SIMURG
esters
EN
n.
The combination of acids and alcohol which gives wine its bouquet. 1
The two most common forms of esters in wine are fermentation esters, commonly found in the aroma of young white wine (sometimes called biochemical esters), and esters that are chemically formed during ageing (sometimes called chemical esters). The fresh, fruity aroma of young wines derives in large part from the presence of the mixture of esters produced during fermentation, which is why it is usually called fermentation aroma. The precise nature of esters formed during fermentation is strongly influenced by the fermentation temperature. [...] Since wines contain much more ethanol than any other alcohol, and since the most common volatile organic acid is acetic acid, it is not surprising that the most common ester in wine is ethyl acetate, but many more combinations are possible, and help to explain why wines differ so greatly in their aroma and, after years in bottle, bouquet. A number of esters that are not particularly odoriferous are also present in wines. Among these are those resulting from reaction of the ethyl alcohol produced by fermentation with tartaric, malic, succinic, and other acids of the grape and wine, and such acids may yield a series of compounds, depending on how many of the acid functions are esterified. 2
In wine, esters are formed in a reaction between alcohol and acids. 3
[ˈes·tər] 4
Ester, noun, any compound ether (chemistry) - German Ester, coined by the German chemist Leopold Gmelin (1788 - 1853) in 1848 from the abbreviation of Essigäther, which is compounded of Essig, "vinegar", and Äther "ether". 5
Università degli Studi di Genova - Facoltà di Lingue e letterature straniere - Corso di laurea Teorie e tecniche della mediazione interlinguistica
Daniela Longinotti rev. Gerbaudo
1 : Durkan A., Cousins J., Wine Appreciation, Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading, Berkshire, 1997.
2 : Robinson, J., The Oxford Companion to Wine, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 368-369.
3 : «http://peninsulacellars.com/pages.php?tabid=6&pageid=60&title=Learn+About+Wine», (04/11/2011)
4 : «http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/ester?q=ester», (04/11/2011)
5 : Klein, E., A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Amsterdam, Elsevier Science Publishers, 1971.