To qualify myself, I confess that I am no connoisseur of German wine. I am perhaps to a wine connoisseur what a gourmand is to a gourmet. I like to drink but I waste little time with words like “fruity with a lingering earthy after taste.” Hey, if it’s drinkable I drink it. If it’s undrinkable, I just hope I can use it as a salad dressing. If it’s drinkable and inexpensive, more's the better. This is not to say that I would not like to become more knowledgeable at some point. By the way, here is a quote from the French author Edouard De Pomaine about the condition of being a gourmet: "For a gourmet wine is not a drink but a condiment, provided that your host has chosen correctly." But, I think food takes up space in your stomach that wine or beer could otherwise occupy.

Per capita, Germans drink an average of 32 bottles of wine per year. Following the same logic I use for beer consumption (20% of the population are too young and 20% are either too old or they are giving their livers a well-deserved rest), if only 60% of Germans drink wine, they must consume 53 bottles per year, that’s one per week in my rough calculation. Keep in mind, that is in addition to the 35 gallons of beer these same people must consume. They need all the help I can give them.

History: Grape vines predated people in Germany. From fossil evidence we know that wild vines grew there 140 Million years ago. What we now consider the country of Germany is part of a landmass that has seen tribes of people wandering around for many millennia. Fossils of Neanderthals, a hominoid species closely related to us, were first discovered in the Neander River Valley near Dusseldorf. (In German, “Tal” means valley and they string the words together into Neandertal. Some English speaking anthropologist anglicized it into Neanderthal. I think he was just proud of the fact that he could pronounce the “TH” when German speakers couldn’t.) Early humans also occupied Europe as long ago as 200,000 years ago. Some of them undoubtedly discovered that drinking distilled grape juice is more fun than eating grapes. How long this discovery took is not known but I bet it only took one season between discovering grapes and discovering wine, or I don’t know Germans.

The Romans conquered, occupied and colonized the river valleys of the Rhine, Danube, and Mosel as well as the land south and west thereof. They hung out for about 400 years beginning about 58 BCE. Besides trying to convert the restless natives first into the Roman religion (and then into Christians) and imposing their systems of laws, culture etc., the Romans imported and cultivated grape vines. One of the vines they planted was the Falernian, a white wine capable of aging for up to 20 years. Its alcohol content was as high as 16%; high by today’s standards. They shipped wine in barrels and amphorae along the Neckar, Mosel, and Rhine river systems. I was amused to learn that initially the Romans banned wine growing and wine exporting into Gaul (today's Germany and France) because the natives became so besotted from the drinking of it. You know, this besotting process continues today; I have witnessed it myself. Mind you, I wouldn’t allow myself to drink anything to excess; bikers just can’t do that because we have reputations to uphold. Since the Third Century, Germans have improved the quality, quantity, and diversity of wine but they were just improving on a science left behind by the Italians.

Sweet or Dry: German wines can be called trocken (dry) halbtrocken (half-dry), Lieblich (lovely), or Süß (Sweet). I am being too literal with this translation. To me, a more accurate translation is very dry, dry, sweet, and very sweet respectively. Trocken is like a crisp Chardonnay or a tart Cabernet Sauvignon where as Süß is like a dessert wine; the rest fall in between. Sweetness is a function of the amount of glucose or sugar in the grape at the time of harvest. Once the grape is crushed, the glucose is attacked by the yeast and broken down into carbon dioxide (CO2) some of which becomes carbonic acid and alcohol. When the alcohol content is somewhere between 12% and 14%, the yeast dies, thus stopping fermentation. So if the grapes have more sugar to begin with, there will be sugar left over after fermentation making for sweeter wines. Of course, sugar can be added but that does not happen often (see chaptalization below).

