True organic wine. Is it possible?

[darrel]

Please excuse my ingnorance but im new and the learning curve is still very steep
It seems to me that chemicals in winemaking are essential. Wether its pectolose, sulphite etc etc.
Is it possible to make a true natural wine. With items sterilised with natural ingrediants and the whole winemaking process done without chemicals. I sussed out using a lemon instead of citric acid but what about the other bits?

[lockwood1956]

Dont worry too much about sulphite being an "additive" as it is produced naturally by fermentation.

it is of course possible to make wine without additives, but the chances of spoilage are great, and without pectolase some wines just will not clear at all, not matter how long you leave them. wine will not keep long term without the right level of free sulphite either.

hope this helps
regards
Bob

[darrel]

To be honest I dont really care whats in it as long as its alcoholic and doesnt taste like urine
I work in a right on office with more than my fair share of health freaks. Vegans, vegetarians and lots of other "ans" i cant pronounce.
They make me laugh. They spend a fortune bringing in lunches they spend 5 hours producing the night before bashing away at how unhealthy my unorganic lifestyle is and then they go home and open a bottle of commercial wine

[lockwood1956]

I know a few vegans, and they all look like they could do with a good feed

[Duffbeer]

I know a few vegans, and they all look like they could do with a good feed

What like me ??

[goldseal]

Have you noticed how most people who work in health food shops look ill?

[fatbloke]

Have you noticed how most people who work in health food shops look ill?

Yeah, but it's all those "natural" preservatives Pete, they don't change in appearance and don't die until they're 197 years old.........

regards

JtFB

[Her Lushness]

What like me ??

No Duff, you're a FREAKAN not a vegan....

[NorthernWiner]

I know a few vegans, and they all look like they could do with a good feed

I used to live in Las Vegas. Does that make me a Las Vegan?

[wurzel]

i used to live in las vegas. Does that make me a las vegan? :d

lmao

[spritzer]

To be honest I dont really care whats in it as long as its alcoholic and doesnt taste like urine
I work in a right on office with more than my fair share of health freaks. Vegans, vegetarians and lots of other "ans" i cant pronounce.
They make me laugh. They spend a fortune bringing in lunches they spend 5 hours producing the night before bashing away at how unhealthy my unorganic lifestyle is and then they go home and open a bottle of commercial wine

The chances are most of the "ANS" in your office dont realise what is in their bottle of commercial plonk.
Personally, I would be winding them up to the hilt on that

No Duff, you're a FREAKAN not a vegan....

I used to live in Las Vegas. Does that make me a Las Vegan?

[Richard S]

Using organic fruit to make wine will give you the right to claim that your wine is organic, your workmates will be impressed.

So, what about all those nasty additives we use in winemaking? With the help of Wikipedia I will endevour to explain.

You mention avoiding using Citric acid and Pectolase so lets start there.

Citric acid is a weak organic acid, and it is a natural preservative and is also used to add an acidic, or sour, taste to foods and soft drinks. In biochemistry, it is important as an intermediate in the citric acid cycle and therefore occurs in the metabolism of virtually all living things. It can also be used as an environmentally benign cleaning agent and acts as an antioxidant and a lubricant.

Pectolase is a naturally occurring enzyme that degrades pectin. It is produced commercially for the food industry from fungi and used to destroy residual fruit starch, known as pectin, in wine and cider. In plant cell culture, it is used in combination with the enzyme cellulase to generate protoplasts by degrading the plant cell walls.

So far so good but what about some of the other additives, lets try Bentonite.

Bentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate, generally impure clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. There are a few types of bentonites and their names depend on the dominant elements, such as K, Na, Ca, and Al.

Nothing more natural than clay.

Fining agents are a little more tricky to explain as there are quite a few different sorts available and this is something you could do without for most of the time. A common fining agent is Chitosan.

Chitosan is produced commercially by deacetylation of chitin , which is the structural element in the exoskeleton of crustaceans (crabs, shrimp, etc.) and cell walls of fungi.

Organic!

In my opinion, the only dodgy additive is Sulphite which is a compound of non organic chemicals. I am willing to bet that if you pick up a bottle of "organic wine", it will say on the label in very small print "contains sulphites". The amount of sulphites that we are adding as home winemakers is much less than the commercial people.

Happy brewing.

[piagio2000]

To be honest I dont really care whats in it as long as its alcoholic and doesnt taste like urine
I work in a right on office with more than my fair share of health freaks. Vegans, vegetarians and lots of other "ans" i cant pronounce.
They make me laugh. They spend a fortune bringing in lunches they spend 5 hours producing the night before bashing away at how unhealthy my unorganic lifestyle is and then they go home and open a bottle of commercial wine

The next time one of them go's to the dentist ask them if they are going to have an "organic" filling. Or if they are having an operation, an "organic" hip replacement. Who needs anisthesia eh? Natural is best!!

[Ian]

A good number of organic eaters don't see the irony of buying organic veg that was produced in Israel or Africa!

But, regards the wine - the best thing is to let them taste it. They'll be surprised that something can taste so good with relatively few 'dodgy' ingridients.

[ms67]

Folks with niche interests (of which brewing is one) and lifestyle choices are often evangelical (annoying so to those not interested) when they 'discover' the niches that suit them. Usually these are the younger converts and adherents, as they get older they tend to settle down into their choices and follow a live and let live path. Of course there are exceptions, and those folks may be partly responsible for the growth of such niches. Others may be scientists, engineers, doctors, farmers, business people etc etc who wonder what its all about and investigate or wonder if they make a buck from it.

You can bet you back teeth that with the number of folks on this forum there will be plenty of veggies, vegans, pescatarians, white meat only, kosher, halal, organic blah blah adherents. Not that you should be worried about offending them, but you may wonder why they can't be bothered to engage in the discussion? Evangelism just doesn't work for the vast majority of converts in waiting. Making things easy, accessible, affordable, tastey etc goes a lot further and a lot faster. Homebrewing is enjoying a resurgence at the mo, and thats mainly an economic thing, tho other influences like making it easy and the results being decent quality and carbon footprints etc play their part too. I saw Graham Norton the one show supping some homebrew, giving it about as much attention as you would give a fly splattering on your windscreen, then delivering an influencial verdict on the product that would persuade NO-ONE to try homebrewing. Not that it bothered me, this is the first time i mentioned it to anyone, but it did expose his inbuilt prejudices.

In short i would bet my last pound that as a percentage of adherents vegans were ahead of vegetarians who were ahead of pescatarians who were ahead of white-meat only who were ahead of omnivores when it comes to bigger issues like organic, fair-trade, carbon footprints etc. And the 'third world' producers of organic foods have probably been doing it that way for ages and one day realised that with some good marketing they could get a fair price for the products by pushing the point that are organic, sustainable etc and then the bod from the soil association takes an interest, gets their butt out there and gives them the rubber stamp (subject to their testing of course).

anyway before you think i have an agenda to push i'll shuffle off now ;-)