Grape juice contains primarily three types of acids: tartaric, which is the typical grape acid; malic acid, which occurs primarily in apples; and citric acid.

As the grapes ripen acid levels, mainly tartaric, will be reduced and sugar will be increased.  Harvesting usually takes place when the levels of sugar and acidity are at ideal numbers.  However, this rarely happens, and quite often a particular grape may have somewhat higher acid levels than is desired.  Typically, this higher acid will be tartaric, and can be quite successfully reduced by a process known as cold stabilization.  This simply means that wine, while it is still in the tank, is exposed to temperatures near freezing for a period of time.  This will cause the crystallization of the tartaric acid in the form of cream of tartar on the walls and bottom of the tanks.  The wine can then be pumped off and processed further.

Bottled wine will sometimes produce more acid crystals, especially if it has been aged for a long time under cool conditions.  You may find these "wine diamonds" forming on the cork and even laying at the bottom of the bottle.  Careful pouring or decanting is the best way to avoid these crystals ending up in the glass, since they are perfectly harmless and do not impair the quality of the wine in any way.

An additional reduction of acidity is possible by converting malic acid into lactic acid.  Lactic acid is basically milk acid, the kinds that sours milk.  Since lactic acid tastes considerably milder than malic acid, such a conversion softens the acidity of the wine.  the process requires the presence of a specific type of bacteria which will actually do the conversion.  This type of malo-lactic fermentation is very often used in red wines but is usually not desirable in fruity, crisp white wines such as Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Ortega, etc.  A good example of white wine malo-lactic fermentation is sometimes encountered in Chardonnay.

Rosé wines are traditionally made by taking a red skinned grape, such as Pinot Noir, and letting it ferment on the skins for a very short time, usually several hours to one or two days at the most. This will extract a relatively small amount of red pigmentation from the skins, thus resulting in a light coloured wine—a rosé! (Rosé is the French word for pink.) Pinot Noir grapes are even used to make white wines, notably Champagnes, and are then known as Blanc de Noir.

Another method of making a rosé coloured wine is by skilfully blending selected red and white wines to arrive at a pleasing and well-balanced flavour and colour. The types of wines that can be used in this process are virtually limitless and the results can be very interesting.

Some of the best known rosés are Anjou from France, and Faisca or Mateus Rosé from Portugal. The latter two are slightly sparkling and this effervescence can be achieved by a secondary bottle fermentation or even a malo-lactic fermentation. Malo-lactic fermentations happen when a type of bacteria similar to the one responsible for souring milk converts malic acid into a somewhat weaker lactic acid (milk acid). The fermentation also results in the production of a small amount of carbon dioxide gas which, if captured during the fermentation, can result in a slightly sparkling or crackling wine.

The residual sweetness of rosés may vary from very dry to significantly sweet (say, sweetness code 03). Therefore, you have quite a selection of rosé/blush type wines, all the way from dry to sweet, and from still to sparkling.

In recent years, the appearance of White Zinfandel co-incided with the appearance of the term “Blush”. White Zinfandel, termed a “blush wine,” is a wine made from the red Zinfandel grape by giving it minimal skin contact to produce a rosé wine.

Larch Hills Tamarack Rosé is a wine blended from white Madeleine Angevine and small amounts of Pinot Noir and Merlot. It is a still wine, and has a sweetness code of about 02.

Grape Vines, Site Selection & "Terroir"

Why A Particular Vine?— A question often asked at Larch Hills Winery is why the grapes grown here are so different from the more familiar varieties encountered elsewhere. In order to grow a successful vineyard, the proposed location has to be examined for its suitability, such as:

•  number of frost free days in a growing season

•  heat units during the growing season

•  severity of winter conditions

•  orientation and slope of site

•  available moisture (precipitation or irrigation)

•  type of soil

Some of the items on this list you have control over, and some you don't. Only the last two items can, to some degree, be modified to make them more suitable.

Based on this information, you will be able to select suitable grape varieties that will flourish under the existing conditions. It would be a bad mistake to ignore those facts and plant varieties that would not, for example, ripen in time for harvest, or survive extreme winter conditions. A further consideration, of course, is whether or not the variety can produce a good wine that can be easily marketed. Vineyards that are located in less severe climate conditions would have a much larger choice of varieties. At Larch Hills, due to our northern location, we have been rather limited in our choice but have, nevertheless, found varieties than excel under those conditions, notably Ortega, Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine, Agria—so much so that these same varieties grown under much warmer conditions do not produce wines of the quality that we have been able to produce. With further research, more suitable varieties may yet be found.

What is “Terroir?”— This term has recently been brought back into use but is poorly defined and quite often misunderstood. In its simplest form, it refers to a specific vineyard site, its microclimate, soil conditions, whether there is naturally available moisture or you must irrigate, and selection of grape variety grown. This in turn produces a wine that has typical characteristics for the “terroir.” We believe that wines produced at Larch Hills, especially Ortega and Siegerrebe, have qualities that can be directly attributed to our specific terroir.

For much more detailed information on the term “terroir,” you can look up the web site www.wineanorak.com/terroir.