WHERE THERE - IS WINE...

Wine for me has always been a drink that brings people together. From ancient Greek times, writers such as Euripides constantly sang about the magical powers of this drink. He once said, “Where there is no wine, there is no love”. Even during those ancient times, wine was associated with all the good things that life has to offer. For the Greeks, wine was seen as the supreme drink. It was a chance for society to sit, drink and chat - not a terrible way to spend your day.

Moving forward to more modern times, Pilgrims and travellers knew that the only thing to bring to a party or festivities of any sort was this lovely purple drink. The party did not start until the wine had arrived. In fact, it has been said that wine was served at the first Thanksgiving. At first, drinking wine was not collectively considered a luxury product as we see it today. In ancient Greek and Roman times, even the poorest of the poor could afford their daily wine dose - talk about good priorities.

In times such as these, where communication is such an important aspect, drinks like wine act as a social lubricant. Gathering around a table, sharing a meal and wine has always been the root of some of the world’s oldest spiritual traditions. A child or toddler at the dinner table can always lift their sippy cup of grape juice to toast your glass of wine - this is good communication.

When we drink a glass of wine, it acts as a social lubricant due to its ability to make us feel looser, more relaxed and more open. When we talk about liquid courage, that’s what we mean. When meeting someone for the first time, or simply having dinner with friends or family, a bottle of wine is the ideal drink to bring people together and share.

So the next time you are thinking about a drink for celebration, sadness, struggle, passion, existential life crisis or just general boredom, think of a bottle of wine -- it’s with you through all your ups and downs in life. To paraphrase Euripides, where there is wine, there is love!

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What is the difference between dry, sweet and semi-sweet?

New wine drinkers always struggle with these words. All they refer to is the level of residual sugar that the wine contains, that is, the amount of sugar that has been left after the grape sugar has been converted to alcohol. A wine is considered dry when all the sugar has been converted to alcohol leaving no or very little perception of sweetness on your palate. As for sweet wines, not all the sugars are converted to alcohol during the fermentation process. This is usually done by stopping fermentation at a certain stage. Semi-sweet or off-dry wines are the balance between both, they have some perception of sweetness on the palate.

Interestingly enough, not everyone has the same sensitivity to sweetness on the palate. This is due to personal preferences and in some cases cultural differences. For example, Europeans and North Americans have different perceptions of sweetness with the latter often preferring slightly higher levels of sweetness.

This is why wine can be technically described as dry but offer some levels of sweetness to certain individuals. The factors affecting this include things such as grape variety, or maturation techniques such as oak ageing. Oak ageing can impart flavours such as caramel or chocolate to the wine.

The common perception is that people who like sweet wines are not knowledgeable about wine. This is not true, some of the best world class wines can be considered sweet - try a bottle of Sauternes if you have the budget for it.

So an easy way to avoid confusion or offending people is to describe wines in terms of the style with words such as rich, fruity or floral or you could always use the term it is made in an off-dry style.

Written by Josiah Kahiu in "Yummy", Kenya, vol. 5.2, February 2018, excerpt p.62. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.