Straw wine, or raisin wine, is a wine made from grapes that have been dried off the vine to concentrate their juice. Under the classic method, after a careful hand harvest, selected bunches of ripe grapes will be laid out on mats in full sun (originally the mats were made of straw, but these days the plastic nets used for the olive harvest are likely to be used). This drying will probably be done on well exposed terraces somewhere near the winepress and the drying process will take around a week or longer. Under less labour intensive versions of the technique, easily portable racks might be used instead of mats or nets, or the grapes are left lying on the ground beneath the grape vines, or even left hanging on the vine with the vine-arm cut or the stem twisted. Technically speaking the grapes must be cut off from the vine in order for the wine to be a 'straw wine'. If the grapes are just left to over-ripen before being harvested, even if this is to the point of raisining, this is a late harvest wine. The exact technique used varies according to local conditions, traditions and increasingly modern innovations. In some regions the grapes are laid first in the sun and later covered or they are covered at night to protect them against the morning dew. In cooler, damper regions, the entire drying process takes place indoors in huts, attics or greenhouses with the bunches lying on racks or hanging up with good air circulation. Straw wines are typically sweet to very sweet white wines, similar in density and sweetness to Sauternes but potentially sweeter. They are capable of long ageing. The low yields and labour-intensive production method means that they are quite expensive. Around Verona red grapes are dried, and are fermented in two different ways to make a strong dry red wine (Amarone) and a sweet red wine (Recioto della Valpolicella).
History The technique dates back to pre-Classical times with wines becoming fashionable in Roman times and in late Medieval/Renaissance Europe when wines such as Malmsey ('Malvasia' originally from Greece) and Candia (from Crete) were highly sought after. Traditionally, most production of these wines has been in Greece, the islands of Sicily, Cyprus, Northern Italy and the French Alps. However, producers in other areas now use the method as well. Excavations in Cyprus on the Neolithic site at Erimi have revealed that sweet wine was made there some 6000 years ago. This is the earliest appearance of sweet wine in the Mediterranean region. A wine grape wine known as the Cypriot Manna (or Nama). Similar principles were used to make the medieval Cypriot wine Commandaria, which is still produced today. References to raisin-wine production in ancient Israel appear both on jar fragments from Tel Lachish and in talmudic literature from the early centuries AD. The process of making raisin wines was described by the Greek poet Hesiod in mainland Greece around 800 BC. Various Mediterranean raisin wines were described in the first century AD by Columella and Pliny the Elder. Pliny uses the Greek term for honey wine for the following raisin wine:
The grapes are left on the vine to dry in the sun ... It is made by drying grapes in the sun, and then placing them for seven days in a closed place upon hurdles, some 2 m (7 ft) from the ground, care being taken to protect them at night from the dews: on the eighth day they are trodden out: this method, it is said, produces a liquor of exquisite bouquet and flavour. The liquor known as melitites is also one of the sweet wines. Columella discusses the Passum wine made in ancient Carthage. The modern Italian name for this wine, passito, echoes this ancient word, as does the French word used to describe the process of producing straw wines, passerillage. Perhaps the closest thing to passum is Moscato Passito di Pantelleria from Zibibbo, a variety of the ancient muscat grape, produced on Pantelleria, an island in the Strait of Sicily 80 km (50 mi) from Tunisia) opposite to where Carthage used to be.
Australia Barossa Valley producer, Turkey Flat Vineyards has been experimenting with this style since 2002 with their 100% Marsanne named 'The Last Straw'. Air-dried on racks for approximately six weeks it is fermented in new oak and then bottle post-fermentation to retain freshness. Residual sugar sits at a comparatively low 59g/L.
Austria/Germany Strohwein or Schilfwein is an Austrian wine term in the Prädikatswein category which designates a straw wine, a sweet dessert wine made from raisin-like dried grapes. Stroh is German for straw, while Schilf means reed. The minimum must weight requirements for Strohwein or Schilfwein is 25 degrees KMW, the same as for Austrian Beerenauslese, and these regulations are part of the Austrian wine law. The grapes are furthermore required to be dried for a minimum of three months, either by laying the grape bunches on mats of straw or reed, or by hanging the bunches up for drying by suspending them from pieces of string. However, if the grapes have reached a must weight of at least 30 ºKMW (same must weight as a Trockenbeerenauslese) after a minimum of two months, the grapes are allowed to be pressed at this earlier time. Strohwein and Schilfwein are treated as synonyms by the wine law, and the choice between them therefore depends on local naming tradition rather than the specific material used for the drying mats for a specific batch of wine. The Strohwein Prädikat exists only in Austria, not in Germany.
Croatia The raisin wine most commonly seen in Croatia is Prošek which is traditionally from the southern area of Dalmatia. It is made using dried wine grapes in the passito method. There are only a few commercial producers as it is typically homemade.
Czech Republic Slámové víno is the Czech term for straw wine that, under Czech wine law, is classified as a Predicate wine (Czech: Jakostní víno s přívlastkem). Czech regulations require the harvested grapes to come from a single wine sub-region, the grapes must be dried for at least three months either on straw or reed mats or hung in a well-ventilated space, and the must weight is required to reach at least 27° NM on the Normalizovaný moštomer scale. Straw wine in the Czech Republic is typically made from white grapes that are well-ripened and undamaged.
France
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