How to Identify New World Style Wines

The 1970's ushered in a new age of wine making, not only in America, but across the globe. What started in Napa Valley, California with Robert Mondavi, became a wine making phenomenon that would soon be referred to as "New World" style. Identifying what is and isn't a New World style wine can be confusing, unless you know where to start.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Red Wine Glass
• White Wine Glass
• Bottle of Shiraz
• Bottle of California Pinot Noir
• Bottle of Mass Market Cabernet Sauvignon

How to Identity New World Wine Styles

1. Learn where New World Wines came from. Until the 1970's France had the market cornered on wine sales throughout the world and the style of wine that they had been making for over 100 years was the industry standard. This all changed when Robert Mondavi began making wine. His focus was, not to imitate the wines being imported from France, but to make a wine that reflected his home, California. His whole approach to making a Cabernet Sauvignon was completely different to that of the wine makers in Bordeaux, where the most famous Cabernet Sauvignons had been made for the last century. It was met with confusion and distain, by some at first, but once the stigma was removed, Napa Valley style wine began to be imitated all over California, then all over the world. It became not just a taste difference, but a philosophical difference as well.

2. Taste the fertile land. The first, and most important difference in New World wines was the soil that the grapes were being grown in. Grape vines are like any other plant, in that the more fertile the land is, the more fertile the plant will grow to be. So it is with the fruit of the grape vine. Through trial and error, New World vintners found that, because the grapes grew fast and quick, they needed to prune the vines in order to maintain an intensity to the fruit, but this didn't change the way the soil affected the taste. New World wines are grown in soil that is often times a mix of volcanic ash and "newer" soils that are richer in minerals. This, in turn, gives the grapes a greater "fruity" taste and less "earthiness." This is the cornerstone of the New World wine flavor profile.

3. Open the bottle of Shiraz and pour a glass. Taste it. The full fruit flavor that explodes straight from the bottle is a testament to the soil that it is grown in.

4. Taste the oak. The use of oak, and the specific type of oak, cannot be understated in New World wine. Vintners had been using oak barrels to store their wine in for centuries. When Californian vintners started using American oak barrels in the 1970's, however, the use of the barrels went from being out of necessity to a style choice. American oak was being used, originally, because the French oak barrels were expensive to import. After a while, however, the taste that the American oak imparted on the wines became apparently different from the taste imparted by the French oak barrels in use overseas. The American oak imparted a stronger flavor of wood and a larger amount of vanillin, the chemical in oak that gives oak barrel aged wines the vanilla aroma and flavor.

5. Open the Pinot Noir and pour it into the glass. Swirl it and smell it. You should be bombarded with wood and vanilla scents. Now take a sip. Alongside the fruit flavors, should also be strong toasty notes of wood, as well. This is the American oak barrel's signature flavor profile.

6. Taste the technology. One of the introductions that New World wines have made to the world of the grape is it's use of high tech methods to make wine. Some see this as a step forward, some as a step back, but the impact cannot be argued either way. Micro-oxygenation is a method introduced by New World wine vintners that bombards a vat of fermenting wine with literally millions of tiny bubbles of oxygen. The introduction of this controlled amount of oxygen to the wine softens the tannin of an otherwise potentially harsh wine. Centrifugation is a concept, wherein the vat of wine is spun at super high speeds so the heavier particles in the wine gravitate toward the sides, while the juice in the middle is removed, producing a lighter, and less earthy wine. All of these innovations, while controversial in some circles, are done in order to produce a more consistant product. Consistency is a very important idea in the minds of New World wine producers.

7. Open your bottle of mass marketed Cabernet Sauvignon. Pour it and taste it. Cabernet Sauvignon is, usually, very tannic and harsh right out of the bottle. This wine will most llikely not be. The reason? Technology.

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