What is wine?
For millennia, wine has been made from only a couple of incredients. They are grape juice and yeast. Any fruit juice can be used, as a matter of fact, but grape juice is the most frequently used.
Historically wine was the drink of choice because of the sometimes poor quality of the drinking water in so many regions. Today, of course, we tend to open a bottle of fine wine at times of celebration or offer it as a welcome gift as part of a wine gift basket.
How is wine made?
Since there are yeast spores in the air, wine could be made without effort simply by allowing grape juice to stay in an open container for an extended period of time. You probably wouldn’t find that so enjoyable, though.
There are numerous strains of yeasts and the types used to make wine have been cultured just for this purpose. The strain of the yeast has an impact upon the wine’s eventual flavor. Well anyway, yeast is a living organism that feeds off of sugars in the grape juice in a process called fermentation. It is the fermentation that causes the sugars in the grape juice to turn into alcohol.
Once all of the fermentable sugars have been consumed, the yeast will fall to the bottom of the container. The wine is removed from the container, leaving the yeast, and is trasferred to another container to mature while waiting to be bottled.
How does wine get its color?
There are black grapes and green grapes and grapes of various gradations in between. Regardless of the color of the grape the juice is always clear, or nearly so. If the skins are left in the juice during fermentation, a red wine is the result. A white wine results when the skins are removed.
What gives each wine its taste?
Even though there are very few ingredients, there are many things which influence the taste of wine. First of all, there are many varieties of grapes. Each grape variety will produce different flavors, aromas, and even textures. In addition, the soil and climate where the grapes are grown drastically affect these variables. Not only that, but the wine maker can control various things by the technique, temperature and yeast used during fermentation. Other variables such as fermenting or storing in oak barrels will also affect the taste.
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.
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.
Clearly, this has been a quick overview of wine, but hopefully it has filled some of the voids in your understanding of this historic drink.