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Wine material is not fully finished wine. Dry wine material has nothing to do with powder, to which water is added, and then poured into boxes and sold at 100 rubles per liter in any supermarket.
If we delve even more into the details of winemaking, we will see the following: absolutely all wines are made from dry wine materials. And expensive ones, and canteens, and even the aforementioned liquid in boxes. The quality of wine directly depends on the quality of raw materials, and not on its name.
More about wine materials
So, wine material is called finished wine, which is not yet packed in consumer containers (bottles, boxes, etc.). The word “dry” does not mean powder at all, but simply the absence of residual sugar. In a word, dry wine materials can be drunk in the same way as final products.
Wine materials have their own quality classification, which, in turn, is divided into three categories:
Table wines
This drink is the cheapest and least quality, and therefore the material can be made from absolutely any grape.
Some unscrupulous producers even mix varieties to save raw materials, trying to literally “squeeze all the juice out of the berries”.
Wine PGI
A protected graphic indication, indicated by a similar abbreviation, indicates the percentage of raw materials from one region relative to the complete product.
So, for example, Kuban wines are characterized by 85% PGI – that is, only 15% of raw materials could be grown or purchased in another region.
Wine ZNMP
Such drinks are considered the most valuable, because the protected designation of origin does not even designate a region – a specific variety and a specific vineyard, where 100% of the berries for the drink were collected.
The highest quality is required from such alcohol, and, as a rule, drinks justify their considerable cost.
Why finished wine is sold at the price of wine material
The fact is that some vineyards are very small, or are in such climatic conditions where it is simply impossible to harvest all year round, and therefore the cost of own production line is several times higher than the potential benefit from the brand.
Such producers have no choice but to resell the wine material poured into tanks or barrels to their colleagues in the craft.
In addition, there are companies that act exactly the opposite: they do not have their own vineyards, but the conveyors at the factories do not stop for a minute. Of course, selling wine without having its own raw materials is a risky business, however, who does not take risks does not drink champagne.
Varieties of drinks: champagnes and “marmalade” wines
By the way, about champagne: in essence, this is the same wine made using a slightly different technology – yeast is added to the already prepared wine material, due to which the taste and texture of the drink change.
To once again be convinced of the impossibility of producing powdered wine, we will conduct the following experiment: we will evaporate the liquid from the wine material.
In the process of evaporation, not only moisture is removed, but also all other substances that gave the wine taste, aroma and strength. In a word, the result is the same as from boiling water.
However, to “drain” the wine, you can go the other way – instead of evaporating, thicken it, bringing it to the consistency of marmalade. Then, for ease of preparation, it is frozen and crushed to obtain a powder.
After all the manipulations, the powder is diluted with warm water, and the resulting drink conditionally resembles wine: there is a strongly distorted wine smell, and the taste almost completely covers the sweetness of cyclodextrins (an analogue of starch, which thickened wine).
The “dark side” of inexpensive drinks
As mentioned earlier, cheap wine is also made from natural materials. However, no one talked about the excellent quality of dry raw materials. As a rule, producers who sell their products for 100 rubles per liter buy second-pressed wine materials. And this is at best.
The worst option looks like this: in order to make a profit even from the notorious hundred square meters, taking into account all the markups and losses, manufacturers buy frank “shmurdyak” – a vat sediment that remains after draining the best drink and re-squeezing. In other words, an alcohol-containing slurry of natural origin.
The six stages of filtration that this product must go through completely kill both taste and smell, and even memories of wine.
To fix this, acids, sugar, and some other dyes are added to the drink, “lubricating” and smoothing out the disgusting taste of the liquid.
It is sad, but many even buy such a “liquor”, proudly calling it “wine, for which you do not have to overpay because of a beautiful bottle.”
However, for the most part, such “economists” and “wine connoisseurs” have never tasted really good drinks, and if they did, they forgot their taste and aroma a long time ago.
Relevance: 06.12.2019
Tags: wine and vermouth