You're supposed to call it, like, barn - or what was it called?
Oh, yeah.
Barnyard?
Yeah, barnyard.
Barnyard. If you smell -
[laughter]
Oh, wine.
Anyway.
Welcome back, friends - it's Anders.
Today on the Anders Erickson Show we are going to be exploring wine!
I actually got my start in wine when I was bartending - long before I discovered craft cocktails.
So I do find it very interesting. I have a soft spot for wine.
I would not say I'm an expert.
This episode is an intro to wine, so that we can all have some wine
because wine is not just for the elite. It's for the people!
I am going to talk briefly on the history of wine, some wine facts, a little bit of wine knowledge.
We'll touch on the difference between white and red - there's more to it than just the color.
I'm going to introduce some of these bottles, bring Az on and we are going to crack them open, sip on them, talk about them,
and then I guess we'll do a sign off. [laugher] That's what's going to happen.
I should say that this video is sponsored by Bright Cellars.
If you've been watching my videos in the past, you may know that they've sponsored a couple videos before,
and they've been awesome to work with.
They are a monthly wine subscription. An online wine subscription.
And what makes them so special is that you jump on, and you fill out a 30 second questionnaire -
and it's all based on taste and things you like.
Now based on those answers - which, there are no wrong answers - they start sending you bottles of wine.
Your job is to drink it, and then rate them, and then the algorithm further fine-tunes what it is you like.
And before long, you are drink the perfect bottle of wine for you!
And if you don't know anything about wine, that's okay, because they send you
corresponding cards with each bottle that tell you where it's from, flavor profiles, what food to pair it with.
And, uh yeah, you can collect them, and then maybe we can talk about trading our Bright Cellars cards.
This one's in mint condition - right here. One day these may be worth something.
Knowledge! It's worth knowledge.
Oh, and if you use my link down below, you will get 50% off your first six bottle box of wine.
So thank you Bright Cellars for making this video possible, and supplying the wines.
If you're new to the channel, hit that subscribe button for more sips, tips, and recipes,
and let's go explore the wide world of wine!
To the bar.
[whip sound]
Now let's go have fun.
[intro music]
So what is wine?
Wine is an alcoholic beverage that is made from fermented grape juice.
Now, you can make wine from other fruits as well, but really the standard is grapes.
Now, wine grapes are different than your standard table grapes.
They're going to be a little bit smaller, they've got thicker skins, a lot of seeds, they tend to be pretty sweet.
What happens when they ripen is the sugars in the grape become more concentrated,
and it's those sugars that are going to turn into alcohol through the fermentation process.
The yeast is going to eat up all those sugars and poop out alcohol.
Because it takes an entire season for these grapes to be ready, there's really only one time a year that you're making wine from those grapes.
This is why vintage is important.
This one says 2020 - Pinot noir from 2020.
That means, in the year 2020, they made this wine. It's going to be different than this same pinot noir made in 2019 or 2017.
Every year, based on whatever happened in the climate - in the atmosphere, in the land -
that's gonna affect the end result in the bottle.
Now, you can blend vintages. In which case you would not put a year on there.
A lot of bubbly wines - champagnes - they'll mix vintages.
In which case they write "NV" which means non-vintage, and that is just because they are trying to create a more consistent product.
And people that are really enthusiastic about wine - they will know what vintages, in what regions, were good vintages.
Oh, yes - 1989 Châteauneuf-du-Pape is wonderful.
That sounds pretty good, right?
It's all these little things that are intimidating, but it doesn't have to be.
Don't go crazy about making sure you have the best vintage - unless you want to. That can be fun.
It might be a fun hobby, but I don't think you need to.
What is a varietal?
A varietal is the gape.
So when you look at your bottle, and it says pinot noir, that's the grape that they're using to make that bottle of wine.
However, it doesn't have to be 100% that grape.
Now, every country is different. In the United States, I think it has to be 75% of that grape - except in Oregon State it has to be 90%.
