I guess na
ively I always thought wine was very simple to make: pick some grapes, let them ferment and hey presto! You have wine. I figured it was probably discovered in some backwater farmland in Ancient Greece sometime when a forgetful farmer left his basket of picked grapes out in the sun too long and under the watchful eye of an imperturbable goat, the juice gradually turned into wine – a discovery to the delight of the Greek family that Sunday afternoon and to future wine drinkers around the world.
Something we perhaps neglect to realise though is that winemakers have also been adding things to their wine for a couple of thousand years too. We are often misled to think that 100 years ago, everything was ‘natural’ – there were no chemicals added to food or drinks and that using ‘additives’ is a nasty development since the chemical revolution and McDonalisation of society. In fact, winemakers have always used additives in wine – it was developed simultaneously as an integral part of winemaking. Even the Romans would throw in lots of sulphur to their wine.
One of the biggest clues that wine is not just fermented grape juice is when you see labels on bottles stating that they are vegan, or even vegetarian. What? Go back a minute. Vegan? Vegetarian? Why wouldn’t it be? Animal products in wine?! This is where you read a bit further and see: ‘contains milk’ or ‘contains eggs’ which can be pretty confusing for new wine drinkers who thought they were just drinking grape juice.