🍷 Fermentation
The work of yeasts or bacteria that turn sugar into alcohol or acid.
Fermentation is the work of yeast or bacteria. They turn sugar into other substances: alcohol or acid.
This is how wine is made. Grape juice contains sugar. Yeast eats it and releases alcohol and carbon dioxide. This is alcoholic fermentation. It can happen on its own, with wild yeast from the grape skins, or be started with added yeast. After it, wine sometimes goes through malolactic fermentation, where bacteria turn sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid.
People have used fermentation for a long time. One of the earliest known fermented drinks was found at Jiahu in China and is about nine thousand years old. Fermentation also matters in dairy: lactic acid bacteria turn milk into yoghurt and other fermented milk products. Without fermentation there would be no wine, beer, yoghurt or kefir.
How it connects to Wine
🍷 Fermentation → kind of → 🍷 Winemaking → kind of → 🍷 Wine
Links
- Previous step
- 🍇 From grapes to must, 🍷 Chaptalisation, Salami, 🍷 Jiahu, Saucisson sec, 🌭 Chorizo, Salame Piacentino, Salame Felino, Salame Cremona, Salame di Varzi
and 15 more
Salame Brianza, Salamini italiani alla cacciatora, Finocchiona, Ciauscolo, Soppressata di Calabria, Chorizo de Cantimpalos, Chorizo Riojano, Salchichón de Vic, Sobrasada de Mallorca, Saucisson de l'Ardèche, Saucisson sec d'Auvergne, Saucisson de Lacaune, Gyulai kolbász, Szegedi szalámi, Slavonski kulen - Next step
- 🧪 Wine adjustment and stabilisation, 🍾 How sparkling wine is made, 🍷 Clarification of wine, 🍷 Pasteurisation of wine
- Part of
- 🍷 Winemaking
- Similar and different
- Noble mould on dry sausages, Tea oxidation
- Wine and milk
- 🧫 Starter culture, 🥣 Fermented milk products
- In other topics
- Dry-cured sausages, 🫒 Spanish-style green olives, 🫒 Olives
Frequently asked questions
What is fermentation in simple terms?
It is when yeast or bacteria turn sugar into alcohol or acid.
What kinds of fermentation are there in winemaking?
Alcoholic and malolactic.
How is wine fermentation like milk fermentation?
In both, microbes change the food, but milk ends up with acid while grape must ends up with alcohol.
Guides
What to read next
- 🍇 From grapes to must — The first steps at the winery: sorting, destemming, crushing and pressing — the road from bunch to must.
- 🧫 Starter culture — A culture of lactic acid bacteria that ferments milk.
- Salami — Salami is a dry-cured sausage of chopped pork, hard fat, salt and spices that is never cooked: fermentation and drying ripen it for weeks or months, leaving a ruby-red cut flecked with fat.
- Gyulai kolbász — Gyulai kolbász is a Hungarian PGI dry sausage: minced pork and firm lard with paprika, garlic, pepper and caraway, stuffed in pairs into pig small intestine, smoked over beech and dried in Gyula and Békéscsaba.
- 🍷 Jiahu — An ancient settlement in China where traces of a drink made from rice, honey and fruit were found.
Similar
What it includes
Sources
- FAO: Fermented fruits and vegetables. A global perspective, ch. 2 Basic principles of fermentation
- McGovern P. E. et al. Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China. PNAS, 2004 (PMC)
- Tofalo R. et al. Oenococcus oeni lifestyle modulates wine volatilome and malolactic fermentation outcome. Front. Microbiol., 2021 (PMC)
- Dell'Alma M. et al. Multi-omic characterization of microbial dynamics during spontaneous fermentation of sweet wine Picolit variety. Front. Microbiol., 2026 (PMC)
- Wikidata Q41760