{"id":974,"date":"2018-06-29T20:28:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T20:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=974"},"modified":"2018-06-29T20:43:21","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T20:43:21","slug":"walking-through-vineyards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=974","title":{"rendered":"Walking through Vineyards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wine is an art form.\u00a0 It\u2019s also an industrial process.\u00a0 And it all starts with farming.\u00a0 The art is something we understand.\u00a0 The second we\u2019ve been taught through books and winery tours, and sort of get.\u00a0 But no matter how much we have read and heard about trellising, soil composition, canopy management and sun angles, we still don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 All we know is that vineyards are pretty.<\/p>\n

We like looking at them<\/a> from a distance.\u00a0 We like getting close up, especially when the vines are heavy with grapes near harvest time.\u00a0 Our photo files are replete with pictures of dangling fruit. and if you are lucky enough to be in Wine Country just before the harvest, you\u2019ll want these pictures, too.\u00a0 And we just like walking through vineyards.<\/p>\n

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For one thing, you get a sense of the incredible variety in the way grape growers carry out their craft.\u00a0 For example, in Beaujolais, they crop their vines close to the ground, whereas in California they are usually chest high.\u00a0 In Burgundy, they grow their vines quite high, so that two visitors can lose one another if they\u2019re not careful.\u00a0 It\u2019s something like the mazes that some corn farmers erect after their harvest.\u00a0 And in Valpolicella, they grow their grapes so high that the vines are over a visitor\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

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The vineyard of Quintarelli.Giuseppe in Valpolicella<\/em><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the sense of history you feel in certain vineyards.\u00a0 There\u2019s a little thrill you get knowing that wines have been made from the same produce you see before you, for years and years. \u00a0That might be only 45 years in Long Island (Castello di Borghese) or 450 years (Chateau Margaux).\u00a0 And if you walk up the hill in Burgundy called the Corton-Charlemagne (where they grow grapes for a Grand Cru white wine) you are standing on ground owned by the Emperor Charlemagne, who lived in the 800\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Finally (and please don\u2019t tell), if you\u2019re in the vineyards at harvest time, you can sample a few grapes.\u00a0 You know those grapes you buy in the grocery store?\u00a0 They\u2019re tasteless, sour things compared with wine grapes.\u00a0 The more alcoholic wines are made from sweeter grapes, which have more sugar of course.\u00a0 The grapes of Beaujolais (around 13%) aren\u2019t shabby, but Zinfandels are small and often 14.5% or more and those grapes are super-yummy.<\/p>\n

For some reason, the farmers are not wild about hordes of outsiders tromping through their fields.\u00a0 Maybe they just don\u2019t like tourists getting in the way of workers, raising a lot of dust and messing with the grapes.\u00a0 So strolling through the vineyards is not always an activity appreciated by the proprietors.\u00a0 However, in a previous vacation in Burgundy, we picnicked in a different vineyard every day and no one ever came to tell us to leave.\u00a0 It was heaven!\u00a0 In the next issue of Power Tasting, we\u2019ll give you tips on how you can take a walk in a vineyard.<\/p>\n

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Wine is an art form.\u00a0 It\u2019s also an industrial process.\u00a0 And it all starts with farming.\u00a0 The art is something we understand.\u00a0 The second we\u2019ve been taught through books and winery tours, and sort of get.\u00a0 But no matter how much we have read and heard about trellising, soil composition, canopy management and sun angles, … Continue reading Walking through Vineyards<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}