Fruit of labour

Wine grape harvesting was done by hand till advances in technology enabled machine-harvesting to increase the harvest speeds by up to 100 times

We know that wine is most commonly made from grapes, that grapes are the fruit of the common grape vine (scientific name: vitis vinifera), and that wine grapes differ from table grapes in terms of sugar-acid balance and flavour characteristics.

The uninitiated would be amazed to know that there are between 5,000 and 10,000 varieties of vitis vinifera — 1,368 have been described in a recent book co-authored by British Master of Wine Jancis Robinson — but only a few are used to make wine in commercial quantities. Of these, about 30 varietals make up 90 per cent of the wines