From Grape Juice to the Drink of the Gods
For millennia, wine has been made from only a couple of incredients. They are juice from grapes and yeast. Any fruit juice can be used, as a matter of fact, but grape juice is the most frequently used.
We tend to think of wine as a special treat, a gracious gift (as in a wine basket), a beverage of celebration or a drink to serve with a special meal. For much of history, though, it was a drink of necessity due to the often poor standards of the available water.
How is wine made?
Yeast is the magical ingredient that turns grape juice into wine. Interestingly enough, there is actually wild yeast spores in the air and all that is really needed to make wine is an open container of grape juice and time. The result however, would probably not be the most palatable of beverages.
Yeast is a living organism. In wine making, the yeast feeds off the sugars. That process is called fermentation. The action of fermentation converts the sugars in the juice into alcohol with a biproduct of carbon dioxide. In contemporary times, special types of yeast have been cultured solely for their use in wine making. The particular strain of the yeast, along with other factors, determines the flavor of the wine.
The wine is removed from the original container and placed into another container in order to mature before bottling. The yeast stays in the original container.
How does wine get its color?
You probably know that there are green grapes and black grapes and different grapes are used to make different wines. The color of the wine, however, does not directly reflect the color of the grape. In fact, grape juice is largely clear no matter the color of the original grape. The color of wine is determined by whether (and for how long) the skin is allowed to remain in the juice during the fermentation process.
What gives each wine its taste?
Many factors contribute to the eventual flavor of any wine. They include the strain of yeast, the type of grape, the soil conditions, the weather during the growing season, the technique and temperature during fermentation and even the nature of the oak barrels in which the wine matures.
It is because of all of these variables that a wine drinker can always notice a flavor difference from one wine to the next. This can make for an interesting hobby of never-ending discovery.
What is tannin?
All wines have tannin. That is the component that provides that sort of drying feeling on the tongue. It comes from the stems, seeds and skins, so red wines will have more tannin than will white wines. That accounts for the different tactile feeling between reds and whites.
Because of the brevity of this description, this has been only a tiny overview of what there is to know about wine. Hopefully, though, it has given you a few nuggets for your conversation at the next wine and cheese tasting that you attend.
