Trivia Day

Regular readers should find this easy. Well, maybe not easy, but they might recall having read enough to know that we did cover these topics. But, here are ten tidbits to warm your winter day (cool your summer day if you are on the other side of the equator) while I go to vote (yes, I live there).

So, without further ado:

1. What are the 18 noble grapes?
2. Which 1 of the 18 have I never covered in a separate post?
3. True or false: there are no wineries in Antarctica?
4. True or false: in addition to red wine and white wine, there is orange wine, made of grapes, not oranges?
5. What is phylloxera?
6. Isn't it true that synthetic corks are better for wine than real cork, but that we continue to use real cork because it's traditional?
7. What four factors contribute most to a wine's ageworthiness?
8. How many half-twists should you give the cage or muselet on a bottle of champagne to free it from the bottle?
9. In the US, in order to label a wine as a particular single varietal, it must contain at least what percentage of that varietal?
10. What was the name of the fake grape that I created when one of my readers said that I should create a fake grape for this blog?

I am going to blab just a bit now so that the questions are separated from the answers. Some of these questions might seem strange, but if you've read this blog from cover to cover, so to speak, since its inception, you would at least recall that each of these items has been covered, some in great depth, no pun intended, as we have visited the highest altitude vineyards in the world as well as a few at depths below sea level.

But, if you've made it this far, I'll bet you want answers.

1. I have no idea who decided that there are 18 noble grapes or which 18 grapes are, in fact, noble. But, somebody with more influence in the world of wine than even I have (I would have chosen different grapes, but that is for another day) designated 18 grapes as noble. They are Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Gewurtzraminer, Grenache, Malbec, Merlot, Moscato, Nebbiolo, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Syrah, Tempranillo, and Viognier.
2. Despite it being the wine that I own more of than any other grape, I have never covered Cabernet Sauvignon specifically in a post.
3. Of course, there is a winery in Antarctica. We went there back in July to taste Vidal Blanc.
4. We went to Slovenia in June to taste Vitovska, a grape that when made into wine usually has significant orange hues. While it's not the only one, its wines are typical of the ones that are classified as orange wines.
5. Phylloxera is a tiny mite that attacks grapevines and in particular the rootstock. Because phylloxera is native to the US, American rootstocks have developed a resistance to phylloxera. But, European rootstock, and French in particular, had not developed such a reistance when phylloxera invaded them in the mid-19th century and nearly wiped out the European wine industry. Since then, much of the rootstock in Europe is at least a crossbreed with American rootstock.
6. No! Synthetic cork is fine for the wine that you plan to buy this morning and drink tonight. But, one of the beauties of real cork is that it breathes while synthetic cork does not. As a result, the wine gets no oxygen at all and it reduces. Wine that has gone through reduction smells like rotten eggs or burnt rubber. You've never noticed? Perhaps that is because you were on your third bottle of the night when you had one that had reduced.
7. The four elements that are considered to contribute to a wine's ageworthiness are alcohol content, acidity, tannins, and sugar content.
8. To free the muselet from the bottle of Champagne, give it 6 half-twists.
9. According to the Tobacco, Tax, and Trade Bureau of the US, if you want to lable your wine as a single varietal, at least 75% of the grapes in that wine must be of that varietal.
10. And, we spent to 2 days high up in the Himalayas to learn about Pinot Nakkali, a grape that I invented just to see if I could pull it off.