How nice it is, a glass of wine

If you let a grape ripen to its fullest and then fall from the vine, the natural yeasts that dust its skin will set to work, turning the sugary nectar inside into alcohol. Grapes are just desperate to ferment themselves. The real trick is getting them to stop, or to do it only in ways you planned, with yeast you bought and in vessels you sterilised. Naturally-fermented fruits and saps are part of many species’ diets, and scientists have found that in most cases, ethanol is easily metabolised out of their systems. Fruit flies seek out alcohol-rich food to lay eggs in, because of ethanol’s antibacterial properties. Baboons, spider monkeys and slow loris are all guilty of seeking out a boozy snack. Moose eat fermented apples, and have been observed acting drunk in Sweden. 

But we are not happily-grazing moose in the Swedish forests. Humans developed the skills to more effectively and efficiently create alcohol, in the form of grain-based drinks like the Sumerian ‘beer’ made from date syrup, wheat and bread dough, or the wines made in Iran and then Georgia through the natural fermentation of grapes, thousands of years ago. 

We invented alcoholic drinks because they made us feel differently; they took away our inhibitions, made difficult living circumstances easier to deal with, and gave us cause and ways to celebrate. Wine became godly, and those gods of wine looked over the human race and encouraged us to revel in the beauty of the world. Much, much later, wine became sacramental, figuratively, and even literally, as the blood of Christ. The importance of wine to civilisation cannot be overstated. It has encouraged the creativity of artists and inventors, relaxed hard-pressed workers, and had an industry built around it. It is not a rare treat to stumble across, anymore.

Of course, alcohol is not healthy. As aware as we are that our Bacchus-given glass of wine in the evening is not a superfood, we are confused by news stories that contradict each other. Wine is an antioxidant. Wine is a toxin. Drinking wine is as bad as smoking cigarettes. Wine can lower stress. The World Health Organisation is currently urging Europeans “...to reflect on their personal and societal relationships with alcohol, urging a reconsideration of alcohol’s role in daily life, celebrations and traditions” based on the substance’s links to certain forms of cancer. And yet, headlines still appear proclaiming that alcohol can lower blood pressure, or reduce heart disease risks. What can we believe?