brandy
brandy
Brandy usually means "the soul of wine". The English word brandy is transformed from Dutch.
The word brandy has a narrow sense and a broad sense. Broadly speaking, all wines made from fruit fermentation and distillation are called brandy. But now it is customary to call the wine made from grapes through fermentation, distillation, storage and blending brandy. If distilled liquor is made from other fruits, the names of the fruits, such as calvados, cherry brandy, etc. You should drink brandy first.
Brandy originated in France. /kloc-At the beginning of the 0 ~ (th) century, the Charente River Pier in France became a commercial port for liquor export due to its convenient transportation. At that time, the whole case of wine occupied a lot of space on the ship, so the French came up with the method of double steaming to remove the water in the wine, improve the purity of the wine, reduce the occupied space and facilitate transportation. This is an early brandy. 170 1 year, France was involved in the Spanish war, and the sales of brandy were greatly reduced. The wine was stored in oak barrels. After the war, people found that brandy stored in oak barrels was more mellow and crystal amber. In this way, the world-famous brandy was born. Therefore, the storage and storage life in oak barrels have become an important link in brandy brewing.
Two manufacturing processes
1. Distill white wine to make brandy. The fermentation process of the original wine is the same as that of the white wine produced by the traditional method (the white wine brewed by red grapes is not suitable for distilling brandy because more fusel oil is produced in the fermentation process, and the quality of distilled wine is rough). When the fermentation is completely stopped and the residual sugar has reached below 0.3%, it is statically clarified in the tank, and then the sake on the upper layer is separated from the wine foot, so that the sake can be distilled (the wine foot should be distilled separately). Brandy is a kind of beverage wine with unique style. It doesn't need high alcohol content. Generally, it can retain its inherent fragrance in alcohol of 60-70 degrees (v/v). Therefore, the distillation method of brandy still stays in the pot distiller (another advantage of pot distillation is that the pot is made of copper, and in the process of heating distillation, copper butyrate, acetic acid, octanoic acid, decanoic acid and lauric acid are generated. These salts are insoluble, so removing these unpleasant acids is beneficial to the quality of brandy.
Tank distillation is two continuous distillation steps by direct fire heating. That is, the original wine is first steamed into low-alcohol wine, and the newly fermented original wine is added into a pot with a capacity of 150-500L, and steamed for about 8 hours or more until the steam contains a small amount of alcohol, and the alcohol content of the distillate (i.e. coarse brandy) is 24-32%(v/v). Store some wine tails separately, empty the pot, and then add new original wine and the wine tails obtained from the last distillation for the second distillation. In the same way, the third distillation was carried out. The main distillates obtained from the third distillation are combined and then cooked again. The steaming time is longer, about 14 hours, and 1%-2% of the head or part of the tail is also cut off. The average alcohol content of the main distillate is 58-60%(v/v), which is the original brandy. The original brandy is blended, blended, then stored and a series of post-treatments, and finally bottled and delivered from the factory.
Second, make brandy with grape skin or grape residue as raw material. Put the skin residue into a barrel, seal the container and ferment. Because the skin residue itself contains yeast, there is no need to add yeast. After the container is full, seal the mouth and leave a vent at the top to let the carbon dioxide gas escape. The fermentation time usually takes 10- 15 days, and the temperature is suitable, only 7-8 days. After fermentation, it can be distilled in a distiller, and the method is the same as above.
Characteristics of brandy
Brandy has an elegant and mellow taste and a special fragrance.
The aromatic substances in brandy first come from raw materials. France's famous Cognac is brewed from high-quality grape raw materials such as Cognac's Bai Yuni, Bai Fuer and Gruba. These excellent grape varieties contain unique aroma, and the original brandy is obtained after fermentation and distillation. Original brandy refers to brandy obtained by distillation and not yet blended.
The elegant fragrance of high-quality brandy has another source, and it is a very important source, that is, oak barrels. When the original brandy is stored in oak barrels, it will undergo a series of changes, thus becoming elegant, soft, mellow and mature. In the wine industry, this is called "natural aging". In the process of "natural aging", there are two changes: one is the change of color, and the other is the change of taste. The original brandy was all white. During storage, it continuously extracts wood components from oak barrels, and the tannins contained in brandy are oxidized. After five years, ten years or even longer, it gradually turns golden yellow, deep golden yellow to strong tea color. The newly distilled original brandy has a pungent taste and insufficient aroma. It extracts the aroma of oak from the lignin of oak barrel, and combines it with the aroma generated by the oxidation of its own tannin components to form the unique and wonderful aroma of brandy.
