Jason Lett manages Eyrie Vineyards, one of the iconic producers of wine in Oregon.
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Tannins in Pinot Noir and you know sort of the you know the the lighter structured varieties and general is a really interesting question tannin if you taste it you know it and tannin is is that that component of a wine when you taste the wine when you put it in your mouth it almost feels like your mouth is being dried a little bit and so like if that if your tongue sticks the roof of your mouth a little bit and kind of feel like a texture there like a sandpaper or a suede or a velvet just depending on the quality of the tannin that’s tannin tannin is… comes from the vineyard well that actually comes from a couple places that can come from barrels or it can come from the vineyard I prefer tannin it comes from the vineyard and in the vineyard tannin is a defensive chemical for the for the grapes tannin helps prevent molds and mildews from colonizing on the berries tannin can also keep insects from you know eating eating the grapes and sometimes you’ll see grapes when there hasn’t been the presence of mildew in the area even if they haven’t gotten it they’ll have higher tannin levels because it’s almost like they’re boosting their immune system against that against that attack and so the tannins are very natural another thing that tannins do is their antioxidants and that’s one of the reasons why tannins are good for you because they kind of function like vitamin C or something else you know they scavenge free oxygen in they scavenge free oxygen that touches the line during the fermentation process and during the aging process and you know once you drink the wine they scavenge free oxygen that’s in your body as well so the tannins have an important role but you know they can also in excess taste a bitter they can be very drying on the palate another role of tannin is in aging but it’s a little confusing there and aging in Cabernet and Merlot Cabernet Franc Bordeaux varieties tannin is a really really important component for the age ability of the wine and so that’s why when you you know open an old Bordeaux there’ll be a half an inch of sediment on the bottom of the bottle a lot of that is the complex of tannins and and pigments from the wine at the bottom so tannin is not a super stable component but it does have that antioxidant qualities in the scavenge stuff out of line to aging process but in Pinot Noir there’s not a lot of tannin at least in the way that Eyrie makes it and our wine seems really well you know our Chardonnay aged really well there’s zero tannin in our Chardonnay what is going on so a lot of people point to tannin as being sort of like this chemical component that allows the line to age but it’s not a component that allows a wine to age it’s at least not in the Pinot family of you know Pinot Noir Pinot Gris and Chardonnay or Pinot Meunier that ability to age is coming from somewhere else