By Megan Claus, Jayplaywriter
If it's cheap wine you're looking for, you won't find it in the front of the wine store.
Back in the lonely corner where the lights flicker and cobwebs begin to take over, you'll usually find shelves of overstocked, over-produced wines such as The Little Penguin, Yellowtail, Woodbridge and the boxed sensations such as Franzia. Ranging anywhere from $2 to$ 10 a pop, these wines are inexpensive because the producer buys the grapes in bulk or grape juice at a low cost and is able to bottle it cheaply.
It isn't to say that these wines are unacceptable, but if you know a thing or two about wine, they're just unnecessary.
People tend to choose wine off the label or name. It seems as though students display a fear factor in buying wine because they don't know how it will taste, Courtney Smith, Topeka senior and
"It's a no-brainer to spend $3.50 on a beer than$ 7 on a glass (of wine). You can have two beers for that glass you don't even like," Michelle Meyer, owner of the Holy-Field winery and vineyard, says.
From what Smith observes, girls tend to purchase white, fruity wines. Of 12 girls I surveyed, nine indicated that white "fruity" or "sweet" is their favorite kind. One didn't specify a favorite, and the other two say Yellowtail Cabernet Sauvignon tops their list because it's "cheap and tasty." All of the four guys surveyed were more likely to favor red wines, such as Merlot, because of the fuller taste. All the students were apprehensive about wine because they thought that it was expensive. This explains why nearly everyone said an inexpensive wine was their favorite.
The truth is good wine doesn't have to be expensive. And inexpensive wine doesn't have to be purchased from the cheap seats. If you know a little about wine production, different kinds of wines and wine tasting, you'll be able to walk proudly into a wine store and straight into the luminescent aisles billowing with fine, inexpensive wines.
Visiting a vineyard can give you an agricultural point of view that you can't get anywhere else. "It gives people a whole new perspective and apprecia-
Wine genesis
tion," Meyer says.
Equipped with seven wineries, this isn't a tough thing to do in Kansas.
In 1986 Meyer and her father Les planted a vineyard in Basehor, which is about 20 miles east of Lawrence on Highway 24-40. They started small enough to make wine just for themselves. Eventually they grew more grapes than they could legally grow without a farm winery license. By 1994, Holy-Field winery was in business.
The grape harvest season lasts about six weeks, from the middle of August until mid-September. Volunteers add their names to a waiting list up to a year in advance for the Meyers' "picking Sundays." On a brisk Sunday morning in September, I joined 112 other volunteers to prune grapes with the Meyers. From 8 a.m. until noon, we cut fruit from some of their 14 acres and 10,000 vines of grapes.
We loaded plastic bin after bin with fresh grapes and sent them down to the pressing room in the basement of the winery. Here the grapes were lightly crushed and removed of all seeds, skins and stalks. I tasted the fresh juice from this process and remember it tasting like it was straight from a juice machine. The high Brix level—the unit of measure of sugar —of this grape meant that when fermented, it would produce a higher amount of alcohol. In a stainless-steel cask, yeast was added to the remaining
liquid to convert the sugars to alcohol and juice to wine. It was bottled immediately after.
Grape varieties
Wines are named after the grapes that produce them. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah/Shiraz and Zinfandel are main red wines-made from these grapes. Common white wines are made from Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling grapes.
When customers come in asking for a red wine, Andrew Graves, employee at Cork and Barrel, 2000 W. 23rd St., usually directs them to the Cabernet Sauvignons. The way he explains, this grape makes it seem like the Mac Daddy of red wines. That's because Cabernets are grown nearly all over the world and have a surprisingly consistent taste with almost every region. These wines are rich in color, aroma and depth.
Merlot is another top grape variety. Merlots are usually smooth, soft and easy-drinking wines as well as a favorite among wine lovers. These wines are widely available and can be found for quite reasonable prices.
Australia produces some of the best Shiraz (called Syrah everywhere else) because the grape grows in just about every region of the continent, giving us many options to choose from. This wine is best with food. The grape makes dark,