A Wonderful ThingWhat things in your life are capital W, Wonderful? I don’t mean extraterrestrial nor psychotic but of the earthly domain. Of all the things you can imagine… is it love of family and friends, is it the birth of a child, is it the act of a good Samaritan taking in the homeless or someone dedicating their lives to giving hope and strength somewhere in the world? When you think of it there’s many things that we could say are Wonderful.
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But other than humanitarian. What of nature or science, things we don’t control or can’t participate in some way? Things that happen of their own physical and generative structure. The bursting of a flower bud as the sun draws energy from the soil, the swelling of a chrysalis as the cycle of regeneration unfolds into a moth or butterfly, migratory creatures going through their life patterns. These are truly full of Wonder.
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Now if humans intervened in any of these natural processes - to artificially improve the colours of the flower, the flavour of the fruit, the strength of muscle, the cultivation of marine life - it’s driven by some business motive. Ultimately personal gratification comes into the equation. When that intervention interferes with nature the outcome is perverted - it loses its Wonder.
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There’s a long history of viniculture in most countries that has enabled successive generations to indulge their inherited passion. Winemaking is just that - passion. And if that passion is well expressed, an income is a consequence. However, a substantial portion of current day winemaking has been perverted. It’s in man’s makeup to pervert and, in most of the sciences, man attempts to control this aspect of his character to avoid compromising spotlighted endeavours: urine tests in sports, pedigrees for pet breeders, blood samples for thoroughbreds, registering of genetically modified seeds, on and on. But there’s NO amount of testing that could keep pace with the number of wines on shelves. Every agency given the responsibility of ‘policing’ itself has found to be wanting… weighed against a whole industry creating chemicals and ‘enhancing’ ingredients for the wine industry, an industry neither controlled nor regulated but encouraged through monetary incentives. Wine needs to be spotlighted.
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I’m looking at a 30 cent can (355mL) of President’s Choice Diet Passionfruit, a flavour I associate with some of the best Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Ignoring the carbonated water, malic acid is the first component then some natural flavour followed by potassium citrate, aspartame, potassium benzoate, citrus pectin, gum Arabic, acesulfame-potassium, colour, ester gum, calcium disodium EDTA. A recipe put together by specialists and complying with the Canadian Food and Drug Act - and a soft drink I enjoy (altho' aspartame is said to cause severe reactions as do other sweeteners).
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Now I’m looking at a bottle of wine. Whatever the country of origin, other than the mention of sulphites, there is no content listed. There’s absolutely no requirement to declare additives on wine labels. There’s no certification of additive-free winemaking facilities, no inspection notices on winery equipment nor teams of inspectors trained to confirm additive-free products and no penalties.
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A question: If the wine producer doesn’t declare additives resulting in inferred claims of a natural product isn‘t it a level of fraud? And if these additives later are found to have caused medical conditions what are the legal ramifications? And what of the vendor? Doesn’t the vendor become complicit? But how will we even suspect without labelling?
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If wines were butterflies the sky would be full of diesel operated blimps. Let’s support winemakers driven by passion and bringing Wonder to our enjoyment.
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My opinion, Ww
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Note: Googling ‘wine additives‘ brought a startling number of hits. Included were defensive notions from offending winemakers and the condemnation of some wine critics. I found the following relevant:
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