Classifications. Germany, since 2000, is undergoing a bit of a revolution in the way they classify their wines. Some industry members want to redraft how all German wines are classified to make it easier for the consumer to understand the label. To make a long story short, they would like to drop designations like Spätlese and Auslese in favor of a system incorporating the words Classic and Selection. The final chapter on this issue has not been written yet so it might suffice to say that Classic wines will be a little dryer and perhaps less expensive than Selection wines. With one exception (Trollinger-Limberger Curvée from Würtemberger), Classic wines are wines of a single variety or made from a single grape. Selection wines are higher in quality than Classic wines. Classic wines will have the name of the vintner but not the specific vineyard. Selection wines will have both. More on this at: http://www.germanwineusa.org/home_cellar/classic_and_selection.php.

From my perspective, I don’t want anymore help from the German wine industry to demystify their classification. It’s like asking the government to demystify the tax laws.

For QmP (see below) and Eiswein wine classifications, you might like to know a technical term. An Oechsle (named after the inventor, Herr Ferdinand Oechsle 1774-1852) is a measure of the residual sugar in wine “must” using the specific gravity of the liquid. This measure is taken at several points during the fermentation process. It is used as one of the primary criteria for grading wine. What do you suppose they use to measure Oechsle in the wine? Why an Oechslemeter, of course. This is no big deal for casual drinkers like me but it does explain why some wines are classed one way and others another. You may already know that “must” is the messy, awful looking stuff that comes out of the grape press. And no, they don’t stomp on the grapes with their feet anymore. I doubt that they ever did – it would make the wine taste like an old tennis shoe.

So, starting with the least expensive wine here are the basic classifications:

Tafelwein: Table wine is basic blended stuff that the locals drink with dinner. These are frequently blended wines but if it says Deutscher Tafelwein, it must be 100% German. Tafelwein is even seldom shipped farther than the next village although Germans love to take wine buying trips to their favorite Weingut (vintner) to purchase wine for their own consumption at home. While Germany is divided into 13 wine growing regions for quality wine (Qualitätswein), it is divided into only four areas for Tafelwein, Rhine-Mosel, Bayern, Neckar, and Upper Rhine. These wines are trocken or halbtrocken (dry or half-dry) and lighter in character than their high brow cousins. Try them; you might like them.

Landwein: Landwein is a step better than Tafelwein, and available in many grocery stores in Germany. These wines are not exported outside the EU. When in Germany, this is what I drink. An inexpensive Landwein will cost €3. If you are familiar with French labels, both Tafelwein and Landwein are the equivalent of Vin de Pays. You will find the region of origin and the variety of grape on the label. Landwein can come from any of 19 regions, which are simply subdivisions of the four regions for Tafelwein.

Qualitätswein: This is equivalent to France’s “Vin d'appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC)” and meets with all the EU standards. This is the minimum quality of wine you need to give as a gift when you are invited to a friend’s house for dinner. The vast majority of all wines produced in Germany are of this classification. This classification is broken down into sub-categories as follows:

QbA (Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete): This is region specific. A region is an Anbaugebiet and two regions are Anbaugebiete. These are good wines but it is legal to add sugar to these wines in a process called chaptalization. Chaptalization is only done before fermentation and then only when the vintner knows that there is not enough natural sugar to produce the required alcohol content. Some QbA wines have added sugar but most do not. These wines vary from dry to semi-sweet.

QmP (Qualitätswein mit Prädikat): Again, these are better wines than the last category and no sugar can be added. In fact, the only thing that can be added to this level of wine is other wine (sometimes done to blend the taste). Either the grape has sugar in it or it becomes a dryer wine. A special number is added to the label of each bottle testifying to its authenticity and official examination as per the wine law of 1971 These wines are further broken down into the following five sub-categories:

Kabinett: These wines have a minimum must-weight of 70° Oechsle. Each step on the rung indicates a better quality wine that is probably slightly more expensive than the previous rung. They are good accompaniments to food and they can age ten years or more.

Spätlese (late harvest): Next up with a minimum must weight of 80° Oechsle, is Spätlese wines which have more complexity and may age between 25-30 years. Some will say that the “Classic” replaces this classification. Then again, some don’t.