Now, if they don't meet that minimum, then it becomes a blend.
This one here - this is a blend of two varietals. 60% sémillon, and 40% sauvignon blanc.
So those are two different grape varietals that they blended together.
Does that make sense? You all still with me?
They all stem back to one varietal. I didn't even write that in my notes, I don't think,
because I thought that's going a little too deep, but I did discover that when i was researching this video.
I didn't - I didn't even write it down.
The process of making wine.
Now each step, everybody can kind of make their own tweaks to it. So that's why you get so many different wines.
In general, it's a pretty basic system.
You have your grapes - this is what the wine is all about. It comes from these little dots,
and they grow, and they become ripe, and then they harvest them. You pick out all the bad ones because,
you know, not all the grapes are going to be quite ready or some of them are going to be kind of nasty looking.
You get rid of those - you take the good grapes, and then you crush them.
This is where red wines and white wines take two separate paths.
When making a red wine, they keep the skins with the juice. That's where the color comes from.
The color doesn't come from the juice. It comes from the skins. So in the white wines, they remove the skins.
Now, there's more to the skins than just color. You also get tannins. Tannins are the things that make wine tannic.
And that's gonna cause the drying effect that sometimes you get with a bottle of red wine.
Some of them can be really suck-your-face-dry, and that's because of the skins that are left on the grapes
when they crush and press and they create what's called the must - and that is what's going to ferment.
For the most part, they're going to be between 10 and 15% alcohol.
It can only make so much alcohol. You're not gonna get a 90 proof bottle of wine.
It just doesn't work that way.
There is something called fortified wines, and they add more alcohol, but that's not what we're talking about today.
At this point they clarify the wine to remove any bits of dead yeast cells
or anything you just don't want in your bottle of wine,
and then they can either bottle it straight away or they age it. That's going to alter the flavor.
It's going to evolve over time. Sometimes they age it on oak - which means in an oak barrel, and that's going to draw flavors from the oak.
I've got in my notes:
How old is wine -
question mark
I'm asking myself the question.
It's really old!
Thousands of years old!
Early civilizations had wine because the fermentation process happens naturally.
So they probably just mashed up some grapes,
set it off to the side, let nature do its thing, and then drank it.
And either got really sick or had a good time.
Where is wine made today?
It's made all over the place!
And there are two, kind of, very general categories as far as locale.
You have your Old World wines, which is going to consist of Spain, France, Italy -
Wines that have been doing it for, god - ever.
Then you have your New World wines,
which include North America, South America, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand.
You name it. Pretty much anywhere else - that's a New World wine.
Now, every place is going to make different wine for a number of reasons.
The dirt is different, the weather is different, and this is another reason why wine can be intimidating.
You may have a pinot noir from Burgundy, France, and you may have one from Oregon State in the United States.
And they're very different. And you may love one, you may hate the other.
And then you're like, "I don't know if I like pinot noir. I liked it one time!"
And we don't know what this wine - we don't know what this is going to taste like next year.
Nobody does! So don't worry - you don't know what's gonna happen in the future.
I do think it's pretty impressive, though - those sommeliers. They're - they're actually really impressive.
So, today we've got some fun bottles that we will be tasting. I hope, anyway. I've never tried any of these.
I grabbed a couple varietals in both white and red so that we can experience the different characteristics.
This is not even the tip of the iceberg, but it's enough for us to sit and talk about wine and have some fun.
- Wine! - Wine!
And Az!
Yes, hello! I am the designated normal person as always.
In fact, I've been tasting so many things that maybe I've tasted more things than the normal person. Who knows?
That's true.
By this time.
Well, you have experience serving.
I do, yes. I was a waitress for a long time until, like, extremely recently.
So I do ha - I did actually go through a tiny bit of wine training,
but that was many years ago, and I found it to be really intimidating.
You're going to blast through that glass ceiling.
The "wine intimidation" ceiling.
Yeah. We're gonna start with the Post Haste.
