What Is Wine?

What is wine?

This seems like a question with an obvious enough answer. It’s that liquid that comes in glass bottles and is made with fermented grapes that have French, or Italian, or sometimes German or Spanish names. It’s a fermented beverage that began in the Neolithic period around 6000BC, according to excavation sites in the Republic of Georgia. At least this is what I find When I do an online search of “earliest evidence of winemaking.”

More broadly than that, wine is a culture that began, new studies have revealed, with the domestication of the wild vine around 11,000 years ago in Western Asia. All you have to do is read the conclusive article, from Scientific American, about a study that “settles all disputes.”  The article is titled “Wine’s True Origins Are Finally Revealed.” The research on which this article reports is based on clever historical detective work accomplished by analyzing dozens of grapevines’ DNA.

Strangely, however, with a bit more digging online and some alternate search terms, you’ll find that actually the earliest evidence for alcoholic beverages that likely contain grapes is from China, and predates the next earliest archaeological evidence in Georgia by about half a millennium or more.

So why isn’t China even mentioned in the Scientific American article? Why isn’t China the number one search result for “oldest winemaking traditions”?

When I published the episode titled Is “New World” a Problematic Term? just under a year ago (worth a listen if you haven’t), I didn’t realize how big a debate the terms Old and New World would spark in 2023, culminating recently in the Court of Master Sommeliers’ decision to discontinue the use of those terms. That debate isn’t over, I’m sure, and there are some who concede that as wine style descriptors they are obsolete, but not as historical location identifiers.

I have an obvious bias, and I don’t want to misrepresent anyone’s arguments here, so I won’t go into the details of this debate. But my conclusion about it is the same as my answer to why Persia is so often left out of the discussion when it comes to “Old World” wines, despite being the oldest source of many of the techniques and styles of both wine and viticulture that were adopted and adapted by the Greeks and then the Romans and that therefore provided a foundation for what is considered to be the Old World of wine. It’s the same conclusion I come to when trying to understand why China isn’t credited when discussing the origin of wine.

I think behind these omissions, and all of these debates of terms and the upheavals that our industry is beginning to go through, is the question of the definition of wine. What is wine? Turns out not to have as obvious of an answer as it seems, especially when we also ask, Who gets to define it?

If you’ve been following this podcast for a while, you might have noticed that a little over a year and a half ago I published an episode about the history of winemaking in Los Angeles, my home… and then promptly took it down after only a week. I did this because I realized I’d made a mistake. Due to my guest’s definition of wine, that episode told an uncritical history of the arrival of Vitis vinifera in California with Spanish missionaries, and its later propagation by a continuing stream of Europeans to Los Angeles to become the US’s first large, commercial, exporting wine region.  

I’m no historian, but I do have a commitment to truth, and I’ve found that the truth is most often extremely complex. When we talk of Los Angeles, I think it’s important to remember that it was once called Yaanga. While it is oft repeated that there was no alcohol culture cultivated by the native peoples of this area, I wonder if that’s because there actually were none, or if maybe there were but they didn’t look like what European settlers defined as a fermentation culture? Because in much the same way the settlers described California as wild and uncultivated because they didn’t define agriculture in a way that would allow them to see the ecological landscape-level management of people who didn’t think about land ownership or property rights in the same way, let alone farming and gardening. Settlers did find wild vines grown in a vitiforestry style here in Southern California, and we know that many of the same ingredients are native to LA that were fermented in many other areas of the US SouthWest and North and Central Mexico for thousands of years into distinctive beverages with many cultural uses. So it would be actually kind of weird if the Tongva never made fermented beverages.

Additionally, part of the history of Los Angeles wine is that the missionaries and settlers took Tongva land by force to plant vineyards, and then essentially enslaved the Tongva, and other peoples, to farm them. Alcoholism was encouraged, and the workers were paid in alcohol to make them dependent and compliant. The thousands of acres of vineyards, and LA’s great winemaking history, wouldn’t have been possible without the theft of land and exploitation of the people of that land. And this happened all the way up the California coast. Many of the famous wine regions grew around the vineyards of missions and similar practices. So… I find it hard to take pride in this wine history.

I didn’t remove that episode to censor my guest’s take on LA wine history, though. I removed it because it was overly simplistic. I don’t want to repeat tales of great achievements; I want to question what we think is great about them, and what that says about how we define greatness… and I want to question if maybe we need a new definition of greatness that doesn’t include enslavement and genocide and the wanton exploitation of the earth in the name of economic gain.

I don’t think those of us with “Old World” heritage, or any other heritage, need to feel shame every time we look at history. But I think we should learn from the past, and the only way to do that is by being honest about it. And I think the best way to be honest about it is to let everyone who participated in it tell their story. If my married friend complains to me about their spouse, I listen because I know they need to vent and they just need me to be a friend. But both of us know that their spouse has a very different take on whatever it is they’re complaining about… so I never let those complaints influence the way I feel about my friend’s spouse because I know I didn’t get to hear the other side of the story.

