Читать книгу The Wine Etiquette Guide - Your Defense Against Wine Snobbery - Chuck Blethen - Страница 7

“Wine gives strength to weary men”

- Homer

Wine is usually fermented grape juice. You can make consumable wine from almost any non-toxic fruits, vegetables, leaves, bark, wood, roots, flowers, grains, seeds, pods, honey, and leaf or flower buds. Wine can also be made from sap, nectar, moss, lichen, fungus, algae, seaweed, corn silk, coconut milk, germinated seeds, animal blood, and even animal urine. When I refer to wine in this book it will be the grape variety.

The first mention of wine in recorded history dates back to 5000 BC. The popular drink of the time was mead – honey wine (See Appendix F). As populations grew, so did the demand for mead. The available honey to make mead was seasonal and was fixed by the availability of wild honeycombs in the forests. The scarcity of honey lead to the discovery that grape juice could serve as a source of sugar for the wild yeast to convert to alcohol. Grapes could be planted in large quantities and had a broad geographical growing area. There is a bottle of wine made by the Romans in 325AD that was unearthed in Germany in the late 1800s. There are many references to wine in most religious texts and in ancient writings from all cultures around the world. You can find dozens of books written on wine history alone. You only need to know that it is an old alcoholic beverage that has a long and colorful history that has been ingrained into the cultures of most countries around the world.

Wine consists of water, alcohol, sugar, various proteins, coloring agents, flavors, tartaric acid, malic acid, lactic acid, citric acid, tannins, yeasts, clarifiers, sulphites, and certain types of bacteria. That is a lot of components for a beverage that is thought of as an agricultural product. However, over the centuries, wine has been integrated into our culture.

One should be aware that there are those people who have allergies to wines, or various chemical components of wine. It has been estimated that about 10% of the population at large is allergic to the sulphites in wine. Their allergic reactions can range from a mild headache to a migraine headache to severe throat swelling necessitating a trip to the emergency room of a hospital. Good commercial winemaking methodologies require that wineries have various sulphite compounds added to wine during the fermentation and aging processes. Primarily, it is for safety reasons – small concentrations of these sulphite compounds prevent certain bacteria from growing in the wine that can cause the wine to have a bad taste.

Some bacteria can actually have a positive effect on wines. For example, malolactic fermentation is caused by bacteria that exists in all grape juice in trace quantities. Some wineries do not deal with malolactic fermentation prior to bottling. There would actually be a danger of bottles exploding if malolactic fermentation were allowed to proceed in the bottle. The presence of sulphites prevents this from happening in commercial wines. Sulphites also inhibit the growth of yeasts in the wine. Most experts agree that sulphites also prevent browning of grape musts during the winemaking process and enhance the flavor of the finished wine.

Overall, the addition of sulphites is a good thing in the winemaking process. Just keep in mind that some people cannot drink wine because of the sulphites or other chemical components in wine. Also keep in mind that some people are more allergic than others to the same concentration of these chemical compounds. Most commercial wineries today have sulphite concentrations ranging from 30 parts per million (ppm) to 100 ppm at the time of bottling. US Government regulations require wineries to put a statement on all bottles of wine that contain more than 10 ppm of sulphites that are intended for interstate commerce. This is little comfort to those who are allergic to 1 to 10 ppm sulphites. Local sales of the wine within a state do not require this labeling so beware! There are a few winemakers in the world who do not use sulphites in their winemaking. Look for very small boutique wineries to produce wines that are free of sulphites. Wines made this way are also prone to having a much shorter shelf life and are intended to be consumed soon after bottling.

Tannins also create allergic reactions in some people. Generally speaking, it is difficult for people with this allergy to drink most red wines but they can tolerate many white wines.

Wine has become part of our daily rituals and traditions. To be comfortable around wines, one should have a basic understanding of what wine is, how wine is made, and be familiar with all of the historical background that surrounds winemaking today.

Anytime you get a group of wine drinkers together, there is always someone who will bring up the health benefits derived from drinking wine. There have been countless numbers of studies conducted over the last century regarding the impact of wine drinking on one’s health. Wine, like any other item ingested, should be taken in moderation. Just like eating 8 pounds of chocolate a day or consuming 15 bags of potato chips for lunch is unhealthy, so would drinking 8 bottles of wine every day.

Many prominent cardiologists have noted that drinking wine reduces coronary heart disease incidence. This was known as the “French Paradox” for a while, because doctors couldn’t figure out why the cream-loving French weren’t dying from heart attacks frequently. Wine consumption was the answer.

So what exactly does wine do to our body? It alters blood lipid levels, lowers total cholesterol, and raises the high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels thus keeping the blood vessels clean. The polyphenols in red wine, especially Cabernet Sauvignon, keep arteries clear.

It also has beneficial effects on glucose levels, that may help to reduce the risk of diabetes, a major contributor to heart attacks. The tannins, quercetin and the phenols are antioxidants that may help fight free radicals that often lead to cancer and heart disease.

Wine also helps prevent stomach ulcers. In a recent medical study of 1800 people, scientists tested for presence of helico bacterpylori - a bacterium which causes ulcer infections. Compared to non-drinkers, people who drank one glass of wine a day had 7% fewer of these bacteria. People who drank two glasses a day had 18% fewer bacteria. People who drank 3 or more glasses of wine each day had 33% fewer bacteria.

So wine does have a positive impact on your health – if consumed in moderation. The next time you lift a glass of wine you can truly say “Here’s to your health” and mean it – literally and figuratively!