Auslese (selected harvest): Harvested after Spätlese, producing even riper fruit (90° Oechsle), is Auslese. Some will say that the “Selection” replaces this classification. Or not. It seems to get curiouser and curiouser.

Beerenaulese (select harvest berries): This wine and the next are frequently served as desert wines or consumed by themselves just for their quality. With a minimum must weight of 120° Oechsle) and a deep golden coloring, they are made from individually selected overripe grapes which are frequently botrytis affected. At 20 years, many have just begun to reach their peak.

Trockenbeerenaulese (dry berry selected harvest): The ripest (Oechsle minimum of 150°, higher than Sauternes) and rarest of the Prädikats in the QmP category. Trockenbeeren refers to dehydrated grapes shriveled by botrytis (noble rot). Age these wines 30 years and more.

Eiswein (ice wine)
Talk about late harvest wine, German Eiswein grapes are harvested while frozen sometimes as late as January, thus the name “ice wine.” The grapes must not be infected by the botrytis mold and the Oechsle of BA (120°).

Wine varieties

Grape Variety
German variety	English variety if different	Type	Comments
Blauer Silvaner	Blue Sylvaner	Red
Dornfelder		Red	Beaujolais-like, Heroldrebe x Helfensteiner
Frühburgunder	Early-ripening Pinot Noir	Red
Heroldrebe		Red	Portugieser and Lemberger
Lemberger	Blau Fränkish	Red	Not a Gamay
Portugieser		Red	Not from Portugal but from Austria. Also Bleu Portuegais
Schwarzriesling	Pinot Meunier	Red	Meunier
Spätburgunder	Late-ripening Pinot Noir	Red
Trollinger	Schiava or Vernatsch	Red	From North Italy
Spätburgunder Weißherbst,		Rosé
Bacchus	Hybrid of Silvaner, Riesling, Muller-Thurgau	White
Faber		White	Weissburgunder x Müller-Thurgau
Freisamer		White	Silvaner x Ruländer
Gewürztraminer and Traminer	Gewürztraminer	White	Gewürztraminer means spice
Grauburgunder	Pinot Gris	White
Grüner Silvaner	Sylvaner	White	From Austria but called Johannisberger in Switzerland
Gutedel		White	Swiss = Chasselas
Huxelrebe	Chasselas	White	Gutedel x Courtillier Musqué
Kanzler		White	Müller-Thurgau x Sylvaner
Kerner		White	Hybrid of Trollinger and Riesling
Mariensteiner		White	Silvaner and Riesling
Morio-Muskat		White	Silvaner and Weissburgunder
Mueller-Thurgau (Rivaner)		White	Bred by Dr. Mueller from Thurgau (Switzerland) from Riesling and Gutedel
Muskateller	Muscat	White	Very old variety
Nobling		White	Hybrid of Silvaner and Gutedel
Ortega		White	Müller-Thurgau x Siegerrebe
Perle		White	Gewürztraminer x Müller-Thurgau
Reichensteiner		White	Müller-Thurgau x (Madeleine Angovine x Calabreser Frohlich)
Riesling (Klingelberger)		White	Originally brought to Germany by Romans, perhaps from Wachau in Austria
Rieslaner		White	Silvaner x Riesling
Ruländer	Pinot Gris or Pinot Grisio	White
Scheurebe		White	Hybrid of Silvaner and Riesling typically dessert wine
Weissburgunder (Weisser Burgunder)	Pinot Blanc	White

Note: Red wines can be made to be rosé wines by altering what goes into the fermentation process. For example, Heroldrebe is frequently made into a rosé wine. In Italy, many German reds are sometimes sold as rosé because of their light color. The trick is to remove the red wine skins before fermentation.

Anbaugebiete:

There are 13 different wine growing regions or Anbaugebiete what the French call appellation. They are: Ahr, Baden, Franken, Hessische Bergstrasse, Mittelrhein, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Nahe, Pfalz, Rheingau, Rheinhessen, Saale-Unstrut, Sachsen, and Württemberg.

