JellyBean's Tip of the Week

Terroir

A french word that means the total impact of any given grape growing site. This includes: soil, slope, orientation to the sun, elevation, plus rainfall, wind velocity, fog, hours of sunlight, average high and low temperatures. All of these factors combined create specific characteristics that come through when tasting the wine.

Champagne Bubbles

An opened bottle of Champagne has 56 million bubbles.

Legs

These are the rivulets of wine that roll down the inside of the glass after it is swirled. Some people think that you can tell a wines quality by looking at the legs. This is untrue. The legs are simply the difference in the surface tension between the water and alcohol content of the wine.

The Cork

Should you smell the cork after opening a bottle of wine? No. You should inspect the cork the make sure it is from that winery and there are no imperfections which might be a clue to problems with the wine. Beyond that you should simply discard the cork and definitely not smell it.