Native Stone Wines 

Captains’ Red
A sweet blend of Catawba, Chambourcin and Norton grapes…. our tribute to Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who explored Native Stone on June 5, 1804 and noted Bull Rock in their journals.
$14 a bottle 

What is Wine?

The word wine comes from the Old English win, which derives from the Proto-Germanic *winam which was an early borrowing from the Latin vinum, (which can mean either the "wine" or the "vine"), from Aeolic Greek Fοίνος, (woinos).

Wine is an alcoholic beverage made by the fermentation of the juice of the grape.  The term wine is also applied to alcoholic beverages made from plants other than the grape, e.g., elderberry wine, dandelion wine.  Wines are distinguished by color, flavor, bouquet or aroma, and alcoholic content. Wine is also divided into three main types: still (or natural), fortified, and sparkling. Wines are red, white, or rosé (depending on the grape used and the amount of time the skins have been left to ferment in the juice). For red wines the entire crushed grape is utilized; for white wines, the juice only. In rosé wines, the skins are removed after fermentation has begun, thus producing a light pink color.

History of Wine

So ancient that its origin is unknown, wine is mentioned in early Egyptian inscriptions and in the literature of many lands. Domesticated grapes were abundant in the Near East from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, starting in 3200 BC. There is also increasingly abundant evidence for wine making in Sumeria and Egypt in the third millennium BC. The ancient Chinese made wine from native wild "mountain grapes" like Vitis thunbergii for a time, until they imported domesticated grape seeds from Central Asia in the second century BC. Grapes were, of course, also an important food. There is scanty evidence for earlier domestication of grape, in the form of grape pips from Chalcolithic Tell Shuna in Jordan, but this evidence remains unpublished.

Exactly where wine was first made will probably never be known. It could have been anywhere in the vast region, stretching from Spain to Central Asia, where wild grapes grow. However, the first large-scale production of wine must have been in the region where grapes were first domesticated, the Near East. Wild grapes grow in the northern Levant, coastal and southeastern Turkey, the Caspian coast of Iran, Armenia, and Georgia. None of these areas can be singled out, despite persistent suggestions that Georgia is the birthplace of wine.

How is wine made? 

Crusher – De-stemmer

The first stage of controlled vinification is to crush the grapes. Crushing splits the skins and releases the juice, enabling yeast activity and fermentation to begin.  It also makes the grapes easier to press.  A key decision at this stage is whether or not to remove the stems.  The grape stems allow juice to drain more freely during pressing, but they also release tannins.  For grapes high in fruit flavor, tannins may be desirable, adding complexity… but when a more subtly flavored must is desirable, the stems are a disadvantage.  The old way was to tread the grapes with your feet… the modern way is to use mechanical crusher-de-stemmers. 

Pneumatic Press

White wine grapes are always pressed to remove the skins before fermentation begins.  Red wine grapes are not pressed until after fermentation, so that the grape skins may impart additional color and tannins to the wine.  Pressing of the grape mass, (pomace), occurs after the free-run juice has been removed.  Free-run juice makes the best wine and is often kept separate from pressed juice.  Better quality juice results with gentle pressing.  If pressing is too aggressive, the pips and stems break and bitter astringent flavors are released, overpowering those natural in the grapes.  Good results are achieved with pneumatic presses which are replacing traditional vertical wooden ones.  A large rubber bladder inside this press is inflated to squeeze the pomace against the slits in the revolving drum to extract the remaining juice. 

Fermentation

Traditionally, fermentation vats were made of oak.  Many still are, but stainless steel has the advantages of being easier to cool and easier to clean.  High uncontrolled fermentation temperatures burn out the fruit flavors in the wine, but can also promote greater color extraction from the skins, so a good temperature balance is essential.   Prolonged fermentation at cool temperatures protects primary fruit characteristics and ensures the conversion of all the sugar to alcohol.  The length of maceration, the period during which the juice is left in the vat in contact with the grape skins, depends on the depth of color and tannin required in the wine.  Not so long ago, workers would get into the vat to break up and submerge the cap of skins.  We use long wooden or metal paddles to submerge the caps. 

Wines are also classified as dry or sweet, according to whether the grape sugar is allowed to ferment completely into alcohol (dry), or whether some residual sugar has been left (sweet).  In a natural wine all the alcohol present has been produced by fermentation. Fortified wines, such as sherry, port, Madeira, and Malaga, are wines to which brandy or other spirits have been added. These wines contain a higher alcohol content (from 16% to 35%) than the still wines (from 7% to 15%). Sparkling wines are produced by the process of secondary fermentation in the bottle. 

Sulfites (or sulphites) are chemicals that occur naturally in grapes and also are added to wine as a preservative. They can trigger a severe and life-threatening allergic reaction in a small percentage of consumers, primarily asthmatics. In the USA nearly all commercially produced wine, including that with no added sulfites, is required to state on the label "contains sulfites." In other countries they do not have to be declared on the label, leading to a common mistaken belief that only wine from the USA contains sulfites. Many consumers who have adverse reactions to wine, such as headaches or hangovers, blame added sulfites but are probably reacting instead to naturally-occurring biogenic amines such as histamine. The quantity of sulfites in a glass of wine is the same as in a serving of dried apricots.