White Grape
A pale-skinned grape, green to golden yellow, that lacks the red-purple pigments of dark grapes. It is the basis of white wine, sparkling wine, sherry, and most sweet dessert wines, and is also widely pressed into unfermented white grape juice, sparkling juice, and low- or no-alcohol wine alternatives.
How white grape is prepared
Pressed for still and sparkling white wine, fortified wines such as sherry, and sweet wines made from nobly rotted, dried, or frozen grapes. Also used for low-alcohol frizzante Muscat wines, distilled into brandy, and made into pasteurized white grape juice, sparkling juice, dealcoholized wine, and verjuice. White grape juice is a common sweetening and blending base in mocktails, spritzers, and fruit drinks.
Other preparations
The source marks this juice as from concentrate.[8]
Service signal Works as a juice component.
Weingut Lukas Krauß uses Grüner Veltliner Grape Juice in Napa, built from White Grape.[9]
In depth
Origins in the Ancient Near East
Grapes were first cultivated in the lands between the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus. Wild yeasts on the fruit's skin made spontaneous fermentation almost inevitable, and archaeology points to wine playing a major cultural role in Georgia around 8,000 years ago. A dedicated winery at Areni in Armenia dates to about 4000 BC. White grapes arose as a mutation of dark grapes, in which two regulatory genes stopped producing the pigments that color purple fruit. The pale, green-gold berries that resulted could yield a clear, light-colored juice. Cuneiform records from Mesopotamia and the Hittite capital distinguish several kinds of wine, including one that appears to have been light or white. This suggests that pale wines were recognized as a category very early.[1]
Greece and Rome
In classical Greece, white wine served as medicine as well as drink. Physicians in the Hippocratic tradition prescribed different kinds of white wine, described by taste as vinous or bitter, which shows that producers already made a range of styles. The Romans adopted Greek viticulture. Around the Bay of Naples, wealthy households served sweet white wine, sometimes warmed and spiced. As the empire pushed north, growers sought vines that could ripen in cooler climates, producing lighter and drier wines. Vineyards planted along the Rhine gave soldiers a safer drink than local water. Roman writers also advised leaving certain grapes on the vine until frost, a hint of techniques later revived in ice wine.[2]
Medieval Europe: Monasteries, Rivers, and the Rhine
After Rome fell, commercial winemaking collapsed across much of Europe. The Church kept vine knowledge alive because wine was required for the Mass, and monks planted vineyards far to the north. River trade on the Rhine and Danube helped German and Austrian white wine flourish, and German vineyards reached their greatest extent in the fifteenth century. Written records of Riesling appear from 1435 near the Rheingau and in Alsace by the 1470s. Riesling descends from Gouais blanc, a humble white grape widely grown by medieval peasants, and so does Chardonnay. In the Mediterranean, Venetian and Genoese merchants shipped sweet whites from Greek ports such as Monemvasia, the source of the name Malvasia. Crusaders also brought home a taste for Muscat wines.[3]
Spain and the Sack Trade
Southern Spain produced one of history's most traded white-grape drinks. Viticulture around Jerez dates to Phoenician settlement. During Moorish rule, distillation arrived, laying the groundwork for fortified wine. After the Castilian conquest in the thirteenth century, exports grew. By the late 1500s, the white wine England called sack was a sensation there, and trade continued even during wartime. Modern sherry comes mainly from the neutral Palomino grape and is aged in a fractional solera system. Styles range from pale, dry fino and manzanilla under a protective layer of flor yeast to darker, oxidized oloroso. Sweet versions use sun-dried Pedro Ximénez or Moscatel grapes.[4]
Central Europe: Noble Rot and Frozen Grapes
The Tokaj region of Hungary turned white grapes, chiefly Furmint and Hárslevelű, into a prized sweet wine. Grapes shriveled by the noble rot fungus were picked berry by berry, mashed into a paste, and steeped in must or wine to make aszú. Written references to aszú date from the late sixteenth century. The region gained one of the world's earliest vineyard classifications in the eighteenth century, and its wine became a gift exchanged between European courts. Eszencia, the free-run syrup of these berries, is so sugary that it ferments only to about 5 to 6 percent alcohol, making it a naturally low-alcohol drink. Germany later developed late-harvest Riesling and, from the early nineteenth century, ice wine pressed from grapes frozen on the vine.[5]
Sparkling Wine and Light Frizzante Traditions
White grapes, along with pale juice pressed from dark ones, underpin most sparkling wine. Champagne emerged in eighteenth-century France and spread widely in the nineteenth as cheaper glass bottles made it more affordable. In Piedmont, Italy, the aromatic Moscato bianco grape gave rise to a gentler tradition. Moscato d'Asti is a lightly fizzy, sweet wine whose fermentation is stopped by chilling. By law it is capped at about 5.5 percent alcohol. Winemakers originally made it for themselves as a midday drink that would not slow down field work. It later served as a palate-refreshing digestif. Its low strength and fruity sweetness made it a modern bridge between wine and soft drinks.[6]
Unfermented Juice and Verjuice
Pasteurization in the nineteenth century made it possible to keep grape juice from fermenting, creating a wholly non-alcoholic grape drink. In North America, white grape juice is usually made from the native Niagara grape rather than European wine varieties. In California, seedless Sultana grapes, known there as Thompson Seedless, are sometimes pressed for pale juice. Juice made from table grapes is noticeably less sugary than the must of wine grapes picked at full ripeness. An older sour tradition runs alongside these sweet juices. In the Middle East and elsewhere, unripe grapes have long been crushed into verjuice, called husrum in Arabic, a tart liquid used mainly as a souring agent.[1]
Global Varietals and the No- and Low-Alcohol Era
In the twentieth century, temperature-controlled fermentation transformed white winemaking in warm regions. Varieties such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc became grown worldwide, prized in cool climates for crisp apple, citrus, and herbaceous character and in warmer ones for riper tropical notes. These same flavor profiles now shape the growing no- and low-alcohol category. White grape juice sweetens and rounds out mocktails, spritzers, and blended fruit drinks. Sparkling white grape juice serves as a festive alcohol-free toast. Dealcoholized still and sparkling whites, often based on familiar varietals, aim to keep the acidity and aroma of wine without its strength. Naturally light traditions such as Moscato d'Asti continue to appeal to drinkers seeking moderation.[7]
References
- [1]EncyclopediaGrape — Wikipedia↑§1↑§7
- [2]EncyclopediaWhite wine — Wikipedia↑§2
- [3]EncyclopediaRiesling — Wikipedia↑§3
- [4]EncyclopediaSherry — Wikipedia↑§4
- [5]EncyclopediaTokaji — Wikipedia↑§5
- [6]EncyclopediaMoscato d'Asti — Wikipedia↑§6
- [7]EncyclopediaChardonnay — Wikipedia↑§8
- [8]Producerepicone.life↑prepared
- [9]Product informationnapa↑prepared