Gregory's ServerTannins: they're the compound that makes wines taste "oaky," "grippy," etc.
Some of the tannins in wine come from the grapes, some of them come from the barrel they're aged in.
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Vineyards for wine grapes can be surprisingly, uh, not as lucrative as we might think. Grapes for eating fresh tend to command a higher price. Why? Wine grapes can be ugly! They get mashed up into juice. But table grapes have to be in good enough condition to ship, & for people to still want to buy them when they arrive. So table grapes are higher maintenance to grow. You'll lose more the crop to un-shippability, etc. That's one reason there's so much agritourism in the winery business. Often, there's surprisingly little money in the vineyard itself. Ok raisin time! This is how most of the raisins in the US are made. They just pick the clusters off the vine, lay them on a piece of kraft paper between the rows, and leave them there until they're raisins. That's it that's the whole process. |
Grapes for winemaking tend to have thicker skins than grapes for eating. Thick skins aren't fun to chew through.
But winemakers like a nice thick skin, because that's where a lot of the flavor & aroma compounds in wine come from. They're in the skin, not the inside of the grape.