There is also an extremely important process for qualified brandy, which is blending. Blending, also known as blending, is the crowning touch of brandy production, which makes the sense, aroma and taste of wine highly harmonious and unified. How to blend is the secret of every wine manufacturer. Each factory has its own formula and its own blending experts. As a master of brandy blending, he not only needs profound brewing knowledge and rich practical experience, but also needs extremely sensitive sense of smell, taste and artistic appreciation. One characteristic of brandy is that it is not afraid of dilution. Adding white water to brandy can keep the flavor unchanged and reduce the alcohol content. Therefore, people often add ice cubes, mineral water or soda water to brandy. The more tea, the more precious tea, the better. The fragrance of brandy and tea has strong national characteristics.
The best brandy is made from brandy of different years and sources. Bartender should judge the quality and style of wine by tasting the wine stored in the barrel and decide the blending ratio. The bartender has his own recipe and will never tell anyone. Mixed brandy can be bottled in suitable containers for 6 months. Brandy, unlike wine, does not precipitate in bottles, but becomes a shaped product after bottling. It can be used for a long time as long as it is sealed and stored at low temperature. The alcohol content of blended brandy in the world is generally 42-43 degrees, and the alcohol content standard in China is 38-44 degrees.
In order to highlight the storage life and improve the price of good quality brandy, the trademark of wine bottle should also have eye-catching special signs, which have different meanings.
The aging process of brandy
Brandy obtained by new distillation has an immature flavor and rough texture, and must be aged in oak barrels. Dilute it to about 50%(v/v) of alcohol before aging. Before use, 50g/ 100L iron-free sugar color can be added to the diluted water. Barrels should be stored in the ground cellar to age brandy, not in the underground cellar. Due to poor ventilation in underground wine cellar, brandy can not be fully oxidized, which affects aging. The optimum storage room temperature is 15-25℃ and the relative humidity is 75-85℃. The longer the storage period of brandy, the better, the longer the aging time, the softer the style of brandy, the more delicate the aroma and the higher the price, but this does not mean that brandy can be aged in wooden barrels indefinitely. Wine itself has a process from immaturity to maturity and then aging. Aged in new barrels for 1 year, and then transferred to old barrels for 5- 10 years or even 20-30 years, generally not exceeding 50 years.
Storage of brandy
The reason why brandy tastes mellow and fragrant after aging is that the oak barrel used has a subtle "exchange effect" on brandy, which magically turns the original colorless wine into amber in the oak barrel, adding the unique aroma of brandy. But brandy itself has to pay a price, because some brandy will evaporate slowly over time. It is said that in Cognac, France alone, about 20 million bottles of wine evaporate every year. No wonder some people laugh that these evaporated wines were stolen by angels. Because oak has a great influence on the quality of brandy, the winery is also very particular about the choice of wood and the manufacture of barrels. First of all, the cut oak must be air-dried for more than two years before it can be used as a wine barrel to prevent the moisture in the oak from oozing out and affect the mellow taste of brandy; Moreover, all barrels should be inlaid with oak, and there should not be a nail or a drop of glue, nor can they be cut with a saw to ensure that the aging process will not affect the color and taste of the wine. This requires the master carpenter to be extremely clever and use the principle that natural objects expand with heat and contract with cold, so as to bend the wooden strips with fire and suck them together to form a wine barrel. The optimum capacity of this barrel is 350 liters. Wine packed in wooden barrels will change the quality of wine because oxygen enters some air. Thereby causing complex chemical reactions and producing wine fragrance; In addition, the dissolved substances in oak barrels and their microorganisms also have a great influence on the aging and aroma of brandy. Some alcohol in the wine will also evaporate, which will reduce the strength of the wine, and the color of the oak barrel will gradually penetrate into the wine, making the originally colorless wine become crystal amber, and the taste will be greatly improved.