This work addresses the first difficulty faced by Wine Sapiens, and its principal ambition: the contextualization of wine. Answering a question as fundamental and, at the same time, as broad and ambiguous as: What is wine?
To this end, this first volume approaches the actual concept of wine from differing angles, posing numerous questions: Is wine a natural product? Is it part of an artisanal or industrial process? Is wine a drink? What role does nature play in the production of wine? Why do we drink wine? In what situations do we drink wine? …
Further, wine is compared to other beverages analysing aspects such as its production, the market for wine, its sociocultural environment, etc. And other facets of wine are examined: wine as an investment, a medicine, a stimulant, etc.
This first volume also looks at agriculture and, more particularly, viticulture, a primary business sector that undertakes its activity with the aim of obtaining and transforming products from the resources of nature. Viticulture employs agricultural technology to produce the grape, the fundamental ingredient of wine. This work talks about the vineyards, the vine nurseries, the winegrowers, the winemakers working their own vines and the different philosophies that apply within vineyards. It places a special emphasis on the geological and climatic conditions that make the wines so different from each other, offering a world map illustrating the main classes of rock and a classification of the main vineyards worldwide in the context of the global climate.
