The earliest wine bottles were rather round and globular, with tall conical necks. When wine bottles began to be manufactured in England in the 1820s they were made with more regular cylindrical sides, although their necks were long and extended. This ensured that they could be matured in a rack by lying on their sides, and in doing so using the wine inside to keep their corks moist.

Today, different European regions bottle their wines using glass of different shapes and colours, but this largely evolved through fashion rather than technical necessity. The actual shape of the bottle has no effect whatsoever on the maturation of the wine inside. The colour of the glass can have some effect however, since old-fashioned looking green and brown bottles exclude damaging ultraviolet light far better than the very light green and even entirely clear glass so popular with early-drinking white wines these days. You would take a risk by maturing a wine bottled in very lightly coloured or clear glass in a well-lit place.

While there is perhaps a small amount of logic in the way the major bottle shapes have developed, none of it is particularly applicable today. More to the point, if a maker of a wine chooses to use the shape associated with a particular region, that’s more of a statement of intent about the wine he or she is making. In other words, if a Yarra Valley-based winemaker uses a burgundy bottle for a chardonnay, you could fairly assume that the wine in question is made as a complex, wood-matured (if not indeed oak fermented) chardonnay of richness and character, ie with characteristics one might associate with a wine from Burgundy.

Let’s take a quick look at the major bottle shapes. The ‘claret’ shape of bottle originated in Bordeaux, where the principal variety is cabernet sauvignon. Given that cabernet can be matured for many years, after which it is neither unreasonable nor unexpected for a deposit to emerge in the wine, it makes perfect sense that the claret bottle has prominent, high shoulders within which sediment can easily settle while a bottle is being poured, preventing it from appearing in the wine in the glass. They’re the main reasons behind the claret or Bordeaux shape, which is used the world over for blends based on cabernet sauvignon or merlot, the second most important grape used in Bordeaux. Bordeaux’ white wines, from semillon, sauvignon blanc and muscadelle, use the same shape out of deference and not practicality, although their glass might be lighter.

The Burgundy shape evolved in this very region for its indigenous pinot noir and chardonnay. Typically, pinot noir will not produce the amount of sediment expected with a wine from cabernet sauvignon (or shiraz), so it’s quite understandable that the Burgundy bottle evolved with shoulders that slope a great deal, since they’re not designed to capture sediment. Today, most serious wines around the world made from pinot or chardonnay are still bottled in this shape.

The traditional German riesling shape is extremely narrow and tall, with an exceptionally long conical neck. There is no evidence for what I am about to suggest, but this shape perhaps evolved because there is a high level of natural acidity in German white wine, especially from riesling, and it was only relatively recently that wineries began to cold-stabilise their white wines to prevent the deposition of unstable acids in the bottle, causing the presence of what Germans would quaintly refer to as ‘wine diamonds’. If this was a common occurrence, as indeed it was, then a tall, narrow bottle would provide an ideal means by which a wine could be poured while leaving these crystals or ‘diamonds’ inside the bottle, where they belong! This tall shape has since become synonymous the world over with the riesling variety.

The final shape to discuss is the Champagne bottle. It’s basically quite similar to the Burgundy shape, but has a large punt (or cavity) beneath. This is because the sparkling wine of Champagne could only ever have been invented after the time that wine began to be packaged into glass bottles, but if a traditional flat-bottomed bottle was used for the job, it lacked the inherent strength not to explode as a result of the gas pressure within. This was back when glass technology was pretty basic, so the only way to strengthen the weak region at the bottom of the bottle was to fold the glass back in on itself, creating the punt which provided a shape strong enough to withstand the gas pressure developed as a result of the Champagne process. Modern glass doesn’t really need the punt at all, even for the most effervescent sparkling wine, but the punt has since become a popular element of wine fashion, even for still white and red wines.

Article contributed by Jeremy Oliver  and is sourced from:
http://www.jeremyoliver.com/education/enthusiast/dsp_ShowArticle.cfm?article_id=10616&guid=A58BC80C-9868-AF37-6A618F56735A105D  
(category: education // date: 19/01/2008)

The year printed on a wine's label is its vintage year, the year the grapes were harvested. In most cases, the year also refers to the year of fermentation, although some late-harvested and very sweet northern hemisphere dessert wines can be slow enough to linger into the next calendar year. As far as I know, there is only one wine from Australia that also records the year of bottling on the front label, namely Penfolds Grange.

Variation from season to season is one of the most important factors that determine the quality of a particular bottle of wine. Even the same grapes from the same vineyard invariably produce very different wines from year to year. Although vintage variation in Australia is merely a fraction of that encountered in most European wine regions of any quality, it is still a significant variable that demands consideration when making informed buying decisions.

Even in the event that all other variables are consistent from year to year, which they certainly are not, weather can influence wine in an infinite number of ways: from determining whether conditions at flowering are favourable or not, all the way through to whether final ripening and harvest occur in the warmth of sunshine or through the midst of damaging rains. If viticulturists were to turn pagan, it would be to a god of weather that they would build their first shrine.

Weather-influenced variation is nearly always more pronounced and more frequent in the cooler, more marginal viticultural regions. While Australia is principally a warm to hot wine producing nation, a significant proportion of the country’s premium wine now comes from cooler regions in the southwestern and southeastern corners of the continent. The spectrum of diverse weather encountered in these regions far exceeds that of the traditional Australian wine growing areas like the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, central Victoria and the Clare Valley. Paradoxically, the best years in cool climates are typically the warmer seasons that accelerate the ripening period, creating a finer acid balance, superior sugar levels, flavours and better-defined colours.

Remembering the best vintage years can be a complicated process. Australia, for instance, is an enormous country and it’s simply not possible to say with any degree of conviction that such and such a vintage year was a good season for the entire nation at large. Even South Australia, one of the larger States, usually experiences significantly different vintage conditions and quality between the wine regions closer to Adelaide, such as the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, and the regions in the State’s southeast such as Coonawarra and Padthaway.

