no sugar or yeast. why?

[safronsue]

continuing on my learning journey here in Greece, grapes still on the vines. Went to check out yeast available in the shop and learnt they only add it here if there is a problem with starting. Or sugar. That apparently makes headache producing wine. (I thought all sugar was converted to alcohol but they say the sugar refining process does the bad ). I've resolved to crush small quantity of grapes today and re measure with new hydrometro to get a good reading.

Why do they not add sugar or yeast here and everything i read has it on the recipe list? I am planning on working with a simple recipe from Pesgens book that i found on here.

 

[grapeman]

Since you are in Greece, the grapes you are using are probably wine grapes which get high enough in natural sugars that no additional sugar is needed and if any is, it would be small amounts.

Wine has been mad over there so many years that there are lots of native natural yeasts present, thus no need to add any. We do it over here often because many places don't have a healthy native population of yeast so we add it to make sure we get the desired yeast to provide the desired effects.