December, 2019. The table was set. I had 25 Willamette Valley chardonnays chilled and ready. Each chardonnay hailed from one of the seven sub-appellations (also known as nested AVAs or sub-AVAs) within the valley*, and nearly all sub-AVAs had three or four wines to represent it. Three notable somms from the Twin Cities had arrived […]
The Death of Yeast Adds to Chardonnay and Sparkling Wines
Alcohol has been celebrated with awe for millennia. This mysterious transfiguration of sugar has inspired lore and legend, even religion, until the 19th century when Louis Pasteur proved that yeast is the mechanism at play. We now understand, in winemaking, a variety of yeast strains carry out the primary conversion of grape sugar into alcohol. Only a few wines, however, utilize the yeast post-fermentation to […]