Ahr: Along the Ahr River which flows into the Rhine just upriver (south) of Bonn. While both red and white wines are produced today, this area is the home of red wine in Germany which is mostly consumed in country. Ahr has only 1,300 acres under production.

Baden: This region is Germany's most southerly region, 41,000 acres in size, on the east side of the Rhine between Basil Switzerland and a little north of Heidelberg. In addition to Kaiserstuhl area close to Freiburg, which is probably the most famous of the sub areas, the Baden Anbaugebiet includes these sub areas: Bergstrasse, Bodensee, Breisgau, Kaiserstuhl, Kraichgau, Markgraeflerland, Ortenau, Tauberfranken, and Tuniberg. White wine grapes produced here are Ruländer, Müller-Thurgau, Gewürztraminer and Riesling and Spätburgunder for red wine.

Franken: Centered upon the upper Main River, Franken Anbaugebiet grows mostly Silvaner and Müller-Thurgau wine that tend to be dryer that those of other regions. Wine from Franken is bottled in a distinctive squat, green flagon called a Bocksbeutel. This region contains 15,000 acres.

Hessische Bergstrasse: Continuing north down the Rhine River and centered on Heppenheim is the Hessische Bergstrasse Anbaugebiet which grows the same type of grapes as in Franken but they tend to be a little sweeter, perhaps because the vineyards are more directly oriented toward the south. Only 1,000 acres makes a small Anbaugebiet.

Mittelrhein: Continuing north down the Rhine from Hessische Bergstrasse and between Mainz and Bonn is the Mittelrhein Anbaugebiet. The soil contains much clay and slate, as does the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region. The harshness of this soil stresses the vines causing them to yield wines of high acidity which is desired by many. The majority of the grapes grown here are Riesling, Müller-Thurgau and Kerner. Most of the production is consumed locally or sold to visitors. This region is also small with only 1,700 acres.

Mosel-Saar-Ruwer: This Anbaugebiet includes the northern part of the Saar River and the Mosel River from Konz to Koblenz including the valley of the Ruwer River. In my opinion, this is one of the prettiest regions in Germany and certainly one of the best areas to ride bikes. Sub areas here include names I have been familiar with since I started drinking German wines almost 40 years ago. Sub areas with names like Bernkastel, Piesport and Krov. Just thinking about these names starts my mouth to water. This is one of the larger Anbaugebiete with 32,000 acres. Mainly a white wine area, some vintners are starting to produce red wine grapes in the last 20 years. Bottles from this region are normally green with long tapered necks.

Nahe: The Nahe River flows into the Rhine at Bingen and this 12,000-acre Anbaugebiet is along the Nahe and its tributaries. Most wines are white coming from Riesling, Müller-Thurgau, and Silvaner grapes.

Pfalz: The region west and southwest of Mannheim is sometimes referred to as the Palatinate Region by English speaking peoples, this 59,000 acre Anbaugebiet is one of the largest in Germany. It is also home of some of the sweetest wines. Vines include Müller-Thurgau, Kerner, Silvaner, and Gewürztraminer but some of the sweet wine grapes like Muskateller are also grown here. If it is a red from this area, it is probably from the Portugieser grape.

Rheingau: On the right bank of the Rhine between Mainz and Lorch through what I and others call the prettiest part of the Rhine lies 7,700 acres of vines in the Rheingau. The most common vines are Riesling but Spätburgunder is also grown for red wines. Bottles from this region are usually brown with stubby necks.

Rheinhessen: On the left bank of the Rhine, or more correctly on the plateau above the Rhine and between Worms and Bingen is Rheinhessen. One of Germany’s largest Anbaugebiete with 65,000 acres or Riesling, Müller-Thurgau, and Silvaner vines. To me, this region is a misnomer because the state of Hesse is on the other side of the Rhine River. Before 1945, Hesse extended to both banks. Oh well. Nierstein is one of the sub-regions of this Anbaugebiet and among other wines and brandies they make Alte Gerhardt, my favorite German brandy or Weinbrandt.

