Wine, what is it:

“Wine is fermented liquid from grapes, it occurs naturally and it is distinguished by its unusually high acidity and alcohol content. “

That’s it. That is as basic as you can get.

Let’s break it apart bit by bit to understand it a little better, and make sure there are no hidden terms in there.

Fermented

You take sugar, you add yeast, you get three things: heat (which goes away), Carbon Dioxide (which usually will float away), and alcohol (which stays in the liquid, and we drink later). That is all fermentation is, at its core.

Liquid

yep, not a solid or gas.

Grapes

When we are talking about wine, we are almost always talking about grapes. Specifically, a type of grape called “Vitis Vinifera.” Yes, you can make wines from other fruits, but you usually will see the name of the fruit in front of the wine: e.g. Plum Wine.

Naturally

Literally, if you have a bunch of grapes in a container, it is actually hard to stop them from turning into wine! (I’m not saying it will be a good wine, but it will be some kind of wine!) Compare this to beer (where you have to put in extra work to get the grain to turn into an alcoholic beverage) or spirits, where you have to distill the product to make it happen, and wine looks like the easy choice for the thirsty amongst us. It is also why wine has always had a mystical alure (sort of the liquid of the gods, given to us from on high) with attendant Dionysus and Bacchus being gods of wine, of fortune, plenty (and of craziness and madness). There was this natural, bubbling entity that gave us this gift, anywhere that grapes grew. It was great, it was delicious, and it was natural, uncontrolled and wild. On the other hand, beer has always been a product of our own work and sweet. A product made by man for man.

High Acidity and Alcohol

This is one of the distinguishing characteristics of wine. The acid does two key things: allows you to pair the wine with food and helps (along with the alcohol) to keep the wine from going bad. In a grand, cosmic way, we are all in struggle: order versus chaos, fresh versus spoiled. This struggle actually used to be harder (we have refrigeration now). The only way we can preserve food (we now know) is to make it impossible for the little microscopic bugs to grow. The best way to do that is to make the water inaccessible or unfriendly to the little bugs. In the past, people would salt, dry, and smoke the products to take away the water. You can also make the water undesirable to the little bugs by changing its mix-up. Dramatically increasing the sugar content will work (think about the shelf stability of honey).  Pickling and fermentation does this, one by shooting up the acidity and the other by shooting up alcohol into the system.

There you go. One more time, now that we have hit each part:

Wine is fermented liquid from grapes, it occurs naturally and it is distinguished by its unusually high acidity and alcohol content.

Next Post will be about the choices you get when you are making wine.

-Andrew Roy