The Village Voice Oct Nov 2018

NOTES FROM THE SOLENT CELLAR
What’s in Your Wine?
Keeping up with trends and changes in tastes is
one of the many enjoyable things about
running an independent shop. We are able to
react quickly, adding or changing lines, and
there are several areas of our buying that has
evolved this way. We have increased our range
of organic and biodynamic wines, low or no
sulphur and vegan wines.
Which brings me to this interesting topic, what
is in your wine?
Wine has been produced for thousands of
years and was previously the way of preserving
what would go unused or rotten. People also
drank wine with it being cleaner than drinking
water at the time and it was seen as bringing
many health benefits.
Modern advances in technology and the
demand for more affordable wine has led to
the industrialisation of winemaking
techniques, very much in the way that
modern/supermarket bread has mostly
replaced home baking. Home baking where
just three ingredients were used, nowadays
look on the back of your packet of bread and
there are many more than that!
So, what is likely
to be in the
average bottle of
plonk? The list is
long and can
include things like
sulphur to
preserve the
wine, as well as
added tannin,
acidifiers, sugar,
clarifying agents,
cultured yeasts
and stabilisers.
Healthy organic vineyard in the
Sierra de Gredos
Organic Wine - This is where the grapes are
grown organically, without the use of harmful
pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemical
fertilisers, therefore better for you and the
environment.
Sulphur in Wine - This is used as a
preservative, keeping the wine from oxidising
and isn’t necessarily a bad thing in small
quantities. However, some people find they
react to it, especially at high levels and so it is
nice to be able to offer a selection of low or no
added sulphur wines. Sulphur levels in organic
wines tend to be much lower.
Vegan/Vegetarian Wine - More often than not
fining agents are used in large scale wine
production- wineries can use animal byproducts
such as milk and egg white to filter
any sediment. We offer a great selection of
wines from smaller producers who don’t fine
or filter their wines at all, as well as those that
use non-animal products for this process and
therefore are vegan and vegetarian friendly.
Here is just a small selection of our wines that
we can highly
recommend
trying...
Buzet Sans
Souffre £13.99
*no added SO2*
Domaine Bassac
Margalh Blanc
£9.99 *organic*
Alto Landon
Malbec, Spain
£12.99 *organic*
*vegan*
Heather & Simon
The Solent Cellar
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