Saale-Unstrut: The small 1,000-acre, wine-growing region Saale-Unstrut is the northernmost of Germany's wine regions. The first American rootstocks in Germany were planted in the region in 1887 after the phylloxera disease affected vineyards there. This Anbaugebiet is centered on the community of Freiburg.

Sachsen: Also one of the smallest Anbaugebiet with only 750 acres of mostly Müller-Thurgau and Weissburgunder vines is Sachsen. This region is between Meissen and Dresden along the Elbe River.

Württemberg: This region lies along the Neckar between Tübingen and Heilbronn and along the Enz near Pforzheim. It includes 27,000 acres of vines and includes red wine grapes of Trollinger, Lemberger, Spätburgunder, and Portugieser as well as white wine grapes of Riesling, Müller-Thurgau, Kerner, and Silvaner.

Much of the credit for the above Anbaugebiete should go to: http://www.germanwine.de/english/d_reg/r_mos.htm. However, if the information is incorrect in any way, then it is my fault. So, if you catch an error, let me know.

What about sulfites? (Sulfite, sulfate - a rose by any other name would smell the same. I guess one is a sulfur compound while the other a sulfur compound. I do not know the difference.) All wines contain sulfites, OK, OK, not 100% of wine because due to accidents in nature, there actually is the occasional bottle that is completely sulfite free. But nearly 100% of all wine contains sulfites. It comes from two sources: First it occurs naturally in the fermentation process; Second, most producers add just enough to keep the wine from spoiling or oxidizing.

Not commonly believed facts: "White wines have almost twice as much sulfite than red wines." And, 99.75% of people are not allergic to sulfite and have no reaction to the presents of sulfites
in their wine. If a person is asthmatic, there is a 5% chance that they may have sulfite sensitivity. But asthmatics are only 5% of the population and so we are talking about a maximum of 5% of 5% or 0.25% of us.

I know several people who insist that they get headaches from drinking American red wine but they don't get the same when they drink European white wine. Given that there is no difference, on average, in the sulfite content of American and European wines, and that white wine (on average again) has twice as much sulfite as red wine, these people must have a problem. Their problem stems either from drinking too much wine, or in misidentifying what caused their headache. They may be victims of hysteria - believing in something that isn't reality. I suspect the former. I believe that when people drink too much wine, their memory and judgment are impaired. Heck, they shouldn't drive either. But that has nothing to do with sulfites, it has to do with being drunk.

For nearly 200 years, wine makers have been adding some sulfite to wine as a way of keeping it fresh. The amount is controlled by local laws in most countries. But more than anything, no wine producer would knowingly add more sulfite than was necessary to keep the wine from spoiling or oxidizing. A few producers voluntarily abstain from adding anything to wine except wine. That is all well and good and they should advertise that. It helps sell their product to people who think that all additives are bad.

I understand that since 1988 the US FDA, in an ill advised attempt to protect folks allergic to sulfa drugs, has required that wines sold in the USA contain the words "Contains sulfites" if the sulfite level is more than 10 parts per million. Naturally occurring sulfite in red wine is about two to three times that level. So, nearly all wine sold in America must have those words on their label. I don't know what the laws are in other countries but I know they are different than US laws. So if you find a bottle of wine in Germany that does not say that it contains sulfites, that’s not because it is free of sulfites, it is only because it is free from the governmental requirement to say that it contains sulfites. It is a silly law anyway. The public would be better served if the label just said what the likely level of sulfites are. To require producers to say that wine contains sulfites is akin to saying that air contains gasses.

I am not the only one who knows this stuff. Check out http://www.theorganicwinecompany.com/sulfites.php; or better yet, type in "sulfites in wine" in your favorite search engine.

