The Building Blocks Of Wine
The story of wine is a vibrant one, dating back over eight thousand years ago to the Eurasian heartland in the regions located around modern-day Georgia. From there the winemaking method is considered to have spread east and west into Asia and Europe, respectively, with archeological research in the Balkans dated to about six and a half thousand years ago. Wine was highly prestigious in many cultures, with the peoples of the Mediterranean basin worshipping patron deities of the beverage and the drink playing an important role in society. In many parts of East Asia, nevertheless, wine was not as highly esteemed, except by the periodic poet, for the unbridled passions associated with its intake went against social decorum. Other parts of Asia, with Muslim sensibilities, forbid it outright.
Wine is usually made from fruits, though other materials can be fermented and produced into drinks, too. Part of the interesting history of wine involves its diverse manifestations across the world. In the West, wines are typically made with fruits, especially grapes – indeed, the word itself comes from the Proto-Indoeuropean for “grape.” In Asia, however, wines have more generally been made from grains like rice and sorghum. Vegetables like potatoes and ginger have also been used, and Mongolian nomads are used to fermented horse and goat milk from a very young age!
Purists, on the other hand, generally regard as wine only that which is made from grapes. Barley and vegetable wines, they point out, are more like beer and spirits. Such wine connoisseurs know the difference between production operations and mere alcohol content. Thus, for them, the word “wine” may be both adjective and noun, used to describe alcoholic content as much as refer to a specific method of production. Incidentally, the legal label of “wine” is governed by actual regulations in the laws of many countries.