What is Wine?

What is wine? Seems easy doesn’t it? Grapes and all that. But not so gentle reader, not so. I spent two years with the heads of the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire Arms) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) rewriting the definition of wine in the US.

I was a founder and CEO of Ariel Vineyards non alcoholic wine at the time. The US government had no place to put us–they didn’t even know which bureau we fell under–since they were reliably informed by their scientists that we were impossible. After we had already sold thousands of cases mind you. Kinda hurt my feelings.

Here’s another take on that question by Esther Mobley writing for the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on May 9, 2019. All rights are there’s.

‘It’s 2019, and the boundaries are blurring. I go into wine shops and have to squint to tell the difference between bottles of sparkling wine and bottles of cider on the shelves. At my local beer bar, at least a quarter of the draft pours have peaches or boysenberry or wine grapes in them. Things I was always trained to dislike in wine — like high concentrations of brettanomyces — I’m reconsidering as positive attributes if present in beer or cider.

“Clean,” which always seemed the most innocuous of fermented beverage descriptors, is suddenly a dirty word in some drinking circles. Funk is in. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

As a reporter, I’m fascinated…” Esther Mobley, The Chronicle, May 9, 2019

To read the rest of the article just go here.

If you’re interested in my two years defining wine in Washington, DC you can read it in my book, The Secret Life of Wine, Chapter 11, “What is this wine you speak of?”

What do you think wine is?