Tartrates: Have you ever opened a bottle of wine and noticed crystals on the cork? Or noticed gritty sediment as you pour the last of a bottle into a decanter? In German these are called Weinstein or Tartrates in English. They actually connote later harvest and longer aging and are harmless to your health. The wine, on the other hand, can be harmful if you drink too much, are pregnant, operate vehicles, or discuss religion or politics. A friend of mine learned not to discuss divorce settlements while drinking wine.

Bottle Size: Apparently size does matter - especially in wine bottles. One of the readers of this site asked if I knew the German names of the different size bottles used for wine and Champagne. The German names are quite similar to what we use in English. The entomologies are probably Latin or Greek - I don't know. There is a little name differences between Champagne bottles and wine bottles so this list may not be accurate for Champagne. Anyway, here are most of the possibilities:

Liter	Bezeichnung	English
0,187	Dinky	Split
0,25	Piccolo / Viertel-Flasche
0,375	Demi / Halbe Flasche	Half Bottle
0,50	Französischer Pot	Half Liter
0,070
0,75	Normalflasche / Imperial	Bottle
1,0	Literflasche	Liter
1,5	Magnumflasche	Magnum
3	Doppelmagnum	Double Magnum
4,5	Jeroboam	Jeroboam
6	Methusalem	Methusalah
9	Salmanazar	Salmanazar
12	Balthazar	Balthazar
15	Nebukadnezar
18	Melchior bzw. Goliath
20	Solomon
26,25	Souverain oder Sovereign
27	Primat
30	Melchisedech
45	Demi-John
98,5	Adelaide

If you know the names of the blank spaces above, share them with me by feedback. Who would buy the smallest bottle at one eight of a liter? One swallow and it's gone. Now you have to dispose of the glass. Now a 98.5 liter bottle, that's going to be hard to put in your pocket.

And the question for the day, just to see if you are a wine snob or not, is: What is the name for the indentation on the bottom of the bottle? Send me an e-mail if you need to know. If you don't know, just drop back 5 yards and punt.

Other Miscellaneous Notes:

In June, while riding along the Mosel (or Moselle if you prefer), we noticed people of all economic walks of life working the vineyards as we rode past. We saw many people of retirement age with twine and pruning sheers in hand. Some of the men seemed dressed nice enough for work in an office with nice pants and jackets, and some of the women wore dresses. Perhaps these are tourists who work the vineyards for fun and profit. An inexpensive adventure vacation perhaps.

About May 15, the vines start to grow. By June 20, vintners need to start the “dropping” of the shooters. These shooters will not bear fruit in their first year of growth and most are not needed for vine health so they are “dropped” in the summer long before the grapes ripen. They prune off or drop all but two or three vertical shooters. These retained shooters are tied to the trellis or wires with twine so they grow horizontally.

We also see younger people, some with darker skin as if they come from the Mediterranean regions of Europe or Africa. They are doing the dropping or snipping the long shooter vines whose growth saps energy from the vine.

We noted that not only were some of the Mosel vineyards very steep, actually reported to be some of the steepest in the world and that says a lot. We were taken by how the vines were worked. One was being renovated. A yellow caterpillar crawler type tractor was moved vertically down the hillside while being anchored at the top of the row of vines (or in this case future vines) by a large winch machine that played out cable to the tractor. If the tractor were to try to drive sideways across the hill, it would certainly tip over but because of the winch-break system of the machine at the top, it is capable of moving up and down in a vertical fashion. My guess is the slope is 55% or steeper, almost too steep for a person to climb without stairs. I cannot imagine how a person without such a winch arrangement to help, can possibly “drop” the shoots or pick the grapes.

There are many thousands of acres under cultivation and obviously the care and feeding of a vineyard is arduous work. But we occasionally passed a vineyard that had gone to seed. We were told that if you let a vineyard go even one year without care, the vineyard is worthless as a wine producer and has to be replanted.

