Wines

According to recent data, the origins of wine lie in present-day Georgia, where an American archaeologist, P.E. Mc Govern, discovered traces of wine on a bottle shard dating back to 8,000 BC, the Neolithic era. Since then, the wine industry has continued to develop in the Mediterranean basin, Australia, Central America, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, California and China. Wine is a veritable French institution, and has become a worldwide benchmark. The viticulture business (from the Latin Vitis, vine), upstream of the industry, is responsible for planting, cultivation, vine maintenance (pruning, treatments, etc.) and harvesting. This process sheet deals with viniculture (from the Latin Vinum, wine), i.e. the operations involved in the production of different wines; consequently, this activity is no longer part of agriculture, but of the agri-food sector.

Behind the word "wines" lies a whole range of wine products, including traditional still red wines, rosés gris and gris de gris, dry, semi-dry, sweet or mellow whites, vin orange, vins doux naturels or vins mutés, sparkling wines such as champagne, crémants, perlants, pétillants, sparkling or effervescent wines (the latter two may be carbonated), vins de voile, red or white cooked wines, not forgetting alcohol-free or dealcoholized wines (generally TAVA of 0.3% alcohol). In response to a younger clientele keen on fresh, less alcoholic aperitifs, new wine-based flavored drinks were launched at the start of the 2010s, such as grapefruit, peach-strawberry rosés, etc., with alcohol levels positioned between 5.5° and 6.5°. Nevertheless, the appellation "wine" is reserved for grape juice in the European Union .

The focus here is on winemaking technologies, which are many and varied, depending on the size of the facility. For example, there are operators who deliver the harvest to a cooperative or a private manufacturer, while others harvest and make the wine they deliver to a bottler, and others who harvest, make the wine, bottle it and sell it.