Wine is not alive
Q:
I realize this question may involve the finer points of defining alive, but is wine  alive- Nicole O.
A:
"When one speaks of the life of wine, one is referring to the viability of its aromas and flavors," says Signe Zoller of
Meridean Vineyards.
Right: [© Steph Thompson 1999] Barolo wine, 1904, Italy
"Wine is NOT 'alive,' per se," says Jim LaMar of the Professional Friends of Wine. "Although wine is naturally created only by
live single-celled plants called yeasts, there are NO living organisms in finished wine..."
The liveliness of wine is how long it survives in a drinkable condition before spoiling. It can turn to vinegar from rapid
oxidation in a few weeks or months. Several years or even decades can eventually turn good wine into an undrinkable state:
the wine breaks down chemically into water and a muck of organic elements--tannins, phenols, aldehydes--from slow
oxidation.
What do we mean by being alive? We used to be content with a simple physiological definition: any system that moves,
reproduces, eats or drinks, grows, and is responsive to external stimuli. But, are viruses alive? A virus is a strand of DNA or
RNA and cannot move on its own power. Yet it can satisfy these criteria after it's invaded a host: It forces the host to make more viruses like itself, so it
reproduces. It takes over some of the host cell processes to do so, which is like taking in nutrients. Sometimes it dodges trouble outside by ducking into a
host and hiding until conditions are better to reproduce. This smacks of responding to outside stimuli.
We don't know what it means to be alive, other than it's complicated. We have only encountered life that evolved on this planet, perhaps from a single
ancestor. What of life from planets millions of light years away? Those beings are alive but probably don't fit any of our definitions.
But, one thing's for sure: wine is not alive in the strict biological sense (according to humans).
(Answered by April Holladay, science correspondent, September 5, 2001)
Further Surfing:
Newton BBS: Definition of Life
Professional Friends of Wine: Winemaking
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