Learn
What wine actually is
Fermented grape juice — and why that simple description explains more than it seems to.
The short answer
Wine is the fermented juice of grapes. Yeast convert the sugar in ripe grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide, and everything else — colour, sweetness, bubbles, strength — follows from decisions taken before, during and after that.
Overview
Wine is grape juice that yeast has converted into alcohol. That is the whole of it. Everything else — the regions, the classifications, the vocabulary — is detail layered on top of one biological process.
Yeast eats the sugar in grape juice and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. If it eats all the sugar, the wine is dry. If it is stopped early, the wine is sweet. That single fact explains most of the sweetness levels you will encounter.
Grapes are unusual in having enough sugar to ferment to a stable alcohol level, enough acid to keep the result fresh, and enough flavour to be interesting. That is why wine is made from grapes and not from most other fruit.
Nothing else is required. Additives exist and serve real purposes, but wine at its simplest is grapes and time.
Where you can see it
- A wine with nothing added
- Most dry wine is grapes and yeast, plus a small amount of sulfur dioxide as a preservative. Everything you taste came from the fruit or was made during fermentation.
- A wine where a decision is obvious
- Port stops fermenting because spirit is added while sugar remains. That single choice makes it sweet and strong at the same time.
Sources
Sources consulted
- WSET educational materials and the Systematic Approach to Tasting — Wine & Spirit Education Trust