If you’re a lifelong learner, like me, you are going to find like-minded people all through the Wine Business.

If you’re in a hurry to get through the world of grape varieties, you could narrow it down to the 1,368 varieties that are currently used in commercial wine production today. After 3.7 years drinking a new bottle per day, you could double back to revisit some of your favourite varieties and begin to sample how other countries, regions, and their sub-regions’ and the different soil types within that area affect each of them.

It becomes all the more complex when you start to learn about the number of wineries growing a specific variety and the choices each of them make every day. From their original location selection, exposure to the sun or to shade, row orientation, and expected environmental influences of local weather patterns, the fog, the inclusion of the fragrance of the forests nearby, the ocean, or the limestone in the soil.

Then there is the rootstock and clone pairing and planting strategies; vineyard management, vine training and leaf canopy development to expose or protect the fruit from temperature and the sun to speed up or slow down the ripening process and sugar development. The care of the plant as it grows over a season and its entire lifetime - watering or not, pest and disease management with any number of options from industrial chemicals to voodoo.

Harvest strategies including ripeness and sugar level analysis, weather, and staff decisions on how to handle the fruit as it’s picked. Is that picking team a group of experts, or all the company could secure with the oncoming weather was the newbies who cut too deep into the plant or removing clusters that are not yet ripe? Should there then be sorting of fruit? There are even a number of ways to crush the fruit. And the choice to include the stem and seeds or not.

And we’ve yet to address the art of winemaking itself, yeasts strains, the material the fermentation tank is made from, skin contact time for colour or flavour. What is the timing and method to stop the yeast from converting all the sugar into alcohol, the correction of acidity or faults that are expected or surprise the team, along the way.

The development and concentration of flavours using a variety of species of oak, in any number of ways from tea bags of sawdust or oak extracts, to tipping in of oak planks into stainless steel tanks, or the more traditional wooden barrels. There are containers used to hold the fermented juice as it comes together, the size of them matters, as does the toast levels or age of the barrels, is sulphur used? How much? The ways in which the wine is protected from oxygen at this point so we don’t end with vinegar. What wine is used to top off in the barrel as the angels take their share and evaporation occurs? Is it the same vintage or not? The way and materials the wine is clarified - with or without egg whites or not at all?

Then there is blending, perhaps various properties a winery may own or buy from, the remixing of the same juice with its sugar partially or fully intact or the sugar from an entirely different plant. The winemaker could decide to blend altogether different varieties in any number of traditional or unique concoctions, the bottling in any number of size formats can extend or shorten the peak moment of drinkability or just enlarge its impact at a table and thereby perhaps its enjoyability. Is a second fermentation in the bottle planned for, or could it be a surprise?

The ageing of the final product and where it is stored at this point can be wildly creative. How in this state it evolves or devolves with age, exposure to the sun where it sits warm on ancient stone fences in wicker braided glass bonbons or protected deep in cool damp cellars. The temperature during transit and merchant storage, exposure to the cork material in its most natural form or shredded cork held together by glues or entirely made of plastics. There is exposure to oxygen (by way of the cork as it ages which can be managed by longer or shorter corks, or perhaps a pump slowly allowed oxygen to the tank beforehand to mimic what occurs naturally) or there’s a screwcap and the capturing of a wines freshness for perhaps longer periods of time.

Then there is packaging, the art and language used on the bottle which is so very powerful for the consumer in creating preference, familiarity and purchasing loyalty.

And of course, you can always be romanced by a moment, so if you have a fond, once in a lifetime memory that included a glass - you may find that you are hooked on a brand or a vintage that takes you back to that joy - or perhaps it’s just marketing evoking those emotions for the winery benefit.

As you can see the evolution of the grape into great wine is nearly as complicated as turning water into wine. There are an endless set of factors and choices that make a difference in how a wine tastes and how long it can maintain its best moment of taste. And so even after hundreds of vineyards and winery trips, I am always learning about this particular art form.

Take for example the making of a single barrel to store fermented wine in while it comes together and comingles with the oak planks.

How Is a Wine Barrell Made?

Recently at Vega Sicilia, where they make their own wine barrels, I saw a cooper creating a wine barrel. They use mostly American oak to make their barrels. The cooper was so skilled that it happened in minutes. Here is a video of the Cooper assembling an oak wine barrel.

Why would a winery invest in building an in-house cooperage capability?

Because it gives the winemaking team flexibility down to the very last moments to see how vintage will influence the level and type of toast to put inside their oak barrels. If you buy barrels, you have to buy them in advance with a specific toast before you know what be optimal for the vintage.

Join me on my blog for more of a conversation on this an all things wine and business. See some of my tastings and trips. Or get some ideas of where you might travel to next or just get the courage up to skip the chards and the kick in the head reds and take some chances the next time you’re presented with options.