Cuvée
The term cuvée comes from French and originally describes the content of the fermentation tank (from French cuvee , fermentation tank ' ). The meaning of the word varies depending on the context.
Cuvée in French usage
In French usage, a cuvée is any separately bottled wine from a winery . This can be a blend ( mixture ) of several grape varieties as well as a wine from a single location. The top product of a winery is sometimes referred to as Tête de cuvée or Cuvée Prestige .
When champagne is also the first from the wine -running Most , which has the highest quality, as Cuvée called. The different bottlings of a champagne house are also called cuvées.
Cuvée in German usage
In German-speaking countries, cuvée is a synonym for blend . What is meant is either the joint pressing or the fermentation of different grape varieties in a fermentation tank for the production of wine or sparkling wine or the later blending of wine lots from different grape varieties or locations. The wine obtained in this way is also called a cuvée. The common meaning of all the different types of production is therefore that the end product of a cuvée was made from different grape varieties or vineyards.
The composition of the cuvée or this itself is called an assemblage in France .
The original purpose of blending wines into a cuvée was to increase the quality of the finished product. Another reason can be the constant quality and a constant taste over several vintages, especially with sparkling wine and again primarily with branded products from large wineries.
When it comes to blending, for example, a cellar master selects a very full-bodied, color-intensive red wine as a blending partner for lighter, but fruity wines. However, this is always done with pre-tasting of the offcuts in small sample rows so that the result can be judged by sensors. An optimally combined cuvée tastes better than each batch on its own. The properties of the individual batches such as fruit character , tannin content , alcohol content , residual sweetness , etc. complement each other to create a harmonious whole. Typical grape variety cuvées are the wines of Bordeaux , which consist of three to five grape varieties. In the case of Châteauneuf-du-Pape , up to 13 grape varieties are permitted, with white varieties also being allowed in the red wine.
While in most wine-producing countries the blending of grape varieties to produce a wine is common practice, cuvées are in the minority in Germany and Austria . The grape varieties do not have to be noted on the label. But this type of winemaking is not new in Germany either. Even the mixed cultivation of several grape varieties in one vineyard , which are then read and pressed together as a " mixed sentence ", has a long tradition, especially with the Württemberg Schillerwein , a cuvée made from red and white grapes. Although the mixed phrase has little meaning today, some winegrowers have such cuvées as a specialty.
The largest cuvée wine barrel in Germany is in Freyburg (Unstrut) , Saxony-Anhalt , with a capacity of 120,000 liters and dates from 1896.
The best-known Swiss red wine Dôle is a cuvée.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cuvée in the Duden online dictionary. Bibliographisches Institut GmbH - Dudenverlag.
- ↑ Rotkäppchen Sektkellerei: 150 years of sparkling wine history with a cuvée barrel . Archived from the original on April 1, 2013. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 26, 2011.
