🍷 Wine

Wine is a drink made by the alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes or grape must. In the European Union, only a drink made from grapes may be called wine: its actual alcoholic strength is at least 8.5% (9% in southern zones), its total strength is usually no more than 15%, and its acidity is no lower than 3.5 g/L. Drinks made from other fruit have to carry the name of that fruit, for example "cherry wine".

The oldest traces of grape wine were found in Georgia. In shards of large jars from the settlements of Shulaveris Gora and Gadachrili Gora, scientists detected tartaric acid about 8,000 years old, dating to 6000–5800 BC. In 2013 UNESCO added the Georgian method of making wine in qvevri to its list of intangible cultural heritage.

Wine gets its color from the skins, not the juice: the juice of almost all grape varieties is colorless. For white wine only the juice is fermented; for red, the crushed grapes ferment together with their skins, which give the wine its color and tannins. Rosé is left briefly on the skins of dark varieties, while orange wine is a white wine fermented on its skins for at least a month. In sparkling wine the carbon dioxide pressure is 3 bar or higher.

According to the OIV, in 2025 the world produced 227 million hectoliters of wine from 7 million hectares of vineyards. The largest producers are Italy (44.4 million hl), France (36.1) and Spain (28.7), and the largest market is the United States.

Why it matters to you. On an EU wine label, look for a few things. Since December 2023, the energy value and a list of ingredients are required (often via a QR code), while allergens, including sulfites above 10 mg/L, are printed directly on the bottle. Sweetness is shown in words such as "dry", "medium dry", "medium sweet" and "sweet", and "dry" usually means no more than 4 g of sugar per liter. Store bottles with corks lying down, in the dark, at a steady temperature of about 13 °C.

100 g of red wine contains 10.6 g of alcohol and 85 kcal, and almost all of those calories come from the alcohol itself. The WHO stresses that there is no safe amount of alcohol for health.