![\"Grapes](\"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/AdobeStock_25207651.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe most obvious reason for the variety of flavors and colors in wine is the type of grape \u2013 or blend of grapes – used in wine<\/a>-making.\u00a0 While there are several thousand grape varieties world-wide, just over 1300 of this number are cultivated for use in wine-making. The others are table grapes or those used for drying.\u00a0 Still, that means tremendous variation in color, natural sugar levels, and growing environment.<\/p>\n Soil and climate conditions have a big impact on grape taste and thus ultimately on wine taste.\u00a0 Some wines exhibit \u201cminerality\u201d, a characteristic that is widely debated by viticulturists and scientists.\u00a0 The debate, essentially, is whether grape vines absorb minerals directly from the soil, passing it to the grapes, or whether mineral-rich soil composition simply deprives the grapes of their fruitiness, imparting a dry flavor.\u00a0 Either way, many people who taste wine will have a very distinct impression about soil composition, whether it is clay, ash, or a general earthiness.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever sipped wine and said \u201cOh, I really taste the tobacco in that!\u201d or \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of cherry in this wine,\u201d then you know that wine can have a complex variety of flavors.\u00a0 In addition to grape variety, soil composition, and weather conditions such as drought or a particularly rainy season, the time of harvest (i.e. early or late in the grape\u2019s ripening, when sugar levels are highest) will impact flavor.<\/p>\n Further, naturally occurring chemicals called tannins impact wine<\/a> flavor.\u00a0 Tannins are astringent and give wine its \u201cdry\u201d mouth feel.\u00a0 When you taste an especially dry wine, it\u2019s tannins that make you want to pucker.\u00a0 But even considering all of these factors \u2013 grape variety, soil and climate conditions, harvest time, and the additional flavors that result from aging in various types of oak or steel barrels, what is the actual impact on wine?<\/p>\n Surprisingly, the largest ingredient in a typical red wine is water, to the tune of around 86%.\u00a0 Alcohol makes up approximately 12%, although some wines have a slightly higher alcohol to water ratio.\u00a0 Glycerol, a compound that develops during fermentation, comprises about 1%, and gives the wine its smooth mouth-feel.\u00a0 Naturally occurring acids account for about .4%.\u00a0 The largest impactor of flavor, the tannins, together with phenols (a natural acid produced during plant growth), weigh in at a tiny .1%.\u00a0 So, when we notice the dryness or sweetness or minerality or smoothness of wine<\/a>, a tiny portion of the overall chemical composition is actually doing the heavy lifting in the flavor department.<\/p>\n Think of wine as something like a snow-flake or sea-shell:\u00a0 Infinite factors make each one unique.\u00a0 While there are commonalities (such as grape variety or growing region), fundamentally no two are alike.\u00a0 We at Silver Dollar Winery invite you to enjoy a few of the unique wines that we proudly craft.\u00a0 From our sweet, fruity whites to our dry, smooth reds, we know you\u2019ll find a few to enjoy!<\/p>\n People familiar with wine terminology will often refer to wine as \u201cdry\u201d or conversely note how sweet it is.\u00a0 But what causes different wines to have such diversity of flavor?\u00a0 What chemistry are we experiencing when we enjoy a glass of wine, and what is actually in the bottle? The most obvious reason for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[9,8,10,11,7,6,12],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-information","tag-award-winning-wines","tag-bedford-texas-winery","tag-silver-dollar-winery","tag-taste-of-texas","tag-texas-winery","tag-texas-wines","tag-winery-bedford-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silverdollarwinery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"