But even vintage charts and classifications that attempt to generalise over individual regions are also profoundly misleading. They would be less misleading if the regions were entirely uniform in their topography and climate, but human factors like quality of vineyard management and the specific nature of the varieties planted still serve to devalue their meaning.

Occasionally you get vintages that produce standout combinations of region and variety. 2002, for example, was a year in which if a riesling maker in South Australia’s Clare Valley didn’t make a classic wine, he or she has probably chosen the wrong career. Similarly for pinot noir in the Mornington Peninsula in 2003, or cabernet sauvignon from Coonawarra in 1998.

Ultimately, each individual wine is affected by external factors to a profound enough extent to reduce vintage charts to making all but the most sweeping of generalisations, so it’s best to use them in that context. With due modesty, my book, The Australian Wine Annual, is designed to take the guesswork out of that very sort of question to a very specific level for Australian wine.

Article contributed by Jeremy Oliver  and is sourced from:
http://www.jeremyoliver.com/education/enthusiast/dsp_ShowArticle.cfm?article_id=6589&guid=A58BC80C-9868-AF37-6A618F56735A105D
(category: education / date: 25/05/2005)

Perversely, perhaps, one of the most significant opportunities facing Australian wine in China today lies in the development of a better local Chinese wine industry. Today China is actually one of the world’s largest wine producers, virtually all of which is sold domestically.

Chinese wine has traditionally been very inexpensive, significantly cheaper than even the lowest strata of imported bottles wine, although that is beginning to change on two counts. One is that there is a new emergent strata of ‘super-premium’ Chinese wine that is as expensive as many high-end imports. These wines, which in reality are little different from their cheaper counterparts, exist simply because enough people are prepared to buy them for whatever reason – not because of any inherent quality.

The second reason is that there are some Chinese wines, such as those from Grace Vineyard, easily the best producer in China today, and the Sino-French Demonstration Vineyard near Tianjin City are produced with a genuine commitment to quality and have delivered some very exciting results. Of these, only Grace Vineyard’s wine is commercially available, and it is justifiably priced well above the norm for Chinese wine.

The ongoing issue relates to the quality of daily Chinese wine and the lack of a genuine relationship between what appears on the labels of much Chinese wine and the contents of the bottles themselves. In China today, most wine is very inexpensive, and its quality is such that many Chinese people feel the need to add something to it, such as a Coke or a mixer, to make it more acceptable.

With the emerging thirst in China for quality wine, there exists an exciting opportunity for China’s own wineries to take a lead by tightening their approach towards wine production and labelling. The first step would be to make and market wines that genuinely reflect the place where they were grown and the vintage they were harvested in. This would help their customers learn about their wines and more accurately identify those they really wanted to buy. If managed carefully, this could lead to a steadily increasing respect for wine amongst the Chinese population, which would of course benefit all countries participating in the Chinese market. Without this development of trust between makers and consumers, it’s unlikely that the Chinese wine industry will ever reach its full potential.

Such an evolution would dramatically expand the Chinese wine market. Even if most Chinese wine remained an ‘entry level’ option for the short to medium term, it would benefit Chinese wine growers and makers. Given the potential size of its market, it would also be of huge benefit to imported wine, since one would expect the number of potential consumers being converted to genuine wine drinkers also to increase significantly.

Australian wine stands to gain most from such a development because it is promoted with easily understood and recognised brands, and because the important indicators like variety, region and vintage are prominent and easily identifiable features of Australian wine labels. Australia has an unrivalled opportunity to become the ‘go to’ country for the Chinese wine drinkers who want a clear, uncomplicated relationship between wine tastes and label terms.

Should the institutions within China demand more clarity from their winemakers, it would represent a win not only for wine drinkers in China, but also for Chinese wine producers. The other major beneficiary could well be Australia, whose wine producers are now beginning to establish a foothold in this intriguing and exciting market. Perhaps, therefore, it’s time for Australians to take a lead and lift the quality-related ambitions of Chinese wine producers.

Article contributed by Jeremy Oliver  and is sourced from:
http://www.jeremyoliver.com/news/insider/dsp_ShowArticle.cfm?article_id=11312&guid=A59290AE-FCD7-874E-5A8EA96982FBFC14
(category: news & articles date: 06/06/2009)

Jeremy Oliver is one of Australia’s foremost wine writers and presenters. He is deeply committed to Australian wine, but is not afraid to be critical of it when he believes the occasion demands. Widely read and fully independent, he was named the inaugural Wine Writer of the Year in 2005 by the widely circulated Australian Wine Selector Magazine.

A qualified winemaker, Jeremy became the world’s youngest published wine author in 1984 with the release of his first book, Thirst for Knowledge. Today he is the author of eighteen books and is solely responsible for the best-selling guidebook, The Australian Wine Annual, Australia’s biggest-selling wine guide and one of the most influential sources of opinion on Australian wine. Jeremy Oliver also operates his own wine information website, www.jeremyoliver.com. He is also the author of Evans on Earth, a biography of the late Len Evans.

Jeremy Oliver is Australia’s leading wine ambassador around the world, regularly working alongside the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation and Austrade. A polished presenter and a regular host of corporate and wine-related events, he has hosted wine events from New York to Beijing and Seoul and is a regular presence around several major Asian markets. He recently toured Australia, hosting wine and cricket dinners with the legendary commentator, Henry Blofeld.
Jeremy Oliver

Now in his twenty-fourth year as a professional wine critic, Jeremy Oliver has written for dozens of publications in many countries including the UK, the US, Russia, Japan, Korea and China, and has made hundreds of appearances on radio and television.