Wine 101: What is Wine?

Welcome to Uncorked with Caroline’s Wine 101!

The goal of this multipart series is to make learning about wine accessible, engaging, and easy to understand. Whether you’re a wine enthusiast, a casual sipper, or just starting your journey, this series will cover the essentials — from understanding what wine is and how it’s made to tasting techniques, decoding wine labels, and pairing tips.

So, What Is Wine?

Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes. While wine can technically be made from any fruit, we’ll focus on wine made from grapes. It’s important to note that wine grapes are very different from the table grapes you’d find at the grocery store.

Wine grapes are smaller, sweeter, have seeds, and feature thicker skins compared to table grapes. These characteristics contribute to the wine’s flavor, tannin structure, and overall complexity.

There are thousands of wine grape varieties, most of which are cultivars of a single grape species: Vitis Vinifera. This species produces many of the world’s most celebrated wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir.

The History of Wine

Winemaking is both an art and a science that has evolved over thousands of years. Archaeological evidence suggests that grape cultivation and vinification (the process of making wine) began in Mesopotamia and areas surrounding the Caspian Sea between 6000 and 4000 BCE.

The earliest known traces of wine come from Georgia (c. 6000 BCE), Iran (Persia) (c. 5000 BCE), Armenia (c. 4100 BCE), and Sicily (c. 4000 BCE). In ancient times, wine was reserved for royalty and religious ceremonies, while commoners drank beer, mead, and ale.

The ancient Egyptians were the first to document the viticultural process, recording grape harvesting, crushing, and winemaking techniques on clay tablets. These have been discovered in the tombs of the elite.

The Greeks embraced wine as a central part of their culture, integrating it into literature, mythology, medicine, leisure, and religious ceremonies honoring the god Dionysus. The Romans later adopted and expanded Greek winemaking practices, spreading viticulture across Europe to regions that are still iconic in the wine world today: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

As trade routes expanded, explorers carried grapevine cuttings and winemaking knowledge to regions like North Africa, Mexico, and South America. Today, wine is produced on every continent except Antarctica. 

How Is Wine Made?

Great wine starts with high-quality grapes, and the viticultural process is closely tied to the lifecycle of the grapevine. Each stage of the growing season impacts that year’s vintage (the grapes harvested in a specific year). Here’s a breakdown of the vine’s lifecycle and its importance in winemaking:

1. Winter Pruning

During the winter months, vineyard managers and viticulturists prune last year’s growth. This labor-intensive process involves selecting the best canes (mature shoots) to produce the next season’s fruiting shoots. Proper pruning ensures a balanced crop load and promotes healthy vines.

2. Spring Bud Break

As temperatures warm, sap rises from the roots, and new buds emerge on the vines. These delicate buds are highly susceptible to frost, hail, and wind, which can damage or destroy the crop. A shortened growing season due to harsh weather often results in less ripe grapes with higher acidity.

3. Spring Flowering

If the buds survive, they develop into shoots with clusters of small flowers. Grape flowers are also called “perfect flowers” and are unique because they are hermaphroditic, meaning they can self-pollinate without the help of bees or other pollinators. Successful flowering leads to the development of grape clusters.

4. Summer Berry Growth & Veraison

Throughout the summer, grape clusters grow and remain green until a critical phase known as veraison. This process marks the onset of ripening, during which the grapes change color — red and purple for red wine varieties, and golden or amber for white varieties.

During this stage, growers may choose to perform green harvesting, removing unripe clusters to concentrate sugars and flavors in the remaining grapes, resulting in more intense, high-quality wine.

5. Fall Harvest

The harvest occurs when sugar levels (measured in Brix) have reached the winemaker’s desired balance with acidity. Grapes don’t ripen after being picked, so timing the harvest is critical.

Rainstorms during harvest are particularly problematic, as excess water can cause the grapes to swell, diluting flavors and increasing the risk of botrytis (noble rot), which is desirable only for certain dessert wines.

For sweet wines, some producers may leave grapes on the vine longer to raisinate (dry out), concentrating sugars and producing luscious late-harvest wines or botrytized wines like Sauternes or Tokaji.

After harvest, the vines enter dormancy, conserving energy throughout the winter until the next growing season.

The winemaking process varies depending on the style of wine being produced, but certain core steps remain the same. Stay tuned for the next installment, where we’ll explore vinification from crushing and fermentation to aging and bottling — turning grapes into the wine you love!