The viniferous area of the world is larger than 7,5 million acres. Wine is almost exclusively made from the different types of the grapevine (vitis viniferia). Sometimes, mainly in North-America, labrusca (vitis labrusca) and the hybrids of vitis viniferia and vitis labrusca are used for wine-making. At present approximately 8-10 000 types of grapevines are grown all over the world. These are classified in different ways: on the one hand, we differentiate graft-grown vines from direct grown vine types; on the other hand, we distinguish vine types having blue skinned grapes giving red and rosé wines from the green and yellow skinned grapes giving white wines. The annual wine production is 300 million hectoliters of which 80% is produced in Europe. The most significant European wine-producing countries are the following: Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. According to statistics the annual wine consumption is 6 liters per capita in the world. Consumption of quality wines shows a continuous increase mainly in the developing countries (e.g. China and Brazil).

We point out the importance of the wine making process. While good quality is extremely important, we also emphasise that it is a crucial part of winemaking to pay attention to sustainability, traditions, reputation and dialogue with local communities.

Vines can be grown economically in temperate climate. Maintaining and improving the standard of viticulture demand all viticulturists to reconstruct the old vineyards, develop new type structures, renovate supporting walls, and plant new vineyards. Vines can be planted in the spring or in the fall.

The most common propagation of viticulture is propagation by cuttings (simple shoot, rooted shoot, planting the graft into the ground). Wine-growing regions usually have their own strict rules regulating the vine types that can be planted. Since the area that can be planted by vineyards is limited, it must be considered carefully which types to select. Of course, it is practical to choose the vines grow well in that certain climate and soil, and from which good quality wines (and if possible marketable on international market as well) can be made.

The method of planting vines depends on the characteristics of the soil and the vine type. Machined cultivation (and harvest) is made easier if the vine stocks are arranged in lines. However, wide spacing of vine stocks usually results in larger load on stocks (more bunches are left on one stock), and this can easily harm the quality of the grape. Because of the changed quality demands nowadays vine stocks are planted with narrower spacing in many places in spite of the fact that in that case the vineyard becomes impassable by machines. Using different types of vine stock cultivation methods result in different thickness of the wall of foilage, which is also a crucial factor in quality wine production.

Cultivation types are classified by the specialists on the basis of the support types (clingings) the vine needs in consequence of the certain prunings, since vines are plants climbing with tendrils. Further regular so-called fitotechnical works of viticulture besides pruning are the following: removing the vine-branch, tying, greenworks (crippling, adjusting shoots, selecting shoots). Crippling helps the ripening of shoots and bunches, reduces the thickness of the foilage, increases the sugar degree of the berries.

Since vine is the oldest plant grown in large quantity, both the vine breeding and the plant protection have serious traditions. However, chemical treatment (e.g. spraying) – mainly during the production of quality wines – is more and more reduced. The less chemicals and machines used in a vineyard, the more labor time and personal participation (manpower) are required. Mainly this is the cause of premium category wines being more expensive.

Viticultural year

Ideally early spring is cool and does not arrive too early. After budding – as in the case of other plants – frost is definitely harmful. At the beginning much rain is good for the growing of the plant. The grape leaves open at the end of April, and the plant blossoms in late May. (Of course, in the Southern Hemisphere, half a year earlier or later…) Pollination done by bees can be hindered by strong wind or lots of rain.

During dry summers berries swell smaller and their skin-mesocarp ratio is worse. In the second half of the summer dry but not too hot weather with light winds definitely does the ripening grapes good. Too hot weather harms the plant because it accelerates the ripening process too much, therefore the grapes will be less juicy. Hails are definitely harmful for the plant this time as well just as in the summer.

September is a critical month to grapes. If the yield seems to be poor warm and dry weather can improve quality a lot, but cold and rainy weather can spoil the most promising yield as well. Since in a vineyard on the different hillsides grapes do not ripen at the same time, therefore the harvest can also be ideal in different times. Viticulturists can be in a serious dilemma if significant amount of rain is probable. The question emerges whether they should harvest the grapes a few days before complete ripening or should wait until rain stops risking that they should harvest wet grapes, which may rot. (In dry weather or in the case of night harvest surface moisture and higher water content of the berries is definitely beneficent.)

Weather is also determining after the harvest in wine producing. During fermentation cool weather is ideal, mainly in the smaller wineries, where there are no modern fermentation containers with controllable temperature. Containers (barrels) surrounded by cool air slows fermentation down and prevent it from overheating. In the colder areas of the temperate zone, when winter coldness sets in ice wine can also be made from the frostbitten bunches of grapes left on the vine stocks.

