you know, I guess I'm old skool. I don't tend to agitate wine, generally. Maybe if it's young and has a lot of alcohol vapors, I'll decant and let it mellow a bit.
Bruising is no more a myth than is aging. There's a fairly readable piece covering some of the biochemistry of aging red wine here, and a somewhat more technical source here.
When the juice comes out of the grape (assuming it was stemmed properly), the tannins that are present are mostly flavonoids (like the anthocyanins that give the wine its color). These have the astringent mouth-feel that's also present in tea, because they bind proteins. They're present in much higher concentrations in immature fruit, making it mouth-destroyingly bitter until the seeds are mature. Later, they serve as antioxidants that protect the fruit from rapid oxidation (like the browning of a cut apple, and are also key for the tenderizing and flavor-release effects that red wine has on stewing beef. Oaking wine introduces a simpler kind of tannin that's more reactive both with oxygen and protein, helping the wine age better, but also making it more astringent when young.
The tannins in the wine slowly chain together over time. Some of the bonds are the non-reversible covalent polymerizations that slowly fade the wine from the vivid opacity of a young red to the more tawny, translucent hue of a more mature vintage. But others are weak hydrogen bonds. These decrease the number of active sites that make the wine feel astringent, and slightly increase viscosity. They form pretty fast, compared to the polymerization, but are easily broken by, e.g., light, heat, fluid shear, or strong language.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-18 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-18 12:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-18 03:58 am (UTC)When the juice comes out of the grape (assuming it was stemmed properly), the tannins that are present are mostly flavonoids (like the anthocyanins that give the wine its color). These have the astringent mouth-feel that's also present in tea, because they bind proteins. They're present in much higher concentrations in immature fruit, making it mouth-destroyingly bitter until the seeds are mature. Later, they serve as antioxidants that protect the fruit from rapid oxidation (like the browning of a cut apple, and are also key for the tenderizing and flavor-release effects that red wine has on stewing beef. Oaking wine introduces a simpler kind of tannin that's more reactive both with oxygen and protein, helping the wine age better, but also making it more astringent when young.
The tannins in the wine slowly chain together over time. Some of the bonds are the non-reversible covalent polymerizations that slowly fade the wine from the vivid opacity of a young red to the more tawny, translucent hue of a more mature vintage. But others are weak hydrogen bonds. These decrease the number of active sites that make the wine feel astringent, and slightly increase viscosity. They form pretty fast, compared to the polymerization, but are easily broken by, e.g., light, heat, fluid shear, or strong language.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-18 04:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-18 04:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-18 04:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-18 04:42 am (UTC)Good stock (e.g., the duck stock I made on Monday), has analogous properties.