The Science of Wine??

So I'm one of those people who needs to know everything about everything with regard to my hobbies and career. AKA, knowing how to do something is fine, but I like to know why. I'm the guy that researched the physics of hitting a golf ball because I "had to" (OCD )

Now that I'm a few weeks into this hobby and I'm comfortable with what to do, I would like to learn more about the why.

Has anyone found a single source (books, site, whatever, in one place) that talks about why wine becomes wine, the chemicals, yeast, reactions, S02, etc..etc.. I'd like to start reading up?

Thanks!

good luck....there is so many different articles written on the same subject with so many different interpetations.
We all know that alcohol is made as the yeast eats the sugar, but the kinds of ferment, the stages,the chemical reaction in each is a debate.
as clearing with agents
as ageing
as when to bottle, etc.
I have been researching sorbate for the past two weeks...and have read countless articles, papers on it..
And still have not found the answer I am looking for.....

Depending on how much you want to science you could look up white papers or journal articles about certain fields. I found this quite usefull while I was researching organic VS inorganic nutrient additions.

whynot said:

So I'm one of those people who needs to know everything about everything with regard to my hobbies and career. AKA, knowing how to do something is fine, but I like to know why. I'm the guy that researched the physics of hitting a golf ball because I "had to" (OCD )

Now that I'm a few weeks into this hobby and I'm comfortable with what to do, I would like to learn more about the why.

Has anyone found a single source (books, site, whatever, in one place) that talks about why wine becomes wine, the chemicals, yeast, reactions, S02, etc..etc.. I'd like to start reading up?

Thanks!

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We have some similarities! (I have actually given a series of public lay lectures on the physics of golf.)

I have also been looking into good sources to learn the science of winemaking. All I can say is that I have not yet found a single source (as in, one-stop source) that I am happy with. I am currently working my way through some older texts I found at my library (Biological principles in fermentation, by J.G. Carr, and Chemistry of winemaking, A. Dinsmoor Webb, editor), but nothing that I can recommend strongly. I hope someone else can recommend you (and me) a good source.

Do you have access to a decent library? I think James is correct: there is a lot of info, and it varies a lot. Skimming several sources may give you a better picture of what is "accepted knowledge" and what is not.

In some ways, I think it is not possible to have a single source for the information you seek. Biochemistry is very complex. On one hand, you will need to brush up on regular chemistry, so an "Intro to Chemistry" text is probably in order. Ditto for biology. (I recently found myself having to learn the difference between haploid and diploid cells, for example.) Then we need some text about winemaking that assumes you have this previous knowledge.

I hope you find a good overview, either from this thread or on your own. If you do, please let me know!!!!

Whynot,

So I'm one of those people who needs to know everything about everything with regard to my hobbies and career. AKA, knowing how to do something is fine, but I like to know why.

Click to expand...

Welcome to my world! That describes me to the letter!
I would pick up:
Techniques in Home Winemaking - Daniel Pambianchi (and anything else written by D. Pambianchi)
Home Winemaking -Iverson
The Way to make Wine - Warrick
These are good starters, there are books that go much further into the science of making wine, but I found these to be easy reads.
We have a few professional winemakers here and and some members that I'm surprised aren't pros with the caliber of knowledge that they have, I'd still ask as many questions as you can

wine is not all science, good to excellent wine is also a ART.

Three titles, but some are expensive texts:

Handbook of Enology, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
Wine Science: Principles and Applications
Understanding Wine Technology: The Science of Wine Explained

Older but done by the famous UC-Davis professor Dr. Maynard Amerine and available cheap used:

Wine Production Technology in the United States
Table Wines: The Technology of Their Production
Wines: Their Sensory Evaluation

Edited by Amerine:

Book of California Wine

Many of these are scholarly compendiums for industry, so be prepared for some textbook style reading. They are replete with usable information, IMO. The older works by Dr. Amerine open the eyes to the way commercial wines have been produced in the past and also offer the modern winemaker new ideas for techniques, especially "Wine Production Technology." Try to find the newest version of that book used that you can.

Thanks all, as I'm searching I'm finding out what many of you have already known ..

Did find this..

http://extension.ucdavis.edu/unit/w...&prgList=VIT&AreaName=Viticulture+and+Enology

Agreed, great wine is 90% experience in my opinion, but it doesn't hurt to know the ins and outs.

Pumpkinman said:

Agreed, great wine is 90% experience in my opinion, but it doesn't hurt to know the ins and outs.

