Wine

(See also: Alcoholic Fermentation, Winemaking / Winemaker)

“Wine is the result of fruit spoilage under controlled conditions,” as the Californian winemaker Jim Clendenen once observed. Spoilage means microbial activity, but to get a wine that you’d want to drink you need exactly the right microbes and that means yeast capable of alcoholic fermentation. Although wine can be made from all manner of fruits (if you add sugar also from flowers, herbs and other things) usually when we talk about wine the word refers to an alcoholic beverage made from grapes. To make wine the grapes must first be crushed and/or pressed so that the yeast can get at the sugar inside the grapes. Controlled conditions means that the grape juice (for white wine) crushed grapes (for red wine) need to be the right temperature so that the yeasts can feed on the sugars and produce the alcohol while reproducing.