We learned that the wine business is not as profitable as it was a couple decades ago and because of the hard work; many young people are not following in their parents footsteps tending the vines. They opt instead for easier, perhaps more profitable, work in the office buildings in the cities. If there is no one to tend them, the vineyards languish. Other normal circumstances can cause a vineyard to go untended for a year or more, such as death or illness of the owner.

All vines grown in Germany today are grafted to rootstock which at one point came from America. Some but not all American vines are Vitis Labrusca which is different from the European Vitis Vinifera vines. The Vitius Labrusca is resistant to a parasite Daktulosphaira Vitifoliae also know as root lice, which causes phylloxera. In 1881, Germans discovered that for years vineyards had been under attack by this disease causing diminishing harvests. Europeans learned that grafting their vines to American rootstock helps resolves the problem.

Every fall, vineyards along the Mosel are inspected for root lice mentioned above. If found, that vineyard must be ripped out, remediated, and replanted.

As recent as 1993, it was illegal to raise red wine grapes in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region but that has now changed. We saw a few red wine vines and understand that they are becoming more prevalent reflecting the ever changing tastes of the wine consuming public.

We also noticed little cryptic signs with only a 0 or an X or a 0 sometimes with a strike through it. These signs are markers for helicopters who spray the vineyards for pests.

Did you know that grape vines are self pollinating? They don’t need bees.

As in France and some other European countries, irrigation of the vines is not allowed during the growing season. Apparently the idea is, if Mother Nature wants it to be a good year or a bad year; don’t mess with her.

About yeast:

Like beer, wine is made using the auspices of yeast. Yeasts are not like people (except in a couple ways noted below) yeasts are a sort of a plant; a sort of a single cell, mushroom-like plant. Yeasts are many and varied (about 600 different kinds) and they are everywhere. Home bakers, like my neighbor Lee, make sourdough bread starter by setting a mixture of water and flour on the counter for a few days until the wild yeast that floats around in his house (yours too, by the way) have – ah – contaminated the mixture and start procreating. Unlike people, this procreation is through a process called budding. A single yeast cell buds or creates a bulge on its side. That bulge breaks away and quickly (in about 8.2 seconds) becomes a new cell. A cell can do this about 14 times before it is too old to multiply anymore. In people, this age is about 40 for females but in yeast (yeasts can be considered all females) it is about 2 hours after starting. Like people, yeast needs to have the right conditions to procreate. They like the temperature to be warm and comfy. Unlike people, they do like company when they do their thing. In one gram of yeast you have 30 billion individual yeast cells, and each one can have 14 daughters, and each of those daughters can have 14 daughters and so on and so on. They do all this in 2 hours or so, well mathematically speaking, that is one humungous number of yeast cells. All the while they are happily eating all the sugar they can. (For those of you interested in big numbers, I think the American number is 4.78 octoquardragintillion. In German it is 4,78 Quattuorvigintilliarde. Of course, this parenthetical is so anyone Googling these words will find this page.) Even if there is an ugly yeast cell among them, it can still procreate because yeast does not need a partner to have offspring. They doesn’t have to wait until closing time either – unlike people.

Think of wine making yeast as a bunch of employees. Sort of like volunteers, they come already attached to the skin of the grape when you harvest the grapes. You don’t have to pay them but you do have to feed them. They eat the sugar in the grapes and their waste products, partially akin to our own waste products, consist of gas (CO2) and ethyl alcohol. Except in the making of sparkling wine, the gas (again, like people's habits) is discarded but the other waste product, alcohol, is retained (unlike people who discard all waste). The alcohol is the key difference between grape juice and wine.

To compare yeasts to people again, if we lived in a confined area and didn’t get rid of our waste, we’d eventually drown in it. Well, the same thing sort of happens to the previously happy yeast plants. Once the alcohol level reaches about 15% to 16%, the environment is too toxic for the yeast to continue doing what they so happily did and they die. Yup, they turn belly up. Pond scum! Tot! toes up! Gone to that great pile of flour and water in the sky. Do yeast have a heaven? In their passing, they have created a little heaven on earth for us living organisms.

Revised: March 30, 2008