Armagnac
Armagnac is the France’s first brandy. Today, its volume is about
18000 hL, but when the period of Phylloxera, volume has dropped to 5000 in 1937
and the reputation Is ruined at that time and now have already recovered.
Unlike Cognac, which have 4 main distilleries, Armagnac has many
small merchant house and estate producers but without any dominant distilleries.
The label terms are similar to Congac, which consists of VS, VSOP, Napolean, XO
and vintage, of which XO and vintage consists of 40% of sales. The ageing requirement
in oak barrels are 1, 4, 6, 10 years respectively.
For the grape variety, total 10 are permitted and 4 are playing the
important roles: Ugni Blanc (Terbbiano in Italian): 55% plantings, with good
disease resistant, low sugar and high in acid therefore low in alcohol. It
gives grapy and floral character.
Baco: 32% plantings, with rich, earthy, prune-like character
Folle Blanche: mainly floral
Colombard: spicy, peppery edge
For the crus of Armagnac, the majority planting is Bas Armaganc, and
then comes to Tenereze and Haut Armaganc. However, it is hard to pinpoint the
role of the style of given cru, as very varied landscape across the region. For
the winemaking process, addition of SO2 and must enrichment is prohibited, and
fermentation Is made separately for different grapes, and is about 8 – 10% abv.
For the distillation process, although either pot stills or continuous
still is used, a unique column still called alembic Armagnacais is used. It is
made up of a burner, a column, a wine heater and condenser. Wine is flow
through to the condenser by gravity, goes to heater when heated, and then
passed into the still. Vapours will pass back into the serpentine in the wine
heater and condenser before collected as new spirit. The column still is at 17
plates maximum. Grape varieties are distilled separately, as the still is not stopped,
when the first grape variety is used up , it switches over to the second
immediately. It may result to a barrels for both wines are collected.
For the maturation, it is spent to new oak barrels for the short
period and then goes to old. European oak is preferred but black oak from
Monlezun forest is also use.
Cereal used in Whisky production
There are many kinds of cereal is used for whisky production, for Scotch
whisky, it is most widely made from Barley (usually need malting), and
sometimes wheat and oats are also used. For the Irish whisky, unmalted barley
is used. For Bourbon and Canadian whisky, not only wheat and barley, even corn
and rye are also used.
It is under a hard husk for the barley grain, and remain dormant until
it is exposed to the correct level of warmth and moisture for germination. The
process is called malting. The grain is first immersed, and steeped in water,
then drained off. This alternation process last for 2 to 3 days. It is called
green malt when starts to grow barley. At this stage, it must not dry out and
the temperature released by the mass should be well controlled. Once all the starch
has modified the green malt is moved to kiln where it is heated and dried to
stop the germination process and it is called malt.
The soluble starch is then converted fermentable sugar by milling
the malted barley into a coarse flour called ‘grist’. Then goes to ‘mash tun’
by mixing with hot wter to form the sugar solution called ‘wort’. Also, the
malt can introduce flavor of peat in Scotland, which provides perfumed smoke
rich flavors, which known as “phenolics”.
For the unmalted barley, it provides flavors as spicy, fruity and
oily. The use of unmalted barley is to reduce distiller’s tax bills in Irish whisky
starting from 19th century. Malted and unmalted barley is added into
the mashmill, the level of unmalted barley ranged from 20% to 60%.
For the wheat or corn, there is no need malting, for scotch grain
whisky, these grain is cooked into a pressurized cooker at high temperatures
for hydrolyze the starch. For scotch grain whisky, the cooked cereal and malted
barley is mashed together, which referred as “mashbill”. The grain whisky use
different varieties of barley which is able to create high level of enzymes.
For the bourbon, it is made by at least 51% of corn, together with a
selection of small grain of rye and malted barley. Corn give the sweetness and
is main component. Rye gives the attack in Bourbon and it is aromatic, lemon
accented and slightly dusty when young. It is detected by intense acidic and
slightly oily at the middle, and spicy at the finish. Wheat gives gentle round
quality and honey note. Corn is first grounded and then cooked with water for
hydrolyse the starch, then to cool slightly before rye is added. Ts is then
again to hydrolyse and before malted barely is added too.
Grappa
Grappa is made from pomace, a by-product from the wine industry It
is a drink of both local and international importance, with different range and
volume of different style and qualities are produced. Both black and white
grape can make the Grappa, even sometimes a blend of grapes are used. Most of
them are unaged but still some may be matured in wood, and even sometimes gives
flavors of herbs and spices.
Grape skins contribute lot of flavor to wine and many of these
flavours remain in the skin after winemaking. For the grapes which usually used
for grappa will be Muscat and Gewurztraminer, this is because of the highly
aromatic flavor.
For the white grape pomace, juice is collected and separated from
the skins before fermentation take place. The pomace is not dry and includes
some juice and other grape solids that contain some sugar. The pomace is diluted
with water and fermentation is undertook to create alcohol, and then distilled.
For the red grape pomace, as fermentation is completed and the skins are
pressed to recover most of the wine, it is directly delivered to the distillation
as it contains alcohol.
Good quality Grappa need to be fresh and free of taint. If it stored
too long, unacceptably high level of methanol will be found. To do so, it is
delivered to the distillery with delay and protected from air as much as
possible.
Grappa must be distilled less than 86% abv in either batch or continuous
stills, but most of the premium Grappa are using batch distillation. For batch
it uses bagno maria still to reduce the risk of burning. The pomace in the
still is either loaded into perforated baskets or constantly stirred traditionally
and now normally use steam injection through the pomace the liquid is
concentrated further and make the cut for heads, heart and tails. For continuous
distillation, the pmace is moved in and out slowly, which keeping it long
enough for all the volatiles are stripped by the steam. Thethe steam is pass
through the rectifier.
For ageing requirements, Vecchia needs ageing for 12 months and
Riserva for 18 months.
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