Bacchus’S 100 Favorite Wines

By Robert J. Tata Ph.D.

This book describes wines and wineries in California, Europe, and South America that Professor Tata has enjoyed over the years. Many topics about wine appreciation are also discussed, such as matching wine and food, how wines are made, wine etiquette, fad wines, and the worlds greatest wines. This is a good guide for wine novices and the general public.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524652753

Robert J. Tata Ph.D.

Robert J. Tata, PhD, is professor emeritus in the Department of Geography and Geology at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida. While at the university, he taught a popular course called The World of Wines for twenty years. This book represents a lifetime of study and learning about wines. Dr. Tata has authored eleven other books about international affairs, Latin America, economic geography, and wine appreciation.

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© 2016 Robert J. Tata, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse   11/29/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5276-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5275-3 (e)

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1     Winey Guidelines

Chapter 2     In the Beginning

Chapter 3     Other Lovely Wines

Chapter 4     Good Titillating Wines

Chapter 5     Top of the Line, Orgasmic Wines

The Wines Glossary

Introduction

W(h)ine a little, you’ll feel better

Bacchus has been drinking wine since about 1500 B C - or at least it seems that long. Bacchus is the name of the Roman Wine God, borrowed from Dionysus, the Greek Wine God. Many of my ancestors are from Italy and surely they drank wine. With great presumption, I asked my friends to call me Bacchus when I started my lifelong journey to plumb the depths of the wine vat. I even went to a costume party dressed in a toga (bathing suit modestly underneath), wove a grape branch around my balding pate, and attached a large bunch of grapes at my waist. At the end of the party, an older lady came up to me and said: If you are going to dress like a lady, you ought to learn how to sit like one. Apparently she had fixated on my nether reaches beneath the toga all evening long. Thus the legend of almost bare-bottomed Bacchus was born.

In the pages to follow, Bacchus will share a lifetime of winey adventures with you by telling you about his 100 favorite wines. Various wine tidbits should enliven the discussion. My objective: to give you some direction in your pursuit of pleasures to be had from the crushed version of the fruit of the vine.

Bottoms up to winey pleasures! Let’s be on our way. The following Bromides may be useful as we journey toward Valhalla (oops, wrong celestial direction!)

Chapter 1

Winey Guidelines

Whether you enjoy gourmet cooking, bocce, hockey, tossing the caber, birding, playing the organ, chemistry, or assaulting a pillbox, the more you know about these activities the more joy you get out of them. So, it is with WINE APPRECIATION. To start our winey journey, here is some information you might find useful.

1. GRAPE JUICE before it becomes wine, CALLED MUST, is a complex liquid with many components. These include sugar, fruit acids, minerals, polyphenols, proteins, and flavor compounds. When fermentation occurs, even more chemicals are formed. The chemical formula for wine is so complex that even in its simplest form its expression would cover an entire page of a book. An old friend once called such complex formulae FLUTE MUSIC. One chemist told me that all the components of wine have never been fully defined. A wine maker’s daunting task is to blend all this flute music into a flavorful and aromatic beverage that will serenade customers sweetly. Some flute music you will like, but sometimes a sour note will emerge. Let’s seek the beautiful harmonies together!

2. WINE CONFESSION, sometimes a person will tell Bacchus that they do not feel well after drinking a certain wine. The first question to them is: How much of it did you drink? If only a moderate amount went down, Bacchus says you must listen to what your body tells you, there might be something in a particular wine that does not agree with you. You have thousands of wines to choose from.

3. SULPHITES. There are about 350 PPM of sulphites in wine, far less than there is in other foods. Sulphites are anti-oxidants and anti-biotics; they help to keep wine fresh and clean. Only persons with severe asthma need have health worries about drinking wine.

4. WINE TYPES. There are red, white, and rosé still wines (STILL means there are no bubbles); sparkling red, white, and rosé wines (wine has carbon dioxide bubbles in it); and fortified wine (wine has brandy added to raise alcohol levels). OTHER DIVISIONS: Dry wine has little or no residual sugar. dessert wine has significant residual sugar. Dry wines stimulate the appetite; sweet wines satisfy the appetite.

5. WINE COLOR comes from the grape skins; red grapes can make red, white, or rosé wines; white grapes can make only white wine.

6. MOST WINES are blends of grapes, or vintages. Winemaker skills are essential to create fine wine.

7. WINE