This blend is from France. It's sémillon and sauvignon blanc.
And these two are blended quite frequently. They complement each other.
- Give it a swirl. - Give it a swirl.
That's going to release some of those aromatic compounds.
A lot of people say look at the wine. You can figure out a lot of things by looking at the wine.
I like to go right in for a sniff.
Let's sniff it.
- Mm - Mmmm
So -
what do you smell?
This was really hard for me, but I'm just gonna go - I'm just gonna try. I'm gonna try.
Mm-hmm
There's some brightness - sort of citrusy-ness to it.
Fresh - No? Is it not fresh?
No, it's fresh.
I don't know.
I get kind of grapefruit. I also think they're kinda grassy.
It smells refreshing like I want to drink it immediately - right now.
- Cheers! - Cheers!
Acidic.
Yeah - really bright, very refreshing. I do get citrus. It actually is almost thirst-quenchingly refreshing.
Grass, pink grapefruit, green apple - that's what I get on this.
I get, like, melon.
Ooh! That's common.
Next!
So now we've got a riesling.
All right.
From Washington State.
From 2019.
Riesling is fun because there are really dry rieslings, and there are also very sweet rieslings.
This is a semi-sweet.
It looks about the same color. Let's smell it.
Different.
Oh it is different! Ooh this is fun!
It's not as bright.
- Floral - this one's more like flowers. - More, sort of, sweet and embracing.
Oh!
- Much sweeter. - Much sweeter.
- Really good though. - More texture.
It's silky smooth - really soft.
Really full.
- That's good. - That's yummy! - I like it.
Sometimes you're just in the mood for that, you know?
- Yeah, this one - - I can totally drink this.
- It's like almost like peaches. - Yeah!
- Moving on! - Moving on!
Oh, can I introduce the next bottle?
Please.
Well, this one's a chardonnay from 2019 called Wellfleet, and this one is from California.
I like chardonnay, but thought I didn't for the longest time,
and then I had one that was a French chardonnay, and it was outstanding.
I loved it - I couldn't believe it was actually the same grape.
And that's the difference about where you grow it, and how you age it.
So I've now welcomed back in chardonnay.
This is an unhooked chardonnay, New World - California.
- Release the aromas. - Release the Kraken.
- Ooh - Yeah. Hm! - Hmm
- Kind of minerally. - Yes! - Yeah
- Yes, minerally. - Yeah, it's not as fresh-smelling or sweet-smelling.
It's not a bouquet of flowers or citrus branches.
This is like you picked up a rock from the side of the ocean, and made a collection out of it.
Good texture - it's creamy. I'm not as excited about this one.
- Honestly - I don't hate it.
No, I don't hate it. Maybe there's a bit of funkiness to it.
- Yeah, there's a bit of funky. - Yeah. - Good call.
There is still, kind of like, a butteriness to it.
"Emits a lustrous opulence." I would like to be opulent.
Now, like, waaay at the end I get almost like a sweet apple.
- Onto the reds! - Next category - Red Wine.
This is called Vanishing Act. I thought it was called Vanishing Cat, but it's Act.
- Pinot noir from 2020. - From the Willamette Valley in Oregon State.
Pinot noir tends to be a lighter varietal. Certainly has a following - probably because of the movie Sideways.
- Don't know if you ever saw that. - Ohh! It was a big deal.
Yeah I actually, I enjoyed the movie, but I do think that it did kind of help to support the wine snobbery.
[laughter]
- Don't perpetuate wine snobbery. - Yeah. - Wine for the people.
Talking about color here - it is noticeably lighter looking than the other two reds that we have.
Right. It does have kind of, almost like, a blue tinge to it.
- Oooh - Like a bluish purple.
- Look at you go, art major. - That's right.
- I get a couple things. - Yup.
- I have almost like strawberry? - Oh, really? - Yeah.
I also get something kind of funky like mushrooms.
Yeah, I'm getting a lot of funk. Like, I'm getting some, like, FUNK.
