Brandy Basics
The generous character of brandy always satisfies, whether savored in a neat snifter, valued in a blended or enjoyed in a cocktail. Nowadays brandy has gained immense popularity and knowing the basics of brandy can really improve your pleasure of this traditional spirit.
Brandy is produced by heating wine at a rest. Alcohol and fruit vapor are taken care off while condensing it back to liquid. It is developed in burnt oak barrels and blended in various barrel for achieving a desired style. Similar to wine, making brandy is a slow and careful process which requires lots of experience for doing well.
The foundation of brandy is unknown, although linguistic facts imply that it has originated in ancient Babylon. Brandy developed in Europe in the midst of 12th and 16th centuries. Many nationalities played important role in developing brandy. Germans considered it as a drink rather that a medicine while the Dutch advanced techniques of production and used oak barrels for transport.
Finally brandy developed in 19th century when Irish invented the column still, an option to the pot still that provided producers accurate control over the alcohol and fruit elements levels in the process of distillation. Since these two centuries, production of brandy increased all over the world.
Fine brandy making initiates with fine grapes. Mainly white grapes and other grape varieties are used for making wine. Majority of these grape varieties are elite to production of brandy. Classic wine varieties of grape widen so much fruit character at the time of developing that they turn out to be irresistible when distilled. For making Korbel Brandy, grapes are pressed and crushed, and the juice is fermented in the same manner as it is done in wine.
Whether process of distillation occurs in a still pot or still column, reasonable care should be taken for capturing the fruit and alcohol vapor appropriate for brandy.
The time spend by brandy in burned oak barrels is dangerous to its character. The more time brandy remains in barrels, the richer, smoother and more intense it becomes. At least sometime is spend by majority of brandy in barrels.
The process of making brandy differs between varieties; still four basic steps are required. Firstly the fruit is keenly fermented into wine after which it is distilled into alcohol. After the completion of distillation process, the developing process initiates. This is the main step for differentiating between variety and quality of the brandy. The final step in production of brandy is joining together, dilution and bottling.
Brandy labels are also used for describing the condition and quality of wine. Thus gaining knowledge about basics of brandy can be supportive in taking pleasure from this traditional spirit.
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 6:57 am and is filed under Brandy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.