"Beer is God's way of telling us that He loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Benjamin Franklin
While I love this quote and believe it to be true, I find that wine is an even greater example of this truth. All of my beliefs and philosophies concerning wine revolve around the beauty and simplicity of the vine! Wine is unique among other alcoholic beverages in that it is meant to be made. If you look at the composition and makeup of the grape you must believe that God's intention for grapes were to become wine. This also lends to the fact that understanding wine really is simple. Yes it requires time and effort to seek out the best wines, but at its essence it really is not that complicated.
The grapevine is a weak-steamed climber that grows on every continent except Antarctica. It is the worlds most important fruit crop and produces in excess of 60 million tons of fruit every year, with 80% of that destined to become wine. God has provided the grape with everything it needs to produce the wonderful beverage we know as wine. Possessing the perfect balance of acid and sugar this fruit has a bloom that catches yeast and there they wait for the skin to be broken so that they can begin their mission of converting the sugar into alcohol. That is all wine is. If you traveled down the road to your local grapevine and took a bucket full of grapes and crushed them in a few days they would begin to ferment and turn into wine. Naturally. Granted it may not be very good wine, but it would be wine nonetheless. Its simplicity is its beauty.
I had the opportunity to make wine this year. I took a half ton of cabernet grapes, crushed them and put them in barrels and allowed nature to take its course. Fermentation started naturally and then I added a small amount of cultured yeast towards the end of fermentation just to make sure it finished dry. Once fermentation finished I added a small amount of So2 to stabilize the wine and then added bacteria to start malolactic fermentation. Since then I have done nothing and after 7 months I have to say that the wine is tasting great and that all my theories have proven true.
If the right work is done in the vineyard and the grapes are harvested with balanced levels of sugar and acid then no science is needed. I wish the domestic wine producing community would take a step back and look at what wine really is in its essence and simplicity.
Comments