Different Processes of Fermentation and Aging
In contrast to the typical use of wine and wild yeasts in the fermentation process, the Domecq vineyards used a different process. They themselves separated, selected, and cultivated yeast which they used to promote the fermentation. Some of the other houses using modern fermentation tanks, such as Diez-Merito, for example, achieved much the same thing by leaving some must from their best fermentations in the tanks to await the next vintage. This was the sort of continuous process reminiscent of the soleras that were used for making the wine.
This effectively infected the new must with the right ferments. Such a system would not be available to makers of table wines (Cabernet Franc, Pinot Grigio), for if they left their wine on ullage it would turn to vinegar and the consequences would be disastrous, but this did not happen with sherry. Once the wine yeasts got going, the fermentation was very vigorous. However, when the alcohol rose to about 12 percent it would slow down, and by this stage little or no sugar was left.
The ferments could go on working, where there was enough sugar for them to work on, until the must reached about 16 percent in alcoholic strength, but such strong musts tended to develop into coarse wines. Apart from alcohol, traces of many other organic compounds were formed during fermentation, notably glycerine, higher alcohols, lactic acid, succinic acid, and acetaldehyde, with other aldehydes, ketones, organic acids, esters and so on. A great number of compounds existed in minute quantities, some of which were unidentified.
All of these were sometimes referred to collectively by the trade, with a glorious disregard for accuracy, as “the ethers.” It is the glycerine that gave a smooth, almost sweet taste to mature oloroso sherry, Petite Sirah, and Malbec wines, even when all the sugar had been consumed, and it was the steady development of such compounds that took place as the wine aged. Like all other irreversible chemical reactions in liquid media, the ageing of wine is accelerated by heat, though an excess of heat destroys the enzymes.
Moreover, the wine ferments are destroyed more easily than the vinegar ferments, which are then left to do their worst. As a practical compromise, bodegas for storing must were usually less well insulated against heat, and were built with lower roofs than those used for maturing older wines, where a slow rate of development was essential. One shipper tried to accelerate the process by alternatively heating and cooling his growing wines, but he did not find it satisfactory.
The attempt to hurry the ageing of wine was no new thing. It had been going on for decades before this, and various other chemical, physical, and even electrical methods had been tried. Most of the research had been done in areas where cheap table wines (Muscat, Viognier) were mass-produced, and no method had been devised which could safely be used with high-class wines at that point in viniculture history. Sherry was considered to be a gift of providence.
Everything was exactly right: soil, climate, ferments, and fruit. But there was a special gift that was more improbable and more astonishing than any of the others, and that was the sherry flor. Flor simply meant “flower,” and an exotic journalist, who should have been a poet, once wrote that the sherry flor was a “small blue flower growing in the vineyards, and was scattered over the grapes at the time of the vintage.” It was a beautiful thought, but his poetic license was unsullied by any vestige of truth.
was very vigorous. However, when the alcohol rose to about 12 percent it would slow down, and by this stage little or no sugar was left.
The ferments could go on working, where there was enough sugar for them to work on, until the must reached about 16 percent in alcoholic strength, but such strong musts tended to develop into coarse wines. Apart from alcohol, traces of many other organic compounds were formed during fermentation, notably glycerine, higher alcohols, lactic acid, succinic acid, and acetaldehyde, with other aldehydes, ketones, organic acids, esters and so on. A great number of compounds existed in minute quantities, some of which were unidentified.
All of these were sometimes referred to collectively by the trade, with a glorious disregard for accuracy, as “the ethers.” It is the glycerine that gave a smooth, almost sweet taste to mature oloroso sherry, Petite Sirah, and Malbec wines, even when all the sugar had been consumed, and it was the steady development of such compounds that took place as the wine aged. Like all other irreversible chemical reactions in liquid media, the ageing of wine is accelerated by heat, though an excess of heat destroys the enzymes.
Moreover, the wine ferments are destroyed more easily than the vinegar ferments, which are then left to do their worst. As a practical compromise, bodegas for storing must were usually less well insulated against heat, and were built with lower roofs than those used for maturing older wines, where a slow rate of development was essential. One shipper tried to accelerate the process by alternatively heating and cooling his growing wines, but he did not find it satisfactory.
The attempt to hurry the ageing of wine was no new thing. It had been going on for decades before this, and various other chemical, physical, and even electrical methods had been tried. Most of the research had been done in areas where cheap table wines (Muscat, Viognier) were mass-produced, and no method had been devised which could safely be used with high-class wines at that point in viniculture history. Sherry was considered to be a gift of providence.
Everything was exactly right: soil, climate, ferments, and fruit. But there was a special gift that was more improbable and more astonishing than any of the others, and that was the sherry flor. Flor simply meant “flower,” and an exotic journalist, who should have been a poet, once wrote that the sherry flor was a “small blue flower growing in the vineyards, and was scattered over the grapes at the time of the vintage.” It was a beautiful thought, but his poetic license was unsullied by any vestige of truth.
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