- Very woodsy. - Dirt maybe!
- Yeah, maybe it's just dirt we're smelling. - It's dirt.
- A fresh forest floor. - Yeah.
That sounds like something a wine person would say.
No, you can't call it poop. If you smell poop, I know that you're supposed to call it -
Poo
No!
- You're supposed to call it, like, barn, or what was it called? - Oh, yeah,
- Barnyard? - Yeah, barnyard.
Barnyard. If you smell - [laughter]
- Oh, wine. - Anyway.
- All right, here we go. - How about a sip? - How about it?
- Much lighter! - Bright barnyard. [laughter]
Barnyard? Okay. I'm getting cheese, dude. It really is funky.
- It is. - Like a cheese funk. Yeah.
- I kinda like it. - No, it's not bad. - And it's -
Obviously coming off of the whites - much more tannic, so it has this drying factor.
- Next! - Next!
- A sangiovese. - Sangiovese.
This is an Italian red. I'm excited about this one.
I learned to love Italian wines when I was there. Let's see if it's any good.
Let's try it.
I will say compared to the pinot noir, the color is not quite as exciting.
- It's a redder red. It's like a bloody red. - It is kinda bloody red
- It is! It is really a warmer red. - It's like rusty.
Hmm. I'm smelling something. What do you smell? Help me out.
A bit of perfume.
Hmm - okay.
- Like flowers - like roses. - Yeah, roses. That's good.
- I smell roses. - I smell roses.
- I smell roses! - I also smell roses. - Yay! I smell a thing!
- Tannic. - Yeah - really.
I do get cherry, dirt - there's something dirty about it.
I don't really know. This one's kind of hard for me because I feel like it's just sucking all the moisture out of my mouth.
Let's go with pine. It is rustic.
A fireplace after you've already lit a fire.
- Ashes? - Ashes [laughter]
- I don't know. It's yummy. - It's yummy.
I'm confused by it, so that's probably a good sign.
- Yeah. - Carry on.
- On to the last. - On to the last!
The Nihilist. [laughter]
Ending on a great note.
This is a cabernet sauvignon from California.
Cabernet is probably the most popular wine varietal.
- Typically a bigger red. - Mm-hmm
It's going to be a little bit heavier, it's going to have good texture, a lot of times it's aged on wood.
I feel like this is going to be, like, the big bomb of a flavor.
- Finale? - So that's why I wanted to end with this one.
Looks similar to the last one.
Maybe a little bit darker.
Whoa!
Wow.
WHOA!
Before I get any fruit or anything, I smell the wood.
I smell vanilla, leather - I feel like I actually have to search for the fruit a little bit.
Okay, well let's just taste it.
- Whoa! It's rich. - It's a lot.
- It's sweeter. - Yeah, it's sweeter than I thought it would be. - Yeah.
Rich, dark fruits. Prunes. Prunes!
- Prunes! - It tastes like prunes!
It tastes like prunes! It does taste like prunes. Dried fruit.
- I actually think it's not bad. - Yeah.
It's probably not my first choice as far as reds - just because it's so heavy.
- It's good. - Some people might like that though.
- Some people might really like - in fact I know a lot of people really like those - - Some people like really big reds.
big red, heavy-hitting. - Yeah.
This smells like cat pee now.
Yeah - that's something about sauvignon blanc. It isn't cat pee.
- That riesling smells really good. - It's like caramelly, sugary, delicious.
If you learned anything here today, that is awesome. [laughter]
I learned a lot about myself, and what I like and what I don't like.
- That's what's most important. - That's what IS most important!
I would say explore, look for new bottles, find something you like, and then dig in deeper.
Yeah, and grab some friends, have a little wine tasting.
Thank you to Bright Cellars for providing these wines.
Use my link down below to get 50% off your first six bottle box of wine.
If you like this video, like, subscribe, share this with a friend, drink some wine, have fun.
We'll see you next time.
- Buh-bye. - Cheers.
[music fades]