SC - Re: Poppa's mustard- mighty morphin cookers(daa da da, da da) LONG

[CBlackwill@aol.com]

To the statement >  "New wine" likely would be wine 
that had not yet fermented long, ergo closer to 
grape juice than to modern wine.  It would be sweet 
and very lightly alcoholic with a touch of yeast bite to it. <

Balthazar repied:
>>>I think the term "New Wine" implies just that;  wine 
which has only recently been completed (i.e. fully 
fermented), but has not yet had time to age and 
mellow.  Some wines are meant to be drunk "new", 
as their maturing qualities are not good.  As a modern 
reference (though I would not suggest that it is 
appropriate for the recipe), *white zinfandel* is a wine 
which is best imbibed *new*, because it will not keep 
and mature nearly so well as some of the finer reds and 
whites.<<<

I'm afraid I will have to disagree with both interpretations
(at least in part).  Firstly, I think period references to "new"
wines refers to a fully fermented wine, a completed wine.
I think it would definitely not be necessarily sweeter, "closer
to grape juice", nor lightly alchoholic.  I think this would refer
to casks (they didn't bottle then) which were broached very
soon after fermentation.  I'll agree with the "slight yeast
bite" as there was probably some residual (and active) 
yeast still present.  

I am in complete accord therefore with Balthazar's initial 
conclusion about the age of "new wine".  However, period
wines almost never had a chance to "age and mellow" as
an appreciation of vintage wine is almost exclusively a 
post-period phenomena made possible by glass bottles
and the use of cork stoppers.  Sparkling wines like 
Champagne were yet undreamed of. Fairly all wines in 
period would qualify as of a "not good maturing" type.  By
Michaelmas, most period wines were beginning to deteriorate
and by early summer, were likely unpalatable, being astringant
and even vinegary.  In response to another post very recently about
which grape are period varietals: yes, absolutely period grapes
are still in common production and are clones from grafted
copies of the originals.  However,  the tastes of modern wine made
from these grapes probably are very different from the original
wines as the methods of maturation are substantially different
as well as the modern practice of blending wines.  Of course,
if you vint yourself or have access to wines at the estate at
the time of bottling, you will be somehat closer to period taste.
Also you must admit the use of various settling agents and
sulfide levels will affect the taste as well.  I recall recently
the recall of Italian and French wines because some
idiot thought that antifreeze added a sweet taste to the
vintage and made it taste like a better quality vintage . And 
what about the effects of industrial pollution?  If one can tell 
the location of a wine from taste imparted by soil differences, 
does our atmospheric contamination affect the taste as well?  
Pollution is fairly universal now and I don't think the grapes 
escape its deterious effects.  It is probably impossible now to 
duplicate the exact flavours of period wines, I would think.  

My take is that wines in period were "new" and best soonest
after encasking and became just "wine" in late Fall and 
"old wine" in late Spring when the new grape crop was 
in obvious new growth and the flavour of the previous
wine harvest deteriorated somewhat badly.

Akim Yaroslavich
"No glory comes without pain"