Banfi Vintners

Piecing the puzzle together

If you are piecing the puzzle together, wine is approximately 80-85% water, 8-14% alcohol, 1% acid, and 0.2-10% sugar. Tannin content varies by varietal and wine style. Oh, and there’s a little extract in there too!

What exactly is extract?

Extract is what would be left in the bottom of your wine glass if you were to boil off all of the liquid components. It would be the sugars and acids and tannins plus the rest of the flavor compounds. As sugars really amount to empty calories, many winemakers do not include them when measuring extract levels. And the rule of thumb is: the more extract a wine has, the higher its quality.

So, why do some wines have more extract than others?

Imagine that you are a grape grower with one acre of land. You harvest six ton of fruit from your vineyard. All the finite amounts of trace elements, minerals and nutrients are taken from the soil and divvied up between six ton of fruit.

Compare this with another grower with one acre of land that harvests but three ton of fruit from his vineyard. The same amount of trace elements, minerals, and nutrients are taken from the soil and divvied up between a crop half the size. More extract/flavor! Higher quality!

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Extract is quantifiable by lab analysis, but you can also get a feel for how much extract a wine contains by counting the number of adjectives that you can assign to the wine in your glass. The more the merrier.

Another way to gauge extract is to pay attention to how long the flavors last on your tongue after you swallow the first sip of wine. This is what is known as “the finish”. The longer the finish, the higher the extract level.

Ever had a glass of inexpensive “house wine”? You’ll usually taste a hint of sweetness on the tip of the tongue, the acidity on the sides, bitterness at the back and some heat in the throat from the alcohol. The tastes are like fireworks going off in the sky. The finish is short. If you had to describe the experience, you would label the wine “vinous” or “winey”. There is little extract in this wine.

The composite of soil, climate, grape growing practices and the vine often deliver a signature flavor profile in the finished wine that the wine world refers to as “terroir.”

Although it has not been empirically proven, many feel that different soils, with their peculiar mix of minerals and trace elements, are responsible for distinctly different flavors in the glass. The same grape variety grown on different soil types will “show” differently when vinted.

During fermentation, the cap of skins and pulp that floats on top of the juice can inhibit flavor and color extraction. In addition, this cap may cause the temperature of the must to rise to levels that would kill the yeast before it's had a chance to do its job. To combat this, the cap is submerged at least twice daily. When fermentation is carried out in large vats, the must is drawn off from the bottom of the tank and pumped back over the top.

The vine has such low nutritional requirements that it has always been relegated to the poorest of soils…not necessarily because it needs to struggle to produce great wine, but rather because it can struggle and still do so.