Winter has wine events, too

Don't let the winter weather keep you away from Finger Lakes wineries. Even though it is bitterly cold, there is still a lot to do this time of year.

Standing Stone Vineyards in Hector offers free wine school classes from 11 a.m. to noon on every other Saturday. Co-owner Marti Macinski led the first class, held on Jan. 10.

Our small group followed her out to the tank room, where we spent an hour learning about tanks and filtration. As she filtered white wine while transferring it from one stainless-steel tank to another, Marti described a variety of features available when ordering a tank.

"Sample" valves provide easy access to wine in small quantities. The "sight" valve allows the person filling the tank to monitor the level of the wine without climbing a ladder and looking down in the tank.

Many tanks are also designed with a bowl-shaped bottom. The sediment that settles to the rounded bottom of the tank is left behind when most of the remaining wine is pumped out.

A series of porous pads are assembled back to back to create the degree of filtration desired.

"We want wine in the bottle without issues," Marti says, explaining that filtration removes elements that may make a wine cloudy or allow crystal deposits to form in the bottle.

Economics is another reason to use filtration. Separating wine from sediment can be accomplished in different ways. "Racking" is a term used to describe the transfer of wine from one container to another. Each time the process is repeated, some sediment is left behind at the bottom of the tank.

After racking several times over the course of more than a year, one may approach what filtration accomplishes more quickly.

Filtration allows the winery to minimize the storage tanks it must have. The filtered wine may be bottled in less than a year, making the tanks available for the next year's vintage.

As a special treat, we were invited to a free tasting following class. It included all of their regular wine selections, as well as some from their library collection of older wines.

The schedule for the remaining classes follows. Please call 800/803-7135 to register.

- Jan. 24: The Science of Blending Wine.

- Feb. 7: Barrels -- Good Cellar Practices.

- Feb. 21: Pruning for Wine Growing.

- Mar. 6: Essential Laboratory Wine Tests.

- Mar. 20: Terroir -- Does the Dirt Matter?

For a weekday learning experience, C. Joseph Pierce II may have just what you are looking for.

Joe is hosting his annual Wine and Wisdom classes on Wednesday evenings at Pierce's 1894 Restaurant in Elmira Heights. Four classes remain in the series; each begins at 7 p.m. and lasts about two hours.

Each week, a discussion precedes the tasting of wines of a particular grape type. The evening concludes with coffee and dessert. Please call Pierce's at 607/734-2022 to learn topic and price information and to make reservations.

Jeff Richards' wine column appears Saturdays in Twin Tiers Life.