Chemistry of Wine
An educational evening with expert wine educator and chemistry professor Dr. J. Ernest Simpson. Explore the whys and hows of wine with this structured wine tasting and lecture, whether you’re an experienced oenophile or a wine lover in waiting.
All proceeds support K-12 nanoscience STEM education programs. The lecture will include an overview of wine and wine making and more detailed descriptions of the chemical composition of grapes and wine, laboratory methods for analysis of grapes and wines, sensory and organoleptic methods used for wine, the role of tannin and other phenolic compounds in wine, and some potential health aspects of wine.
Combined with the lecture is a “component and varietal analysis.” During the component analysis, the audience will be given a reference wine sample with known levels of components such as acid, sugar, alcohol, etc. and then “unknown” samples in which one or more components have been increased by a known increment. During a varietal analysis a representative number of white and red wines will be compared.