bark harvested from a fully grown cork tree every 9 years 

·         Many wine bottles have an indent on the bottom, this is known as a punt.  This punt aids in decanting as it collects the sediment found in aged red wines 

·         Champagne is usually white, but made mostly from red grapes 

·         The bubbles get into champagne by fermenting it in a sealed bottle.  When wine ferments, carbon dioxide is released which gets trapped in the bottle.  When the cork is popped, the pressure is released, causing the gassing bubbles to appear