By Sharon Stajda 

First Come The Grapes...

What is wine? It depends on who you are. Louis Pasteur, a scientist, described it as "the most healthful and most hygienic of all beverages." Gourmet Benjamin Franklin called wine "proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy." The authors of a recent textbook, in a more pragmatic vein, say wine is the beverage resulting from the partial or complete fermentation of sound, ripe grapes under controlled conditions.

Whatever definition one accepts, the process of wine making begins with the planting of grapevines and continues until the wine is consumed. Only then does wine—a living substance—cease to develop and mature.

Physical and chemical changes take place throughout the growth of "sound, ripe grapes" and the wine making process. While the grapes mature and the wine ferments and ages, man can only guide and protect the natural process, perhaps speed the operation a bit, or slow it, and impose quality and sanitation controls.

Within this framework, California enologists (the science of wine-making is called enology) work in commercial wineries and research centers. Their study and experimentation probe deeper into the new how and why of wine making than ever before, helping to make California's wines the soundest and most consistent in history.

There are few absolutes in wine making. No two wineries use exactly the same techniques, the same equipment, the same blends of grape varieties. In California, as elsewhere, winemakers strive for individuality. Just as there is no absolute in taste, so each winemaker works in his own way to grow the finest grapes and produce the best wines.

The basic natural changes of grapes into wine, however, remain constant, as do some of the operations in commercial wine making. No satisfactory commercial substitute, for example, has yet been proven for picking wine grapes by hand. The skilled harvesters who come to wine country each vintage season choose only bunches of ripe grapes, clipping them from the vines with shears or short curved knives.

No longer do you see laborers carrying grapes in wicker baskets out of the vineyards and crushing them underfoot. Modern California vintners replace these romantic trappings with more efficient and sanitary trucks, mobile trailers and power-operated crushers.

Efficiency in this case means not only a dollars and cents saving—it means higher quality wines, as the fresh grapes are rushed from vine to winery and into the crusher within hours after picking. At the winery grapes are inspected, weighed and moved into the crusher-stemmer on a conveyor.

Quality also is aided by use of crusher-stemmers such as the Italian-developed "Garolla", which operate so gently that grape seeds remain unbroken. The Garolla receives grapes in a large, coarsely-perforated horizontal roller. Paddles revolve within the cylinder, crushing grapes by impact and sending stems out an opening in the end of the machine.

Juice is forced through the perforations in the revolving cylinder and falls into a holding tank beneath the crusher. This "must"—fresh juice, sometimes with grape skins, seeds and pulp—then is pumped to fermenting tanks.

 Please check out my other Lenses...To learn more about wine Under One Pergola !

I love wine, and have had so much fun writing, and building several  Squidoo lenses on the very subject. I wanted to make it easy, and convienent for my wine loving readers to have a look see at all my wine related sites, under one pergola - so to speak.  If you have stumbled into this page, and love wine?  I have put together some great informational lenses. So please stop in.

http://www.squidoo.com/sharswineinfo/