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I agree with this, however if someone else has the experience that can be shared (including written down), then I don't have to start from square 1 ..

The reason I prefer academic research papers written for the wine industry is that the industry has a challenge not often placed on home winemakers - it must produce a consistent product true to a certain taste in the hundreds and thousands of gallons, over years and years and years, so its customers will know that brand will have that flavor when opened. Academics study the processes used and the chemistry involved to achieve that repeatability.

makes senses, also I see a debate over "natural" or naked wine and a lot of people wanting to make wine of the "old days".. which as I understand it was a lot of luck and inconsistency (like your saying, unacceptable for production today). So the use of the chemicals is required to ensure safety and consistency.

In truth I just want to understand the process a little more scientifically so I can come to my own conclusions. Why we do what at each step, and what's happening, etc.. etc..

I'm actually working on a book myself, hoping to strike a healthy balance between jump-starting a newcomer while being a nice reference to an advanced winemaker..

Wont be out for some time yet, but I've also come to notice that while there's a lot of reading material on winemaking, there isnt much that actually walks you from "so you want to make wine?" to "pop the cork!", with a blend of art, science, tradition, and common sense.

It's easy to research TOO much with wine making; it's easy to read about things that, while they're nice to know, they dont help you make better wine. These facts will help you understand what's going on, but they dont warrant a whole book to cover the topic, unless like Jim mentioned, you're making hundreds of thousands of gallons that all have to be basically-identical from season to season, and even then, knowing that much doesn't really help you much after a while.

For what it's worth, I gave a 50 minute talk to our grape and wine association on the chemistry of wine. I put the slides and my talk on YouTube:

[ame="http://youtu.be/ivMewfj3WLE"]http://youtu.be/ivMewfj3WLE[/ame]

whynot said:

makes senses, also I see a debate over "natural" or naked wine and a lot of people wanting to make wine of the "old days".. which as I understand it was a lot of luck and inconsistency (like your saying, unacceptable for production today). So the use of the chemicals is required to ensure safety and consistency.

In truth I just want to understand the process a little more scientifically so I can come to my own conclusions. Why we do what at each step, and what's happening, etc.. etc..

Click to expand...

You get those older books and your eyes will be opened about commercial winemaking. Then you read the newer ones and see what's what on the changes in the industry. To me it's all fascinating stuff. Some of the safe old commercial practices can be utilized by advanced the home winemaker. Some of the practices in the 60s up through the 80s I would never do today, and the UC-Davis program and science research sprang from an effort to better the industry. For example, the preferred filtering medium back then was asbestos. :<

But there are loads of other techniques and science you can use at home. I learned a ton.

Whynot, I apologize if my post came across as knocking the fact that you want to read up on the science of wine making, just the opposite, I commend you on it, I'm a big fan of researching and learning as much as I can!
My hat is off to you.

Even researching wine , I found there is 3 different answers to the same questions, form the same 3 people.
It is just one big debate...but all can agree on this....grapes and fruit have to be fermented...after that its all up to you.

Greg, Thanks for posting that lecture. I just listened to/watched it, and it was worth my time. Thanks.

Thanks, Paul. I was trying to give our grape growers and beginning winemakers some insight into the chemistry. That way they have a better appreciate for the grape and what affects the wine made from it.

I agree with Tom, Dan Pambianchi's Techniques of Home Wine Making is really excellent. And Dan is very approachable. He is a professional wine maker from Canada and he sometimes appears on this forum. He writes well and he responds to emails. I believe that he is very busy at the moment preparing a second more technical book for publication.
Jim's point about papers published in peer reviewed journals is IMO spot on. James' point that for every three people there are nine opinions is true but for the most part opinions and a couple of dollars buys you a cup of coffee. Opinions that are not evidence based are worthless and sometimes worth even less than that. (And evidence is not "in my opinion or "in my one experience"). Peer reviewed journals have a fairly high bar that the writer needs to leap over before that paper is published. Self published papers may be excellent - perhaps superlative, but they have no such bar to cross. But even in fields such as medicine (and there are medical doctors on this forum, I think) different treatments may be indicated for different patients with the same condition. And different doctors may view some apparently "indicated" treatments as less effective or ineffective. That is what happens when a field is BOTH an art and a science. The science explains what is happening but the art helps you understand whether what happens is what you want and whether there may be another way to achieve a similar outcome with more of what you want and less of what you don't want.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1550652362/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20