Complex Numbers

Keep Wining

I've noted before the sometimes blurry distinction between beer, wine, cider, and other delicious fermented beverages. One recent example: "Going Bananas" 

Why Is Wine (Almost) Always Made From Grapes?  
On the merits of blueberry, cherry, and pumpkin wine.

Short version: In general, beer is made from grain; wine is made from fruit. But then you have sake, which is called rice wine, even though rice is a grain. And cider, which is made from fruit (apple or pear) but is more similar to, and marketed like, beer.

I note this because "pumpkin wine" threw me before I remembered that pumpkin is basically winter squash, and squash is technically a fruit (in the same way that tomatoes are technically a fruit, and yes, tomato wine exists but that's another day's blog).

Anyway. The article, which is from Gastro Obscura.

In 1951, Konstantin Frank arrived in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. An immigrant from the Soviet Union, he took a job at a local state agricultural station.

Where the CIA undoubtedly had at least three guys watching him.

Once there, he tried to convince his colleagues to grow grapes from Europe—Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet—and make fine wine. He was ignored.

"No, teach us how to make vodka!"

So Frank went to herculean lengths to prove them wrong. He drew on techniques he’d developed while producing and researching wine under Stalin in frigid Ukraine—like burying the vines each winter.

Even more stereotypical than vodka: Russians stealing shit from Ukraine.

Frank’s case is both exceptional and typical. (He eventually succeeded in bottling tasty Chardonnays and Rieslings, inspiring wineries to set up shop in Virginia, New York, and New Jersey.)

I'm most familiar with Virginia wines, of course, but I will note that the Niagara Valley produces some excellent wines, including ice wine, which pretty much requires the grapes to freeze on the vine. They lose most of the crop, but what remains concentrates the sugars in the fruit.

Why is this? If wine is simply fermented fruit juice, why didn’t Frank turn to the blueberries that grow easily in the Finger Lakes? Why do Egyptians struggle with grapevines in the desert rather than sell date-palm wine?

I don't think "simply" gets to be used here.

Wine made with other produce does exist: You can buy cherry wine and blueberry wine. But the market for them is tiny. They’re seen as a novelty and not taken seriously within the industry.

I had some homemade blueberry wine a while back. As with homemade mead, the results can vary wildly in quality. Of course, if a friend makes it, you force a smile and go "This is wonderful!" and then find a houseplant to pour it into when the host isn't looking.

But the history of (grape) wine’s ubiquity looks a lot like how Greco-Roman constellations are now almost universally known: We have Plato and Caesar to thank.

Today's Greeks make a distilled beverage from grapes. It's called Raki, and it's disturbingly good.

In BC times, most humans got tipsy from beer and other grain-based beverages. Almost everyone grew grain, whereas grapes came from a limited number of grape-growing areas, such as Georgia.

No, no, Georgia is for peaches.

Yes, that's a joke; I know which Georgia they're talking about. Duh.

Per Tom Standage in A History of the World in 6 Glasses, ancient Greece was the first place where wine-drinking became universal. The vines took well to the Mediterranean climate, producing enough wine for drinkers of all social classes, who often opted for watered-down wine to sterilize pathogens in the water and to stay sober enough for symposiums of (allegedly) high-brow thought and debate.

A couple of notes here:

The amount of alcohol in wine may or may not be enough to sterilize pathogens. My sources differ on that, and it might depend on how strong the wine is. But to make wine (or beer) you usually first boil the water, which definitely removes pathogens. The classical Greeks may not have known about microscopic life, but I'm sure they saw the effects.

And second, I'd have to have something stronger than watered-down wine to participate in a Greek philosophy seminar.

When Rome established its empire, it admired and adopted much of Greek culture.

You spelled "appropriated" wrong.

Grapes dominate the wine industry, but their hegemony is not complete. To learn why grapes are the go-to fruit for winemakers, and why he bottles vintages made from blueberries and cranberries, I spoke with Keith Bodine of Sweetgrass Farm Winery in Union, Maine.

It is true that the very last US state I'd associate with wine would be... okay, Alaska, but Maine would be a close second.

The rest of the article is an interview with Bodine, and I don't have much more to say about it, but I will include the money quote, as it were; the answer to the question in the headline:

Over time, we’ve selected and propagated [grapes] for characteristics that make better wine, or wine as we know it. That’s mainly higher sugars.

And:

Most fruits have half the sugar, or less.

The article helpfully ends with a short list of wineries working with non-grape fruits (including grapefruit). All of them are eastern North America, except for one outlier in... Israel? Israel, which historically was all about grapes? Okay. Fine. If I ever go back there, I'll try it. Meanwhile, the one in New Jersey (which makes the pumpkin wine) might make for a good overnight trip for me, and I've been getting the travel bug again.

Unfortunately, I still don't have a car...

Oh, one more thing. Speaking of beverages. Between me and PuppyTales , we now have enough drink concoctions to start a collection. I'm going to put them in a book item and link it here when I've added some entries. Most of them are Star Trek themed, and I've included some of the recipes in here already, but it would be nice to have them all in one place. I'm mostly noting it here to remind myself to actually follow through on this, something I don't have a great track record at.