The traditions of viticulture and wine-growing, the mythology surrounding wine, the wine and viticulture are the same age as our civilization. Of course, the inventive people experimented not only with vines: they tried all kinds of fruits can be fermented to make alcohol out of them. They collected pears, apples, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries to gain heady drinks from their juice squeezed. The Ancient writers already reported on date wine, fig wine, pomegranate wine. Besides making flower-scented wines was so important a branch of Greek wine-making that in the Greek language there was a distinct word for flower-scented wine; there were wines scented by rose and stock flower.

Wine in the Ancient Times was not just considered a simple drink but the gift of God, therefore wine and religion interwove. The oldest cult is the flourishing wine and viticulture in the present-day India connected to the name of the Sanskrit god of wine, Soma. Later gods of wine also emerged in other religions, such as the Thracian Sabazios, the Lithuanian Ammon, the Egyptian Osiris, the Arabesque Orotal, the Syrian Choloch, the Armenian Spanderamet, the Greek Dionysus, the Roman Bacchus. Gods of wine were the most popular gods, in whose honor pompous feasts and ceremonies, bacchanalias were held. These were the predecessors of the grape picking balls.

Dionysus is not only the god of grape, wine and grape harvest but that of the ritual madness and feasts. He was the son of Zeus and his mortal love, the Theban princess, Semele. He asked his father to help him create a plant that gives happiness and delight to people making his name remembered. His father planted his son’s heart, killed by the jealous Titans, in the grave and made it grow a vine stock as his son had asked him. Thus became the vine the plant of pleasure and delight, and the symbol of happiness. The festival of Dionysus held in the fall and in the spring was called Dionysia, and it expressed the mystery of the triumphant life regenerating itself. Dionysia was also the background for showing classical Greek dramatic performances. Dionysus was also known as Bacchus by the Greek. The name Bacchus was adopted by the Romans for their god of wine, who was also called Liber and became the god of wine from an ingenious wine-merchant. From the cult of Bacchus originates the Bacchanalia, which was a feast held by the well-to-do Roman bourgeois.

In the Ancient World women were usually forbidden to drink wine. The Ancient writers quoted cases from the 2nd century BC when the husband murdered his wife, because she sneaked into the wine cellar. Later this cruel practice eased. However, the true followers of the Islamic law do not drink alcohol regardless of gender up to this day.

Wine and the Bible

In the Bible there are approximately 500 references to vines and wines. There is not another plant which would be mentioned so many times in the Old and in the New Testament. The Bible writes about Noah as the first wine-maker and vine breeder. After the Flood Noah disembarked with his ark on Ararat, and he planted a hillside vineyard. Noah was also the first one to be intoxicated by wine in the world.

Wine had a priority in Jesus Christ’s life. In his parables he often used metaphors of vine and wine. His first miracle was also related to wine: he transformed water into wine at the Wedding at Cana much to the delight of the wedding party. The wine gained its deepest symbolic meaning on the last supper before Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, where Jesus transformed the bread to his own body and the wine to his own blood. Up to this day every mass keeps the memory of this sacrifice alive.

The wine as a symbol

Wine, made from fermented grape juice, is the elixir of life in almost every significant culture, the drink of immortality, the symbol of truth (‘in vino veritas’), happiness and fertility. Vine is one of our oldest cultural plants, the symbol of life and death, which can be interpreted as fire and blood. The wine and the water, like the Sun and the Moon, the two powers of the Universe, symbolize the melting of the human and god nature or the god nature merging with the human nature invisibly. Vine was regarded as saint and divine, the tree of life, from the beginnings wherever grown. Already in the Sumerian writing the word for ‘life’ was depicted with a grape leaf-shaped sign. Nowadays the good wine consumed in moderation is not just a great complementary to high-standard meals, but it also gives opportunity and topic for companies and friendly get-togethers.

Harvest is the picking of the grapes – it is a well-known fact. The time of harvest is harder to define. Of course, it depends on the location of the wine region, on the type of vine, and primarily on weather. Harvest is advisable to be started if the natural sugar level of the grapes does not increase anymore. This can be checked in the simplest way squeezing some must out of the average grape every 2 or 3 days and measuring the temperature of it. It is an exceptional case if rotting urges the harvest or the goal is to gain a special, more valuable quality, therefore they wait for over-ripening at the expense of quantity.

At harvest the picker classifies bunches of grapes separating the intact bunches from the rotten, unhealthy, unripe ones. Of course, this work phase can (also) be mechanized. The harvested grapes used to be crushed in basket presses or put into a sack and trampled barefoot. Nowadays crushing is done mechanically using crushers, mills, pair of ribbed rollers or cones making wine-mash or a huge centrifugal extractor is used, which crushes and at the same time directs the grapes to the destemmer. If the stems are green, during maceration it can result in unpleasant taste of stem. This the reason for destemming, that is separating the stems. If the wine-mash stands for 12-24 hours the must dissolves more pigments, flavors, ash, and tannin from the seeds making the wine more full-bodied, aromatic, but at the same time darker and harsher too.

