The history of wine-making is a rich and exciting history of an art and a science that has fascinated and delighted humanity for thousands of years. As you have probably found out from the “Grape and Wine – A Brief History” page, man’s love affair with wine goes back thousands of years and has been intimately tied to the cultivation of various grapes, particularly the Common Vine Grape, or Vitis vinifera, in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. But how is wine made from grapes?

The short answer is, through fermentation. Common grape wine is nothing more than fermented grape juice. But of course, the history of wine-making is a lot more complex than that, and how wine is made depends on the age, the civilization, and the technology available. The science behind making wine is known as enology, or oenology, from the Greek oinos (which means, surprisingly enough, “wine”), and it is a field that enjoys increasing professional recognition. Some colleges and universities have actually started offering enology as an undergraduate degree. Enology, which deals with how wine is made, is to be distinguished from viticulture, which is specific to the cultivation of the grapes themselves.

Throughout the ages, the two key places in wine-making have been the vineyard, where the grapes are grown, and the winery, where they are turned into wine. After being harvested at the most suitable time, the grapes are crushed at the winery — depending on the type of wine, with or without their seeds and skin (red wines are made with, white wines, without). In modern wineries, stainless steel fermentation tanks are used for the process of making the wine itself. Fermentation is the process by which yeast consumes the sugars in the grape juice, which is how alcohol comes about. It is not enough to ferment the juice, however. Good wine must be aged in oak barrels for at least a few months. Making sparkling wine is similar to making white wine, but it also involves some extra processes.