Tomorrow, 4.30 am I’ll start my car.
Heading: West! My aim: The little village ‘Avize’, situated in the french region ‘Champagne’.
France, here I come!
Find the Bottles!
Soon I will take my suitcase and head to Fraaance!
My first Harvest!
In 6 days I will head to France, the Champagne exactly!
I’m so excited! This is my first harvest! My start!
I will stay there for four weeks and make Champagne. The place where I stay is a school for winemakers and I’m very happy that I found that school because I don’t really have a clue about harvesting grapes and I am sure that they will show me the ropes!
I will report on my experiences when I have arrived!
Tea – What else?
Well, some people just drink tea when they caught a cold.
I drink tea because it is my passion!
Caught by a “Chameleon”
Some days ago I’ve been to that street music festival with two friends of mine. We wandered through the streets, listened to the artists and nearly had passed a band, when an amazing voice started to sing.
I was so impressed that we had to go back and instantly buy a CD, whatever the price would be.
This was the sound of summer, the sound of the incoming autumn, a melancholic winter. I could even hear the flowers blossom in spring after their restful winter sleep.
No, just kidding. This man behind the microphone with his band behind his back simply impressed me with his music.
So I bought the CD while they were playing this old latin standard song called “Chan Chan” from Buena Vista Social Club.
The next day when I got home I listened to that CD nearly a 100 times. At first I just noticed the memorable lines with the perfectly fitting music. But the more I listened to that CD, the more I realized what he exactly was singing. His words emitted certain desire, but also a lot of experience. This album touches me deeply.
All in all this Album called “Chameleon” by Duncan Woods impressed me deeply and I would recommend it to everybody who likes good styles of music, mixed together and combined with some great lyrics!
Give it a listen!
http://duncanwoodsmusic.com/album/chameleon/
The 2 Ways Wine can Sparkle
We all drink and love Sparkling Wine, don’t we? But have you ever asked yourself how the sparkles get in the wine? Well, here is the answer
There are two different types of Sparkling wine:
1. the real Sparkling Wine (also known as Champagne) and
2. the Pearl Wine (just slightly sparkling)
Let me begin with the less expensive one, the pearl wine:
One takes a wine with at least 7% alcohol and adds carbon dioxide (same process as the production of fizzy water) This process is easy, quick and not expensive.
The contrary is the real Sparkling Wine. It is only allowed to call it Champagne, when it is produced in a certain region of France, the ‘Champagne’. In Germany and Austria there are even strict laws for the production of Sparkling Wine!
For the manufacture of Sparkling wine, a normal wine is taken. Then one adds yeast to every bottle and let it all ferment. The sparkles are a result of natural fermentation.
After the wine is fully fermented, one has to get the yeast out of the bottle. But how? Well, the bottles get jogged slowly from the horizontal to the vertical. In the older days this process was a handmade one, but today there are also machines for it. When the bottles reached the vertical direction the yeast is completely situated in the bottleneck. Shortly afterwards follows a process called “Degorgieren“: the bottlenecks get frozen and the ice-yeast-plug is shot out. Then the bottles get refilled with the so-called “Dosage“, which is a sugar-wine-solution. With this Dosage it is possible to sweeten the Sparkling Wine to the perfect taste. After all that the bottle is closed with a Cork and that all gets fixed with that little wire thingy called Agraffe. Et voilà! We have our high quality sparkling wine.
This above described process is the German one to make ‘Sekt’ the technical terms might differ in other languages.
NATURE TO CULTURE
Nature to Culture- what does that mean?
Let me give you an example: Wine – A winemaker grows the plant, he nurses every little sprout until he becomes a leaf. He cares about his vineyard the whole year. Until the harvest comes. Then he picks up the fruits of his work, press’ them and puts the juice in a tank to create his own wine. When the vinification is over, he will bottle the wine -which is a part of our culture- to sell it afterwards. During this process, nature became culture.
I am a 18-year-old girl and I will begin to study beverage technology in October 2017 and I will write about the connection between nature and culture. ( and maybe some other stuff;) )
Have fun!
Janna