From the crushed berries not all of the must runs off by itself, the must sticking to the seed and the skin have to be pressed. The crushed wine-mash is put into a larger tank, a part of which is separated by filtering rails (wattlework). Into this detached part the pure must (freerun must) runs off, and from here it can be pumped out later. The rest of wine-mash is spread in the press basket (tank), then the first pressing begins. One pressing is not enough; usually two or three pressings are done. About the half of the marc pressed several times is must as well. Extracting it by water press-wine can be made and putting it into tanks and barrels sealed hermetically later can be used for distillation of brandy.

In the case of white wines pressing and destemming are done soon after harvest, in the case of red wines they are usually done later (the color of red wines comes from the pigments from the skin of blue vines).

The newly pressed must, especially the pure must, is turbid, therefore fermentation is delayed for a few days by sulphurization. (Using sulphur is less and less popular, sulphites found in wines are formed during the fermentation in a natural way). Meanwhile the must settles and its essence is decanted into the fermentation barrels. This is called demucilaging and especially advisable in the case of must filtered from rotten grapes.

The first phase of the fermentation can be done by oxidative aging (traditional in wooden barrels) or reductive aging (in steel tanks). The main difference between the two technologies is that in the case of the later one the wine made is less exposed to external effects, therefore the aromas of grape can be felt more clearly in it. In the case of the traditional aging it is good if the fermentation chamber is above the ground to facilitate the dispersion of CO2, since the fermentation of 1hl 20 degree must produces 4,5 m3 CO2. The fermentation of the must begins quickly and after 3-5 days the noisy fermentation quietens down. After 6-7 days the barrels not yet full can be started to be filled. Within 4-6 weeks the barrels can be filled completely and can be sealed.

During the quietening of the fermentation the new wine starts clearing, the living and dead yeast cells, the floccules and tartaric crystals (wine stones) etc. from wine settle. This sediment is called draff. In a warm place the draff of the wine from weak, acid-poor, faulty grapes deteriorate faster and spoils the wine. This is why the lighter wines should be decanted from the draff early (usually in November). The harder (acid) and stronger wines are decanted in December. In the cases of the wines too sour decantation can wait until the end of February so that the acid bacteria can come into action.

The open decantation aerates the wine. During closed decantation the wine is pumped over without airing usually into oak barrels. The mirror-like, clear, bottle matured, pleasant tasting wine is made by ‘categorizaton’ from the turbid new wine decanted from the draff. During categorizaton the following things are present as effect factors and used operations: appropriate temperature, air contribution, sulphurization, pigmentation, filtering, clarifying, pasturing and blending. Heat facilitates the aging processes (oxygenation), but it facilitates the spoiling of the weaker wines too. Therefore in the cellar – depending on the type – it is advisable (in accordance with wine types) to maintain a temperature of 11-30 Celsius (52-68F) taking into consideration the minimal winter-summer temperature fluctuation.

Wines need air (although not in a large amount). Wines get it during open decantations and also breathe through the staves of the barrel. Through the proportionally larger surface and the thin staves of the small barrel more air goes through, therefore in these barrels the aging of wines is faster. Too much air causes dried fruit like flavor which is only in harmony with the flavor of round wines (aszu, samorodny). Through the staves of the barrel wines evaporate, this is referred to as ’the angel’s share’. The annual angel’s share is 1,5-4,0%, therefore in the barrel air bells produces, which may lead to over-oxygenation, souring, to prevent this the barrels are topped up every few weeks.

During the harvest season it is usually hot in the daytime. However, at night the air and also the wine grapes cool down. If grapes are harvested and transported cold to the manufacturers they stay fresh and cold. Moreover, their moisture content is higher, since the heat of the sun does not make the grapes evaporate their moisture taken up in the early evening and at night. The grapes full of moisture and processed cold preserve a lot more scents and flavors than the grapes harvested in the heat of the day. Cold berries snap easily in the wine press, so a smaller amount of pressure is enough. The whole bunch of grapes is put in the press, because picking the berries would result in loss of scents and aromas. So the aim of the night harvest is to maximize the preservation the scents and aromas of the grapes.

Night humidity (including the moisture on the skin of the berries) makes the night harvest useful from another aspect as well. Wine fanciers tend to look for lighter wines with lower alcohol content, but not for the less aromatic ones. More water in the grapes and the additional moisture on the skin dilute the sugar content in the must contributing to the lower level of alcohol content. Of course, lighter wines can also be made using other methods, such as prevention methods in vine-growing (for example, with larger vine stock density, changing vine type, using less healthy grafts) or the correction techniques used in the wine cellars (for example, faster fermentation at higher temperature, with airing and diluting, where it is not forbidden). All of these methods can be applied at the expense of quality, whereas the night harvest not only results in a ‘raw material’ meeting the requirements of the perfectionist winemakers, but it is more enjoyable for the grape pickers.