History is the same… except usually there are a lot more than two sides to the story. To leave out those other sides without acknowledging them is dishonest, and I think leads to conceit, smug superiority, elitism, and corruption. We would never now think to define marriage as the story of just one of the participants… though not too long ago, and even now in some cultures, it would be accurate to describe marriage as a man’s story of property acquisition. And this one-sided story is similar to the idea that most people have in their mind when they hear the word “wine.”

If wine is only allowed to be defined as the fermented juice of Vitis vinifera, then it makes sense to exclude China from the history of wine. But are we happy with this definition? Certainly it seems that those who profit from this definition and the hierarchy it implies are happy. For those of us who farm and make wine with vinifera, even if the definition is wrong it benefits us… so why would we question it?

But even if we just dropped the specificity of the grape species from this definition and said that wine is the fermented juice of grapes, any grapes. Not any single species of grape.… and I think an extremely strong argument can be made for that definition… then suddenly the history of wine is much much larger than European history and the archeological evidence found in Georgia, and the DNA analysis mentioned in the Scientific American article.

And what if we expanded the definition even a bit more. I mean what about grapes fermented with other ingredients, as was most often the case historically? What if we said that wine is any fermented beverage that includes grapes? That opens up even more possibilities, like that ancient Chinese wine that also likely had rice and other ingredients. Or, further, What if we simply said that wine is fermented juice that includes any fruit. That would allow us to get rid of redundant terms like “fruit wines.” Is strawberry wine wine? Is blueberry wine wine? And if it isn’t, why not? Just because it gets too complicated? Because grapes are somehow superior? Because the Europeans whose language we’re using had never heard of a wine made from cashew fruit? Are these good reasons to limit wine to just grapes?

It’s funny how much room we give within the familiar realm of vinifera for wine to be diverse. We consider Champagne and Sherry to be wines, We think of Madiera and Sancerre as wine, We think of Tokaij and Tocai Friulano, Graves and Sauternes as wine. All of these beverages are very different. So why do we quibble about letting cider be a wine. Most ciders I’ve tasted have a lot more in common with a Prosecco than a Port does. Is prosecco the true wine, or is port? And maybe cider makers don’t want to be wine… that’s fine too. Ciders are a whole world unto themselves, and god knows I’ve had a lot of ciders that are significantly more delicious than the mass produced swill coming out of Champagne. But if cider makers wanted to say that they are making sparkling wines… how does that hurt anyone? What are the downstream disastrous effects of letting any fermented fruit be wine? If there are any, I’d honestly like to know. Please send me your thoughts.

I haven’t been able to imagine any. The pushback I’ve found to this seems to be psychological…. Because it represents a loss of control by the wine gate keepers.

Look, I’m not saying we change the definitions of words willy nilly to suit my love of fermented prickly pears. But I don’t think that the definition of wine is just an innocent word that never had a political agenda behind it. To bring up marriage again, there was a time, even more recently, when that word was allowed to be defined in only one way, as between a man and a woman. And just because most people never questioned that definition and were very happy with it just the way it was thank you very much, didn’t mean that it had no political agenda. And the voices of those who were marginalized and excluded from that definition were finally heard and included, and within a very short time, relatively speaking, we all became aware of how harmful and unnecessary the old definition of marriage was, and together with those who had been excluded from it, we all redefined it. And by being more inclusive, the new definition made marriage bigger, not lesser. I think it made us all a little bigger… where it counts, in our hearts.

And the stakes are much lower with wine… so what are we worried about?

I like to think about why I fell in love with wine. I fell in love with it because it was delicious in a way that resonated in my core. I fell deeper in love with it when I began to study it and discovered that it came from beautiful and interesting cultures that grew naturally out of their geography and environment, ultimately reconnecting me with something deep that I had lost… my sense of belonging to this earth. Do I then conclude that no other wine could be as delicious, or that no other wine cultures are as beautiful and interesting? Isn’t it the effect it had on me that was important, not the specific fruit or culture that produced it?

I’m going to quote someone who would probably disagree vehemently with me. Someone who was as squarely in the vinifera camp when it came to defining wine as a square can be, and who promoted many of the things that I think are the problems we’re currently trying to unravel in wine. Here’s one of Robert Mondavi’s famous quotes:

“Wine, to me, is passion. It’s family and friends. It’s warmth of heart and generosity of spirit. Wine is art. It’s culture. It’s the essence of civilization and the art of living.” 

What’s interesting is that I completely agree with his definition of wine here. Even though I know he meant fermented vinifera when he used the word “wine” there is nothing in his description of its essence that requires it to be vinifera.

It’s important to mention that I did fall in love with wine through vinifera because vinifera was what was defined as wine in my culture here in California, a state with a climate that we call Mediterranean (don’t get me started) in a society that is a result of English colonialism from whence we got our idea, our definition, of wine, and vinifera was therefore the most prevalent form of this experience that I could have… It was showered with resources and given the most care and attention and respect. And all of this did make it the dominant possibility for me to fall in love with wine. This is, I’m sure, true for many people. But to say that this dominance in my culture that led to my love for it demonstrates its superiority in value is absurd. Absolutely none of this had to do with the fact that it was a single species of grape any more than falling in love with and being thrilled to get to know Wendy, my wife, was because of her nationality or ethnicity although those factors likely played a part in how we got to meet.

What I’m saying is that you can’t defend the importance of defining wine as vinifera culture by saying it’s the most important and influential and therefore superior culture. If I defined my name, Adam, as Better than You, how would you be able to convince me that I’m not better than you without first convincing me to change the definition of my name? Maybe that’s a stupid example. Here’s a better one: what do you call that strip of ocean between England and France? If you speak English, you probably call it the English Channel. Do you think that’s what the French call it? If we insist on a Vitis vinifera-centric definition of wine, then the Eurocentrism and self-importance implicit in the dominant wine industry and the terms it uses are a given... by definition.

Why do I care about redefining wine? One really important reason is ecological. Because of the narrow definition of wine, wine has become a global monoculture. 10 vinifera grapes account for over 40% of what we have defined as “wine.” This represents millions of acres of land with very little biodiversity or cultural diversity. That isn’t healthy for the earth or therefore for us. Other factors played a part in this hegemony, including the commodification and industrialization of vinifera culture due to capitalist values. And that leads to my other reason for caring about redefining wine.

I don’t think there was a fair playing field, historically speaking. I don’t think vinifera culture triumphed over all others entirely on its own merits. Grapes from America were also brought back to Europe… but when they became so popular that they threatened the market for European pure vinifera grapes & wines, they were outlawed, and continued to be illegal until 2021. Take Isabella, a grape with American genetics. It’s actually globally popular still. It’s the most planted grape in Brazil and Columbia, found in every country bordering the Black Sea, a cult favorite in the Azores & Japan. It has even inspired poets. Yet it has been widely shunned by the dominant wine industry, never mentioned, dismissed. I’d be surprised if you’ve heard of it. You probably won’t hear it mentioned by the CMS or WSET, except perhaps to malign it, and it won’t show up on one of their blind tasting tests. Because… it threatened the hierarchy and was banned. It wasn’t singled out either. All grapes with American genetics were banned in France in 1934, and later in the entire EU. When prohibition wasn’t enough to eradicate these wines, Reefer Madness-style propaganda was used to spread fear and prejudice through lies and exaggerations about the non-vinifera grapes. Many of the lies and prejudices persist today.

That isn’t to say there weren’t good reasons to try to protect and preserve the vinifera cultures of Europe, but it points out that it wasn’t a fair exchange that gave us the dominant wine culture we have now … it was more of a European conquest.

I don’t think there is any mal intent now in the propagation of vinifera. In fact, I’d wager there’s something a lot more like love behind the way most of us engage with and perpetuate this definition of wine. But it seems to me that we arrived here through unfair advantages and even injustice at times. And I think it’s important to understand how the dominance of this culture necessarily excludes the myriad other cultures that could be wine whether we intend it or not.

For example, I recently sold an article idea to a large wine media company. The article was about No-Spray Viticulture, and the shift in thinking that is necessary to make this possible. Of course, the only way to do No-Spray viticulture successfully is to use more resistant, less popular modern varieties of grapes that have a diversity of genetics. When this became clear to the editors, they canceled the article. As disappointing as this was to me, I don’t think they did it because they hate grapes that aren’t pure vinifera and want to censor any pro-modern grape narrative. They canceled the article because their readership is a group of people who only grow and work with Vitis vinifera. I don’t think this publication has an agenda beyond economic stability. It’s not that they wanted to prevent the story, the just didn’t want to publish something that would upset their economic base or not be relevant to it.

The moral is not to think there is a conspiracy against alternative definitions of wine, but that the dominant narrative is perpetuated because of the self-reinforcing cycle that its dominance gives no incentive to offer alternatives and the lack of alternatives increases its dominance and importance.

So as we head into 2024, I hope you’ll begin looking at the unquestioned assumptions that are implied in every use of the word “wine” that you hear. Who or what has defined wine for you, and are you happy with that? Who and What is included and excluded when you hear about wine tastings, wine reviews, wine education, wine history, wine pairings, wine regions, wine varieties, wine bibles, wine atlases, and wine companions… and everything else “wine.” Is it fair to give the term “wine” to things that actively exclude a whole pantheon of, for lack of a better word, wines made by the global majority?

As I’m asking us to re-define wine, I realize that in most cases there isn’t some legal definition that we have to vote on. And I’m not suggesting we abandon the AOCs, DOCs, etc of Europe. I’m just suggesting that we stop thinking and acting like the entire world is an AOC. I don’t think there is a definition for wine other than the one in our heads. There is no court with any power to decide this for us. Wine becomes what we think, and say, and act as if it is.  As far as I can tell we’d lose nothing by thinking of wine more inclusively, and we have the world to gain.